Foundation 177 - Pinkie Pie's Plague
Chapter 13: The Foundation's Connivery
Previous Chapter Next ChapterSitting around a table, Pinkamena's eyes darted from member to member, eager to discuss the next big issue for their meeting. She was giddy, but at the same time an aura that she exuded told the others that this was serious business. Whatever she was about to address to the members was big. A exasperated and frustrated Rukia walked into the meeting room, her hand removing the mask that covered her face. Instantly the material of the mask assimilated into the air, most likely the particles of the mask returning to her energy. Taking her seat betwixt the newest member and Amy, she let out a annoyed sigh and then looked over to Pinkamena who was smiling.
Pinkamena's straightened out hair danced around her, as she bobbed her head around, waiting for them all to get settled down. When the group was comfortable, she stopped her movements, her eyes looking at each one of them, before she started to clear her throat. Adjusting her seat a bit, she pulled herself closer to the table so that she could lean on it. Her elbows propped up her little pony head, she was now ready to address the group.
"Ladies, fillies, and trolls, we have a biiiiiiiig problem!" She announced nonchalantly leaning her cheek into her left hoof, so that she could rest her other hoof on the table. "Seems that one of my ex-friends, Twilight Sparkle, has been snooping around trying to undermine all of our hard work."
"Tch... If that stupid little filly wouldn't have put that barrier up, I would have painted the streets with their blood." Rukia stated rather angrily. She failed in her attempt to kill Twilight and her group, so her fury was justified.
"Well, what is the gameplan Pinkamena?" Sakura asked, wondering what the pink filly had in mind. "I mean shouldn't we be tracking them down as we speak?"
"Do not fret my darling, I have something in mind that will make them come to us, I was hoping to save it for a bit later, but it seems we might have to speed up the process." Pinkamena replied to her loyal subject. "With that being said, make sure to increase the speed of progress on Experiment RD-01, I want her prime and raring to go for a little excursion trip we will be making."
"Roger that Pinkamena." Sakura answer obediently.
"What, experiment RD-01?! Speeding it up would be too risky wouldn't it?!" Amy protested a bit, though she winced realizing her rude outburst was directed at their leader.
"Perhaps you would do best to keep in mind who you are talking to when you start to say something...." Pinkamena was gone from her seat when she said this. Instead her body was behind Amy's with a knife to her throat. No one had seen her move, she was that fast. "Now now, don't fret, she will do just fine, I can assure you of that."
Amy was sweltering all over with perspiration. Her heartbeat was high, and she was breathing rather shallowly. The edge of the blade that was lightly pressing into the flesh of her neck was terrifying even for someone of her ranking. When the filly pulled the knife away from her subordinate's neck, the hedgehog let out a sigh of relief. Once again pinkamena could be seen relaxing in her seat, the same lazy position as before, only this time she was leaning her face on her right hoof. Never gonna do that again the hedgehog thought to herself, gulping a bit while returning her gaze towards Pinkamena. Lately the pink filly had been showing less emotions, and a more cold hollow shell. She still made treats, but she was becoming less and less sociable. The group all noticed, but considering the type of organization they ran, it wasn't too far'fetched for this type of behavior to occur.
"Anyways, we have a new member to introduce. She came along way to join us today, so give her a warm welcome." Pinkamena said to the troll sitting by Rukia. "Her name is Vriska, and she would like to be referred to as the executioner."
"Thanks, Thanks, it's a pleasure to be here. I won't dwaddle the meeting away talking about myself, so I will keep it short and to the point. As it was already mentioned, my name is Vriska Serket. I am a troll from a far away planet, and I recently began finding myself enjoying the slaughter of many innocent trolls!"
She smiled a bit while displaying her fangs, afterwards she took her seat. The others waited a bit just in case she had something else to say.
"Well, welcome to the Foundation, I am sure you will enjoy your time here!" Amy told her, giving the new member a warm smile.
"Yes, welcome to the Foundation, rest assured, you will be able to do all the butchering, slaughtering and executing you want in this organization." Sakura told her, congratulating her on her arrival.
Rukia softly congratulated her as well, she wasn't in the mood for anything right now, and Vriska kinda got the hint when she first arrived. Leaving her be, she sat back in her chair, proud to be apart of the Foundation. When her gaze returned over to Pinkamena, the pink filly looked prepared to continue on to a new topic of discussion. Clearing her throat once more, and pushing some of her mane out of her face, she started to speak.
"Before we conclude our meeting, there is one more topic I wish to bring up. It's in regards to the new versions of the disease that we have been developing." Pinkamena stated. "As you all know, the shukakusha have made a dedicated foot hold in most of the universes and dimensions. Not many places are left to eliminate. However for the places that are still holding out, we are at a stalemate currently."
"What places have yet to be overrun?" Sakura inquired.
"Well..." she looked over to Rukia. "The biggest threat to our mission, is the Soul Society. Apparently, they have been fighting things like the shukakusha for generations. They make it their living to train to fight against what they refer to as hollows, right Rukia?"
"That is correct, we are highly skilled and trained slayers of hollows. Even despite the skills I possess, there are still those in the Soul Society who would wipe the floor with me." She stated to the group.
"That is the reason for the next topic. I have come up with some modifications to the virus, that will deploy a new type of minion. I had set up a few tests in certain dimensions and the results I have gathered have met up with some of the expectations, but still it seems to pale in comparison to the military strength of the Soul Society." Pinkamena continued. "Fortunately, Rukia is our little spy, and has been collecting information and disseminating all their weaknesses to the Foundation, with a bit of experimentation, our minions will swarm the place, leaving nothing behind but destruction."
"Heh... Soul Society won't know what hit them once preparations are complete." Rukia chuckled a bit, this calming her down significantly.
"What do these things look like?" Amy wondered.
"Like this...." Pinkamena pulled out a remote, and upon clicking a button on the device, another device came up in the center of the table.
It was some sort of display, and on that display popped up a slim creature. A large mouth nearly six feet in height connected to that of a very long and slender body. Underneath the belly of the beast was a sack, which appeared to be that of a stomach sack. Because this sack was empty at the moment, it looked deflated and was retracted up near the flesh that wrapped around the spine of the creature. Along the back of the creature, were rigid spikes. These spikes spaced out evenly across the spine, until coming to a stop at the tail. This extension was about five feet long, and including the tail, it was about six and a half feet long. At the very end of the tail was a large bone cluster, with the same rigid and sharp spikes scattered about it. It seemed as though the creature ran on all fours, it's back legs being attached near the hip which was located near the end of it's elongated body. The front legs were short, but still long enough for running, these pair of legs rested under the large mouth of the creature.
"Gruesome!" This was all Sakura could say, she was impressed so much that she couldn't even describe it with many words.
"Yikes, that thing looks like it could devour many helpless victims by the trollful" Vriska commented, smirking at the prospect of such chaos.
The others within the group were equally impressed by this creature, but was it enough? Soul Society was very skilled after all. It's troops trained hardcore for over the last thousands of years. Something like this was probably not enough to slow them down. Maybe some of recruits would fall to it, but unless they came in the hundreds, this would only be repelled as well, and Pinkamena knew that. Oh but she didn't just have this up her hooves, in the back of her head, another experiment was being produced, but she would rather let that one be revealed at a later time. For now, she was satisfied with what she had shown the girls. Clasping her hooves together, she then took the remote in hoof again, and turned off the display. She smiled at all of them and for a third time cleared her throat to begin speaking again.
"With that I think our little meeting has come to a conclusion, You are all dismissed." Pinkamena told them all, and stayed to watch as all of them left. Once she was the only one remaining in the room, she herself, started to leave, until someone returned to the room. It was Rukia.
"What is it Rukia? I thought I dismissed you?" The filly quizzically asked the soul reaper.
"Pinkamena, there is somepony at the door for you, a blue filly. She wishes to speak with you." Rukia responded taking a knee in respect for her leader when she spoke.
"Thank you for informing me, you may leave now." Pinkamena told her, knowing exactly who it was visiting her at such a time and location.
Rukia left and Pinkamena soon left as well, rushing to the door to tend to her visitor. Back in the hallways, Sakura walked beside Amy, who was a bit flustered after that meeting. She couldn't believe she let herself make an outburst like that. Sakura realized that her co-worker was stressed out and wanted to talk to her about it.
"Hey don't sweat the meeting, we all have our moments that we wish we could take back." Sakura tried to reassure her.
"I don't even know what I was thinking, I was caught up in the moment." She replied, still angry at herself.
"It's okay it happens to the best of us every great once in a while, no need to beat yourself over it okay?" Sakura continued. "Perhaps you should go work some, and relieve a bit of stress. You seem very tense after that."
"Yeah, I guess you are right. Perhaps I could use a little pick-me up." Amy replied with a bit more pep in her voice. "Do we have any fresh bodies though?"
"I am glad you asked, since we had started killing, we have been getting bodies back by the dozen." Sakura gleefully responded.
"Wait how do we even retrieve bodies? Doesn't the disease just ruin them?" Amy pondered. "And doesn't that defeat the statement of mass harvest."
"That was what I thought when the shukakusha were first introduced, but heres the catch." She giggled while she got closer to Amy, looking around to make sure no one else was there. "We bring some of the shukakusha back, and then give them an antidote."
"What??! Why didn't anyone tell me?" Amy stammered.
"We were planning on telling the lower ranking members, but information was only disseminated to me and Rukia." Sakura stated. "To be on the safe side, don't let anyone lower ranking than yourself know of this." Sakura winked at her and chuckled a little.
"Got it! ;) " Amy nodded at her co-worker. "How does it work though, is it full reversal or just a cleansing of the disease?"
"Basically it kills the disease and restores the body to the state it was in before succumbing and dieing from it." Sakura explained. "It's pretty thorough, though we only have a few in stock, the ingredients are quite hard to procure."
"Ah, I see. Well, enough dilly-dallying, I have some stress that needs relieving" Amy was excited now. "Thanks Sakura I really needed that."
"Anything for a co-worker, I try to watch out for you all." Sakura smiled at her.
With that the two seemed to joyfully traverse over to one of the various morgue rooms to fulfill their horrid deeds. Vriska had found herself returning to her very own room, when she was stopped by Rukia. Rukia was looking her down from head to toe. Sizing her up or something, Vriska couldn't be certain.
"What?" Vriska stated a bit abruptly.
"Settle down toots, I wanna show you around a bit." Rukia stated her face never changing expression, but keeping it's stare at her constant. "I always give noobies a feel for the ropes around here."
"I think I can figure things out on my own." Vriska was already rubbed the wrong way by Rukia's cold attitude. "Now if you will excuse me."
"Listen, I don't want to get bitchy about this, but I won't hesitate to slice you up and harvest you too. Not only that but I am higher ranking than you. It'd be best to heed all the advice I am willing to give to you, I have no time for petty little high school games. If you want to cross blades with me, fine, but believe me it will end in your organs being the next batch of cupcakes for our dining pleasure, understand that runt?" Rukia told her, while getting up close and personal. The aura that she let off, was very VERY intimidating, and more so was the growing amount of physical, raw power that could be felt emanating from her frame. "Now, you will follow me, got that?"
"... Understood... Ma'am..." Vriska had never seen something so visibly scary in her entire wriggling life. It kinda shocked her that people like this existed.
With that out of the way, a frightened Vriska followed behind Rukia sheepishly as she began to give her an in depth tour of the Foundation. She explained how things worked, and gave her hints and tips. Despite the rudeness that she had shown her, Rukia was still eager to assist her, and Vriska actually kinda respected her for that, and she felt bad getting on her bad side. She always had a tendency to get on people's bad sides, but she decided during that tour that she would work on being more cooperative with her new co-workers, afterall, she was going to be working with them a lot now.
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