She had never felt so helpless. Well, that wasn't true. When Spike lay dying in her hooves, she recalled cursing herself for not learning any healing spells that would work on a wound she couldn't see. Incapable of anything but clutching him as he slipped away, that had truly been the worst.

This was a close second though.

She struggled fruitlessly against the manacles that held her hind-legs —and the legs of her friends— in place. Their forelegs were free, for what it was worth. But Mandeville or CAIRO had evidently understood that a pony could do little with them while stuck facing one direction.

After Trixie vanished from their sight, their room sank a few levels before stopping. It changed shape, tiles moving this way and that, as ultimately two of the walls closed in on them.

For one pulse-pounding moment, Twilight actually believed the walls weren't going to stop, and that Mandeville had actually meant to have them all crushed to death. It couldn't have been healthy for Pinkie, Rainbow or Rarity to experience that fear again so soon.

One tile width apart though, and they stopped. The walls came alive with metallic limbs grabbing them and lifting them high as the floor fell out, to be replaced by tiles with the thick manacles. They fought, but it proved no use. Twilight's magic barely made them shudder and Rarity's couldn't even achieve that. Rainbow tried using her wings to wriggle out of their grasp, but quickly found those seized by the limbs too.

CAIRO then announced that their belongings were to be stored safely until further notice, upon which more limbs still parted them of their saddle-bags and horseshoes. And to Applejack's protests, her hat.

As it all settled, Twilight's previous anger gave way to guilt, yet again. "Guys," Twilight groaned. "I'm sorry."

"What're you on about?" Applejack grunted, still unconvinced that any steel could hold her world-class bucking legs. "Sure, yeh' lost yer' temper, but we sure found out a lot more than we woulda'."

"No," Twilight said. "I just led us all in here, with no escape plan! We should've gotten in touch with the Princesses, at least let them know where we were! But now...

She stared at the room. It was so alien, and they were so deep in the middle of this labyrinth. "Nopony even knows we're here."

"Please stand-by for standard-issue pennatus and unicornus casual-wear fitting," CAIRO's voice boomed in the small space.

"Well that doesn't sound so bad," Rarity said.

"No!" Twilight cried. "He means those restrai— Ack!"

Twilight was surprised when the limbs holding her forced her head straight as still more limbs snapped the steely collar onto her neck. The upper cap swung into place, causing her discomfort as it only barely cleared the tip of her horn. She heard a whirring around her ears and slight vibrations before realizing the cap was now firmly in place. 'Stifling' was putting it mildly: they might as well have fixed a clothespin onto her nose.

"No, get away from me!" Rarity growled. "I'll not wear something so plain, you can't make me!"

But they could. Rarity whimpered and whined as she too was restrained.

"At least you kept most of my mane out of the way."

Meanwhile, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had their own problems. A pair of light, fully-body covers lowered to pin their wings.

Fluttershy was easy, given her wings were already retracted in fear. A top mount sat on her back as the covers fell over her sides, keeping her wings from spreading or exposing them to the outside air if they could. Straps on the bottom swung under her belly to lock the wing-covers together.

Rainbow Dash, however, wasn't giving up her wings without a fight. While the limbs holding her wings tried to make her retract them, she wasn't having any of it. "Get away from me! You're not clippin' this bird's wings! I'm not closing 'em, and you can't make me—eeeeeee!"

One of the limbs turned into some kind of cattle prod and lightly tapped her right under the joint of one of her wings. The reflex motion caused her wings to retract, and she too was subjugated.

"No!" she whined, almost in tears. "That's not fair! Y-you can't just..."

"All standard gear successfully issued," CAIRO said, his tone jovial. "Welcome, new 'Mandeville Arms' employees! Before being released to the worker's quarters, all workers must receive equine-employee status markers. Please hold still."

"Ow!"

They all tried turning to see what caused Applejack to cry out, made difficult by the manacles.

"What'd it do?" Pinkie asked.

"It... stuck me!" Applejack told her, one of her eyes half-shut. "Stuck me right on mah' backside! Now it's... it's feelin' all numb."

"Applejack!" Fluttershy cried. "Watch out, on your right!"

She turned to see something most unwelcome. It was another of the metallic limbs, but this one held a metal shape much like a cookie-cutter, in the shape of the Mandeville Arms 'M' logo. It wouldn't have been a sinister sight, had its closest edges not been glowing red.

"What're ya' doin' t'me?" she asked it, trembling. Its only answer was to move slowly in towards her flank, and her—

"NO!" she screamed, trying her best to worm away from it. "Please, not that! Anythin' but that! YEH' CAN'T DO THIS TO M— Uh— Ahhh!"

"Applejack!" they all cried, as the implement met and pressed firmly into her flank.

A flame shortly shot up from the spot and the acrid smell of burnt hair filled the space. After what felt like an incredible length of time, it pulled back, leaving her to whimper with her head slack. The numbing agent had beaten-back a great deal of the pain she would have experienced, but not all of it.

Applejack finally dared to turn, knowing full well what must have happened. "No. No no no no no no no," she sobbed.

"M-mah' hat, mah' Cutie Mark. What else'r you gonna take from me?"

"Your Cutie Mark?!" they gasped.

Her right Cutie Mark was a ruin: the 'Mandeville Arms' logo burned into her, leaving an ugly, angry mix of red, black and her orange coat. She could still, somewhat make out the three little apples she was so proud of behind this graffiti, but barely.

"No! NO!" Rainbow Dash cried, as she too was delivered the numbing shot. "I'LL DO ANYTHING! JUST DON'T BURN ME! DON'T BURN ME! NOOOOOOOOO!"

She howled, tears welling as she grit her teeth, while the brand did its work.

Fluttershy watched on, trembling and hyperventilating as she realized she was next in line.

"F-Fluttershy, it's going to be okay!" Dash said. "It's not so bad, just think of something else! Think of home! None of this is real, it's just a nightmare!"

"I... I can't!" Fluttershy squeaked, as she too received her shot.

Dash shouted, offering her left foreleg. "Fluttershy! Bite down!"

"W-what?"

"Bite down, as hard as you can! It's going to hurt, but it'll help, I promise it'll help!"

Fluttershy merely trembled, eyes wide as the brand approached her. Eyes streaming, she bit down onto Rainbow's leg just as fire met flesh. She wasn't much of a biter, but Dash could tell it was better than nothing, as she whimpered pitifully.

Twilight realized she was now next, and after what she'd seen, she wanted to be anywhere else. She couldn't take it. All of this was too much. She felt the sting of the injection, felt a moment of pure, blinding panic, and then fell into blackness.

Twilight awoke feeling warm and cozy. She hadn't opened her eyes yet. The sun must be up; her eyelids looked blood-red underneath, unlike the usual blackness.

She wasn't in her bed. She detected the feel and scent of hay beneath her. Perhaps she'd slept over at Applejack's after one of Pinkie's barn parties? That was too bad: she'd quite have liked some of those waffles Spike made—

Twilight's eyes jerked open, and she was awake at once. In an instant, a thousand little recent memories began trickling back in.

She was indeed lying in hay, but the hay was piled on metal tiles. She knew where she was now.

Rainbow's tones met her ears, a bit more bitterly than usual, but mostly friendly. "Oh, Twilight, you're up."

"H-how long was I—"

"A few hours. You fainted."

"I fainted?" Twilight said. "But... even Fluttershy didn't faint."

"Well, you've been through a lot. More than the rest of us anyway. It'd figure if a straw could break a pony's back, it'd be yours. I'm kinda' jealous, actually: wish I hadn't been awake for it."

"I just remember— Oh no!" Twilight stood up quickly from the hay and whipped her head around.

It was as she knew it would be. Her right Cutie Mark, ruined, marked now by the symbol of their captor. It still ached a little, now she was waking up. She sat back down, staring at it in silence.

"It's just... so wrong," Rainbow growled, staring at her own. Twilight could hear her wings fluttering about under the restraints she now wore, agitated. "I had such an... awesome Cutie Mark! And now it's wrecked!

"I remember when I got it. Everypony has that memory. What kind of monster does that to somepony? This Mandeville guy, how does he look at all of us, look at Equestria, and just decide he doesn't care? I bet they're all like that. Humans."

"I want to say he's just a bad apple, but I don't know," Twilight pondered. "Just look at this place, look at all the things he makes here. He sells this stuff to his own kind, stuff designed to kill.

"I'm not naive, I know some other cultures in the world are warring, but I just keep remembering that explosion at sea. Something like that, it's not built to protect anypony, it just destroys. Whole towns, indiscriminately! I just don't know. But maybe some of them aren't so bad?"

"Feh!" Rainbow Dash spat. "I'll believe it when I see it."

Twilight took a look at her surroundings. They were in a loosely defined room, separated by tiles behaving more like fences than walls. There was something of a roof, but it was more of an overhang, as outside the room was the true ceiling of a much bigger room, though not the massiveness that was the facility. What she'd taken for daylight before had been more tile-lights. Incredibly bright, leaving the enclosed room completely illuminated. The ceiling was a few stories high, two-hundred feet long and fifty feet wide, give or take. All comprised of those same tiles. The difference was that the space was fuller, both in terms of occupants and in decoration.

Most of the room was a high-tech stable, she realized. Stalls like their own placed length-wise before reaching a large, open space where the few dozen or so ponies were mingling.

In this mingling area, a large screen stuck out of the wall, for Mandeville to address them directly, no doubt. Those watching, mechanical yellow eyes stuck out at intervals, not moving. The stable itself had no door, which meant the ponies could move about freely, such as it was. At the wall-end of their stable, Twilight saw a machine that could only be a hay dispenser, given the bales in the long tray at its mouth. There was a trough filled with water as well. Twilight couldn't help crediting Mandeville on his word. It wasn't like he was making them sleep on the cold steel.

"Uh, Twilight?" Dash said, not wanting to break her concentration.

"Yeah?"

"Look, I hate asking when you just woke up again, but, about our Cutie Marks. Can you—"

"Fix them?”

"Yes.” Dash looked to be sweating. This was almost certainly why Dash had stayed here, if not only to make sure she didn't wake up in an unfamiliar place with no friends in sight.

"I don't know. Cutie Marks are pretty resilient. It takes a lot to obscure them, but I think we all know the heat did that. It might be possible to undo the scarring and bring it back good as new, but even if it was possible..."

Smiling humorlessly, Twilight tapped a hoof on the cap over her horn. Dash sagged, evidently not helped by this information.

"I'm sorry Dash. For all of this."

"No, stop it," Rainbow said firmly, "you keep blaming yourself for these things. It's not your fault that Spike's gone, it's not your fault you got angry, and it's not your fault that you wanted answers. Nopony made me jump underground. I'da' gone in after Mandeville whether you wanted me to or not. This guy, he's just bad news! And if he's after all of Equestria, I don't want to be anywhere else. I want to be right here to kick that no-good jerk right off his high horse!"

"Not so loud please, or we all might regret it," an older female voice cautioned. Dash and Twilight looked outside the stable to see a Pegasus mare, long pink and purple hair flowing back over a powder-blue coat. Her purple eyes gazed kindly at them in a way that reminded Twilight roughly of Celestia, but rough was still the word.

"Sorry Ivy.”

"Don't be sorry for wanting a little justice, kid. Just keep it low, or CAIRO might hear, and then there'll be trouble.

"You up-n'-at-'em then?" Ivy directed at Twilight. "Your friends were worried about the two of you."

"Two of us?" Twilight repeated dumbly, wondering if she only meant herself and Rainbow Dash.

A look behind her brought the silent, sleeping form of Fluttershy into view, sweetly bundled-up in her own haystack. It was enough to bring a smile to her face.

"Name's Ivy. I hail from De-trot. Oldest celery stalk in this icebox. Ponies around here sorta' made me their leader."

She offered a hoof.

"Twilight Sparkle," she said, taking it. "Originally of Canterlot, now of Ponyville."

"Sparkle? Oh no." Ivy suddenly winced. "Not Trixie's Sparkle?"

Twilight's face turned stony upon hearing the name. "The one and only," she muttered.

"Oh Trixie, I don't believe it." Ivy looked away. "She always talked about it, at first. That deal, I mean. She came in here all mussed-up and proud of herself. Said she was some famous unicorn, but I'd never heard of her. All that boasting, it didn't take long for her to rub folks the wrong way.

"Sure enough though, she was the best around here, as if that counts for anything. But after a few days she stopped talking about you and sorta' fell into line. This place'll do that to you. Hard to feel too proud with a slave collar around your neck. Didn't know what it meant that she got called up today."

"Called up?" Twilight glanced around. "Called where?"

"To 'see the boss', usually," Ivy said, contempt in her voice.

"See? But doesn't he just talk through that?" Twilight pointed at the massive screen.

"Not when he wants something in private.”

"So you see him, where he actually is?" Twilight asked. Why would Mandeville ever risk being in the same room?

"I know what you're thinking, and trust me, he's not that stupid. He makes sure that there's no hurting him. I can't say the same for the ponies that go in there though."

"He hurts them?" Twilight demanded.

"Not always, but it’s never been good," Ivy said, glancing out the corner of her eye. "It's better not to say, kid, there's enough nightmares to be had in this place."

"Trixie said that too, about the Earth ponies. What is Mandeville doing with the Earth ponies?"

"She did?" Ivy asked, turning away while not quite breaking eye-contact.

"Yes, she wanted him to let my friends Applejack and Pinkie Pie go. She even tried calling the whole thing off, but that didn’t work out too well, obviously."

"She said that?" Ivy asked, a smile growing on her face. "That's big of her, a lot bigger than I'd have expected."

"I don't care. She's the reason I lost my best friend."

Ivy gasped. "No!"

Twilight nodded. "Mandeville came after me, and found him instead. And now... now he's gone."

"You poor kid. I'm so sorry." Ivy brushed Twilight's bangs back and let them fall before wrapping her in a hug.

"Thank you," Twilight sighed, Rainbow Dash avoiding her gaze.

“So. The Earth ponies?" Twilight said, after a while.

"Hmm? Oh right." Ivy released her, clearing her throat. "Boss doesn't have a lot of use for them. He catches them now and then, but they can't make lightning or enchant metal, so he puts them to work the best way his creepy little mind can figure."

"Which is?" Twilight asked, a little annoyed at this runaround.

"Well, he doesn't know much about ponies in the physical sense, so he uses them for... tests."

"Tests? Y'mean like the fitness exams we went through?"

"No, that stuff is actually pretty harmless. These are more... well, experiments really. The way I hear, it's pretty random but... sometimes random is bad."

"What kind of things does he test for?" Twilight asked.

"Our tolerances, to certain gases, certain foods, certain poisons—"

"Poisons?!" Twilight shouted, drawing the attention of a few ponies.

Ivy nodded slowly. "Yeah."

Twilight recoiled. "That's sick! That's... twisted! How do they survive?"

Ivy sighed. "That's just it honey, sometimes they don't."

Twilight stepped back, her brows flat, yet her eyes growing wide. She searched the crowd: Applejack was drinking and Pinkie Pie was chatting with some seriously jaded-looking mares.

"No," she said simply. "I can't lose anypony else.

"Ivy, tell me that some of you are coming up with an escape plan?"

"I'm not, Twilight," Ivy told her, "I can't. The Boss knows who I am to these ponies. If I get caught, life gets worse for everypony here. He'll punish all of us."

"Ivy, you can't tell me nopony is doing anything—" Twilight began.

"Hold your horses, kid; I never said that.

"Some folks around here have been trying to crack this place. I dunno who, exactly. Less I know, the better, in case the Boss tries to wring it out of me one day. But ask around, you'll find 'em. It's a small cage."

"Comin' through!" Applejack cried, rushing their general direction, stopping upon spotting Ivy.

She stepped uncomfortably, like she was walking on hot coals. "Oh, Ivy! Hey, uh, could you direct me to the, y'know? ‘Facilities?’ "

"Oh." Ivy giggled. “Right over there." She pointed to a tile in the hall, set in the center.

"Where?" Applejack asked, looking around and seeing the tile. It was little more than a big oval drain set into the floor. Applejack turned a distinct shade of red. "Ooooh no, no way, sister! I might make do with the bushes when nature's callin', but no way am I lettin' loose in plain view of everypony!"

"We all have to do it, Applejack," Ivy said soothingly. "Nopony's going to look."

"No!" Applejack fired back, before bellowing to the sky. "CAIRO!"

"Oh boy," Ivy sighed. "She's just gonna make a scene."

"How might I be of assistance?" CAIRO answered, his voice contained to the nearby tiles. Evidently, the tiles all had individual speakers, granting his voice a sort of omnipresence.

"What made ya' think you could put a latrine in this place with no walls or doors to keep out pryin' eyes?" Applejack demanded.

"Why would this matter to an Equus sapien?" CAIRO asked with legitimate interest in his voice.

"Don't go answering mah' question with a question, bucko!" Applejack bristled. "It 'matters to the Eek-wuss sapian' cause' we don't like doin' our private business for everypony to see!"

"Interesting. And yet Equus sapiens do not betray any desire to cover-up their secondary sexual characteristics."

"Well, we've got our natural coats and all.”

"Please forgive this misunderstanding. It was assumed by your species' tendencies towards nudity that you had no concept of shame."

"Yeah, well." Applejack growled at the sentiment. "Now yeh' know better, what're you gonna do about it?"

With surprising immediacy, the tiles around the latrines throughout the stables retracted and rearranged, until steel walls rose from beneath and hid them from immediate view.

"That's more like it! But, um. Could yeh' give it a cielin' too?" she asked.

This time the ceiling opened and offered a small, square metal cap to sit atop the four walls.

"It will take time to design a proper locking mechanism compatible with hooves, but we hope this swinging door will do for now.”

"Well thank you much, CAIRO!" Applejack replied, gratefully, stepping inside the now proper lavatory.

"Oh, mercy," she sighed to herself.

"Now deploying soothing lounge music," CAIRO added, evidently hoping to impress.

Indeed, the walls issued with a soft, quiet melody.

"Now yer' just being ridiculous."

A while later, Rarity made her way over to check in. She seemed in relatively good spirits, all things considered. "Oh, I'm so glad Applejack was able to browbeat that machine into putting up proper washrooms.

"Could you imagine?" She crinkled her nose. "Moi, forced to do something so degrading?"

Ivy frowned. "I'd mind the snobby attitude around here, missy. I'm grateful and frankly amazed that anypony could play CAIRO like that, but don't forget that all of us here were without privacy every day before you came along. Keep that attitude and you're not likely to make friends here, with ponies that did suffer all that embarrassment."

With that, Ivy cantered off, evidently feeling she'd welcomed the newbies properly by now.

"I'm actually surprised it was Applejack who lost it and not you," Rainbow Dash said, smirking.

"Dear," Rarity chuckled. "Knowing the available amenities is crucial to maintaining one's self. Applejack's survival instinct was to keep herself hydrated lest the pipes turn-off. Mine was to see just how I'd keep my mane under control after those ruffians took our belongings. I noticed those —ugh— 'powder rooms', —or pits, as it were— and, well. I was keen to avoid the matter as long as I could."

"Hey," Twilight asked, poking Rainbow Dash. "How's Fluttershy? Has she been asleep this whole time?"

Dash's ears flattened against her head. "Not when she first got here," she answered, bitterly. "I'll never forgive that Mandeville guy for this! When she saw what happened to her Cutie Mark, she was so heartbroken. I mean, we all were, but this is Fluttershy we're talking about!

"She's been my oldest, closest friend since I was just a filly back in Cloudsdale, and I've never seen her like she was. Didn't sob or anything, she just curled into a little ball, sat there and cried. If we ever get out of here, she's going to have nightmares about this place for the rest of her life. Even if she gets out, she won't really be free."

"I'm not sure any of us will be," Rarity added. "I mean, I like hay as much as the next pony, but is that really all we must subsist on here? My mouth feels dry already."

"So what do we do about Pinkie and Applejack?" Twilight asked, hoping they had better ideas than her. "We're in for some hard work, but who knows what they'll do to them in the testing?"

"I've been thinkin' about it since I heard," Rainbow said, "and I don't know. Unless we can escape this place hours after getting here, I've got no idea how—"

With that, a claxon sounded and the ceiling above them folded opened to the tile-filled sky, as did the roof of every stable-stall.

"A new labor cycle is imminent; please remain still," CAIRO said as dozens of padded claws on wires descended upon them. One by one, ponies were seized around the belly and hoisted out of the worker's quarters.

There was a distinct lack of panic for what looked much like a raid.

"Fluttershy, get up!" Dash shouted, prodding the pink-haired pegasus' inert form, which stirred drowsily.

"Wh-wha?" Fluttershy said, before her eyes went wide as saucers. "Rainbow! Watch out!"

Rainbow Dash shrieked as one of the claws plucked her suddenly into the air.

"It's okay, I'm alright!" Rainbow called back, hooves drifting limply below her as she was hoisted through the maze of girders, off to parts unknown.

"Do you think she'll be okay?" Fluttershy asked, wide awake and shaking.

"I think we're all about to find out!" Rarity cried, noticing three more claws coming their way. In mere moments, Rarity, Twilight and Fluttershy were airborne, watching Applejack, Pinkie Pie and the other ponies below shrink from view.

"Fluttershy, I think we're going to separate places!" Twilight shouted. "You should be going to the same place as Rainbow! Try not to be scared!"

"I'll try Twilight! Eep!" Squeaked Fluttershy, as the claw whisked her off in a separate direction from the two unicorns.

"She'll be okay, she's just going to be kicking clouds," Rarity said. "I just hope she knows how."

For a while, they watched as they cruised through the facility again, before they saw an open-topped structure where their fellow unicorns were being prepped for work.

Each pony had a stall facing the same towering wall, with the stalls arranged into four floors, each floor with a wire running across the length of the wall, like a clothesline. It reminded Twilight of a prison block. Both of them were lowered in front of the stalls, which slid out like drawers to admit them.

Once they were in the stall, a pair of mechanical limbs reached out and seized their collars, forcing them to face forward. This done, the stall slid back into place, cutting off any escape or view, save for a head-sized window in front of them.

Once the unicorns were all settled in, CAIRO spoke to them. "To our newest Mandeville Arms employees, welcome! To our established staff, welcome back! This annex of the facility is called 'The Arcanery'. Here, you will fortify Mandeville Arms materials with anti-five enchantments. If you are unskilled in this area, assistance is available."

None of them asked for help, and some even grumbled. Evidently, they'd all heard this before.

"Very good. Production will begin in 3... 2... 1..."

As promised, panes of glass, metal ingots and bits of ceramic wheeled before them on the wire. Twilight heard a click and felt a sudden relief as the very tip of her horn-cap flipped back, exposing her horn to fresh air. A deep purple glow filled her vision as pent-up magic made its escape. In front of Twilight was a plate of dark metal, and around her she could see her fellow captives wasting no time casting the enchantment, the objects in front of them glowing an appropriate color.

Twilight cast hers as well. A simple spell, really. Once all the bits in front of them were enchanted, they collectively proceeded to the right, in front of a—

Twilight gasped in at what she saw through the corner of her eye. A little tool was firing something at each of the pieces they'd enchanted, something with a pointed end colored deep blue. There was no mistaking it: it was a unicorn's horn.

It was attached at the end of some device, and that device was channeling a basic levitation spell onto the pieces. Testing them, to ensure the enchantments had worked. It was monstrous. Even if the unicorn in question was still alive.

Twilight shuddered at the idea of losing her horn, of being suddenly without her magic. She was sure it was the same for any unicorn, but her special talent was magic. Twilight wondered only a moment if there was any point to checking the enchantments here.

But of course there was. It was an example, and a reminder. A reminder of what might happen to them if they acted out, didn't cast a satisfactory enchantment.

Tried to escape.

"You have ten seconds to cast an enchantment before disciplinary action is exercised," CAIRO boomed, his voice confined to her stall.

"Right, sorry!" Twilight cried, casting a spell, while making a mental note not to let her thoughts wander too far from her.

It was a few hours of the same monotonous task, over and over and over again. It was dull, it was unfulfilling. But it could have been so much worse.

Twilight realized even further that Mandeville was true to his word. They were worked till exhaustion, but once Twilight felt close to collapse, CAIRO immediately asked her to stop, rest, and even offered her some sort of vitamin water.

She wondered if the threatening mechanized horn to their right was bluffing a little. Mandeville clearly had no intention of constantly replacing ponies, but needed them scared into obedience regardless. But she wondered how long that would last.

If Mandeville moved into the open, in conquest of Equestria, he might have ample opportunity to take prisoners. And therefore find his workers here far more of an expendable commodity.

She hated the idea that she could even understand Mandeville's train of thought. That the capacity for such sadistic strategies existed within her, even retrospectively.

It made her wonder, as the shift ended and they found themselves whisked back to the stables. She'd figured by now that the human species must function on a completely different wavelength than ponies, but this made her wonder if they really weren't as different as she thought.

Within the same minute, Twilight, Rarity, Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash found themselves back in the stables with Applejack and Pinkie Pie.

"You girls okay?" Pinkie asked, looking them over.

"How bad was it?" Applejack added.

"I feel a dreadful need for a bath," Rarity replied, "but otherwise it wasn't as awful as I expected."

"They had us in these cages," Twilight explained, "just casting the same spell over and over again,"

"They put me and Fluttershy in with the other pegasi in this room with all these mad-scientist-looking metal balls and coils in the walls," Rainbow recalled. "He filled it with clouds somehow and just had us all keep kicking them for lightning.

"Not too bad, as long as you switch your kicking-hoof now and then. Even Fluttershy got the hang of it after a bit."

"But forget bout us," Fluttershy said, looking the two earth ponies over, "what about you two? Rainbow told me what they did with earth ponies here! Are you... okay?"

"Ease-up there, sugarcube," Applejack smiled, "CAIRO told us earth ponies get one shift for every three a' the unicorn and pegasus folk's. We don't have to go in for another day. After that though..."

"No." Rainbow stomped a hoof. "There's got to be a way of getting out of here before then! I'm not gonna let them do freaky tests on you, no way!"

"You may be in luck then," came a youthful male voice in a less-encountered accent. They turned to see a tan, weedy stallion with a faint purple mane looking at them.

"Oi, name's Tumbler," he greeted, offering a hoof to them all in turn. "Saw you'd met Ivy. Word on the round is you lot are the rescue-team from Canterlot."

"Fine meetin' ya' Tumbler!" Applejack replied neighborly. "I'm Applejack, and they're Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. But how'd you figure us for a rescue team? Hadn't thought anypony'd said nothing."

"I'll admit, you don't look the type," Tumbler answered, "but some of the more local ponies swear you're the ones what defeated Nightmare Moon and Discord using the Elements of Harmony! Could it be that's true then?"

Rainbow blushed. "Well, we don't really like to brag," she said, causing Applejack to turn and leer at her.

"Oh, brilliant!" Tumbler blurted clearly floored. "But how'd you get yourselves caught then? What about the Elements?

"Oh, baubles! He hasn't got them, has he?"

"Actually, we didn't bring them," Twilight admitted, not sure if their situation would be better or worse if they had. "We had no idea when we came here that this place would be so huge, or that we'd have such a force to reckon with. The Princess did send us though, and it's our intention to do anything we can to free everypony here and throw a spanner in Mandeville's plans."

"Pardon me, darling," Rarity broached, "but that is a Trottingham accent, is it not?"

"Yes mum," Tumbler confirmed.

"How in the world did you wind up here?" Twilight asked, boarding Rarity's train of thought.

"Well I came to see the big Equinox celebration, didn't I?" Tumbler answered, as though it were obvious.

"Didn't you?" Pinkie asked.

"Well a’ course! Wouldn't have missed such a historic to-do for the world! Then of course, walking down the road, feel a sting in the neck, n' I find myself in a rather unwelcome place getting a rather unwelcome orientation."

"Hey, your cutie-mark is a lock!" Applejack noted upon looking at Tumbler's flank. "That mean you've got a special talent for escapes?"

"Ha!" Tumbler barked. "I wish! Nah, I'm just your humble locksmith."

"But surely that must count for something!" Rarity pressed him. "Like these ghastly collars perhaps?"

"Already had a go or two at that. Even if I could find something to pick the locking mechanism, I just can't access it. Tucked away inside. I can only figure these unlatch with a remote signal, and we're not exactly swimming in wireless equipment.

"Still, I've been checking this place's every corner for weak spots. You know, like the hay-chutes, anywhere you could force that might lead somewhere."

"Had any luck?" Twilight asked.

"No," Tumbler said, sagging, "this place may as well be hewn out of stone."

"But you said we might be in luck?" Dash frowned.

"Too right, might be. See, we're bein' watched! Anywhere I've had a good poke needed a bit of discretion. Only place I haven't checked is the head."

"Head?" Pinkie asked. "Whose head?"

"The little colt's and little filly's room," Applejack explained.

"Right," Tumbler agreed, "could never check it properly. It's been right in the middle of the room, dead center of the surveillance stuff. No way to check it in the open like that, at least till—"

"Until Applejack got a proper housing put over it!" Rarity exclaimed, a surge of understanding coming over her, before she wilted before them. "Eww! But is that really an escape route we want to use even if it does get us out?"

"Yes!" came a united, exasperated cry from the others.

"Yes, you're right, priorities and all that. Have you been trying it at all since?"

"I'd been looking at it a while before, but didn't dare fiddle with the thing before the housing," Tumbler explained. "But, it seems like it's just sealed into the floor. Give it enough abuse and it's bound to come free. I can't stay there long or CAIRO will suspect something, but with more ponies in on the plan—"

"We can each chip away at it till it's free!" Twilight said. "We can escape one by one! He might not even notice we're missing for a while!"

"But the plan would only work with a few ponies," Tumbler said.

"Why not everypony?" Twilight asked. "There has to be a way—"

"All these ponies? Escape, navigate out of this maze, without getting caught? It's just not happening. A few is all we need. A few can get word to Canterlot, and then we're all as good as rescued. It's rough here, but we're surviving. If you do make it, we'll be pulling for you."

At first it felt like an exercise in futility.

Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie made for the restroom first. They grabbed and tugged, but their technique barely caused the floor-level bowl to budge. Throughout the day, Rarity and Fluttershy had had their tries as well.

It wasn't until Applejack had her turn —much later, since her first bathroom break had caused such a commotion— that any progress was notable. Unafraid of dirtying her hooves, she'd gotten a good hold of the lip, where the flushing water dispensed, and rocked the ceramic enough to notice a definite knocking as the sealing broke.

It was a considerable victory, and spirits were high until CAIRO's voice flooded the stables. "Would 'Spring Fresh' please approach the monitor? Repeat: Would 'Spring Fresh' please approach the monitor?"

Instantly, ponies were looking left and right, and a buzz of whispering and grumbling filled the great room.

Twilight saw Ivy near a water fountain and cantered over. "What's going on, Ivy?" she asked. "Why did CAIRO just call somepony?"

"She's going up to see the Boss," Ivy said, bitterly. "Nopony ever says why, when they come back, but we have a pretty good idea.

"Oh no," she said.

Twilight whipped around to see what had made Ivy react, only to see a lone, trembling, green-coated unicorn mare with a wild, dark green mane slowly make her way through the room and under the massive screen.

"Very good," CAIRO said, "now please step into the module."

Eyes wide, Spring Fresh waited as the tiles in front of her folded back and another small room moved forward, awaiting her. She stepped in, shaking like a leaf as the room sealed itself again. The ponies in the stables only heard the mechanical noise of the room 'click-clacking' away.

After the crowd dispersed, Twilight took her turn in the restroom. It wasn't porcelain like she'd been expecting, it was a tough ceramic material, likely the same thing that made up the white armor plates of the CID soldiers. If that were true, then it could take a little abuse.

After a few test-kicks, she laid into it with more force, until she heard and felt something give, along with the groan of metal pipes. Turning to see her handiwork, she found the bowl freed, and could see the space underneath. For now, she'd leave it be. But come later that night, they'd make their escape.

Emerging from the bathroom —making certain to activate the flush, just for show— she was greeted by another blast of CAIRO's voice. "Would 'Twilight Sparkle' please approach the monitor? Repeat: Would 'Twilight Sparkle' please approach the monitor?"

There were gasps and muttering everywhere, and the sound of hoof-falls grew ever louder as Twilight's friends and Tumbler galloped over to see her.

"Twice in one day?" Tumbler wheezed. "This has never happened before. That other filly hasn't even come back yet!"

"Alright, enough's enough," Applejack growled, turning to confront him. "What's Mandeville doin' to the ponies that go up there?"

"Nopony is sure, they never say!" Tumbler cried, retreating a step.

"No, but you guess, so get to guessing!" Rainbow cried, joining Applejack's posturing.

"It- it's not for me to say!" Tumbler sad. "We could be wrong, and then I'd be scaring her witless!"

Then don't tell her, tell us!" Applejack said.

Tumbler stared anywhere but into their eyes, before taking a deep breath and whispering to the pair.

"No!" Applejack recoiled, while Rainbow's jaw went slack.

"There's no way we're letting her go up there, AJ!"

"Darn tootin'!" Applejack agreed.

"Yes you are!" Twilight shouted, firmly. "You ponies are talking like I'm not here, and making this harder than it needs to be!"

"B- but, Twilight—" Rainbow spluttered.

"I appreciate what you want to do for me," Twilight said softy, "but whatever happens up there, I'm coming back. I'll live.

"Right?" Twilight asked, turning to Tumbler.

"Y-Yeah," Tumbler cleared his throat, fidgeting constantly. "None of 'em that went up failed to come back down in the end."

"See?" Twilight smiled, putting on her bravest face. "Look, as long as we're in here, Mandeville's got us under his control. If we break his rules, resist doing what he wants us to do, he's just going to hurt us and our friends even more. I'd rather walk into that room proudly than be dragged off. See ya' girls."

With that, Twilight took the long walk to the newly arrived module, which CAIRO then commanded her to enter. She stepped in and heard the room seal behind her.

The truth was, Twilight was terrified. She didn't know if she'd face tests or torture or whatever other sick machinations crossed Mandeville's mind. Alone, away from view of her worried friends, she could finally walk towards the glass wall at the back of the room, lie down and let all her shakes out. She felt sick, though not half as sick as when she saw the Library ablaze. Keeping things in perspective served well to stop her from freaking out in this place. This insane, alien place.

By now the module had begun to move, and Twilight could see the facility around her again. She was headed deeper, far deeper inside. Surely further from where they'd first entered on the forest path, and further down, so Twilight could clearly see what, for now, was the bottom.

Covered in splintered rock, the earth-moving machines worked tirelessly under the floodlights to exhume the lower levels. Curiously, every tile she could see near the rock (and she could see quite a ways) angled downward, pressing into the mulch of dirt and stone. After a few moments, she felt incredible vibrations and looked wildly around for the source, until she realized the tiles, in unison, were shoving it deeper underground. Into what, she had no idea, but amid the plumes of rising dust she saw the rocks sink five. Ten. Twenty feet!

This was the source of the noise and the tremors in the Everfree Forest: The contents of an entire mountain being shoved further underground. But if they were doing that, then there had to be a way for air to get in afterward, or else the entire facility would be subjected to a tremendous and explosive decompression. However strong Mandeville's walls were, the pressure would rip them to shreds.

Looking up, Twilight got her answer. Like a massive checkerboard, the roof was peppered with tiles that had opened to make a patchwork of skylights. Heavenly shafts of light shone down, the closed tiles black as night by contrast. Fresh air and freedom laid above her. So very far above her.

But it only lasted as long as necessary, until the tiles shut themselves again, the sky and sun snatched from her once more.

Staring forward again, Twilight nearly smacked herself at what she saw passing beneath her. It was far too familiar.

Fields.

A wondrous few acres of actual farm land, set on top of a vast array of tiles.

Corn, strawberries, wheat, apples, cherries. It was all down there, if perhaps not in an amount that would be of any good to a farmer trying to profit from their crops. And beyond, another module which only got larger in her field of view.

It was unlike the others, ridged in triangular panels and incredibly strong-looking as a result. There were windows, or rather, portholes set into the side in places. But before her was a docking place, which Twilight's module opened up to admit.

Once she'd come to a stop, the sturdy, solid looking door in front of her slid to the left and into the wall, allowing her access to the inside.

"Oh!" cried Spring Fresh, whose back had been against the door.

Spring Fresh had nearly retreated straight into Twilight before noticing her, upon which she immediately faced her and made her way to the back of the room. She was quivering, ears folded down, mane a mess, though not visibly harmed.

"Are you okay?" Twilight asked. "What happened?"

Spring Fresh didn't answer, and actively avoided her gaze. "Y- you have to go," Spring Fresh told her. "He'll be mad."

Twilight obeyed, walking out of the module. The door began to slide shut, making a considerable noise as it did. Twilight barely made out Spring Fresh's voice as she called out, but she clearly made out the word "relax" before the door sealed.

It was only now that Twilight bothered to look around at where she'd stepped into. She was seeing more normalcy on this trip than she'd seen in all of Mandeville's facility. First the sky, then the fields, and now a space that looked like the cover of one of Rarity's trendy housekeeping magazines.

It was a house, though not like one would find anywhere in Ponyville. Even for Canterlot it would have been unique. The floor, the walls, the ceiling, all purest white, diffusing the light from the few lamps around the room, and even a few false-windows with lights bright enough to create the illusion of natural sunlight. The furniture was typical, shelves on the wall, a bookcase, sofas, chairs, coffee table, all jet black. However, there was an odd sort of minimalism to the furniture's design, a geometric consistency in the shapes that gave the impression of sterile cleanliness and upscale living.

A shame it was such a pig-sty.

From the shelves to the coffee table, clothing, bottles and aluminum cans littered the place. Stacked and left there as if the owner no longer felt they had anyone to impress.

Given she'd been greeted by nobody else, she proceeded into the other rooms, stepping cautiously. She passed a kitchen, lounge, and a room with a large screen in it trailing cables to some black and green box with the letters "720" running across it in white.

She turned a corner into the last room she could find. It was dimly lit with red lamps, but it was clearly a bedroom, a large, cushy looking king-size at the back. The bed was unmade, but then, why should she expect neatness from him now? An odd sort of odor hung in the air. Twilight couldn't place it, but if this was where he slept, it might have just been his typical human aroma. Or a genuine lack of hygiene.

Suddenly she heard the sound of a toilet flushing and saw the man himself enter the room. "Ah, Sparkle! There you are," Mandeville greeted, smiling. He adjusted his shirt contentedly.

"Mandeville," Twilight hissed, leering. "Always thought you'd be taller."

It wasn’t quite true. On the screen she'd seen him on, he was larger than life. She had an idea of how big humans were after seeing the images of Mandeville with Spike in the Library, but with the top of her head reaching his chest and his muscle-build quite undefined, the similarities to his relatively powerful primate brothers were far less obvious. One of his gorilla cousins would have dwarfed him. Still, this left him two heads taller than she was. Celestia herself was shorter in stature...

"Well," Mandeville chuckled, tightening his belt, "in my world they say the camera adds a few pounds, but I can't say I've heard anything about height."

"Why am I here?" Twilight asked flatly. "What are you going to do to me?"

"Do to you?" Mandeville asked, smirking at the question with rising eyebrows. "What makes you think I'm going to do anything to you? I just want to talk."

"Everypony who mentioned you calling ponies up here refused to even say what they thought happened up here." She tried to appear annoyed, as tremors in her hooves betrayed her. "Y- you've got me here, and as long as I'm here there's no point stopping you, right? You'd just make it worse or hurt my friends if I resisted.

"So whatever you're going to do to me, whatever you did to that mare who was in here, get it over with and let me go back to my friends."

"Oh!" Mandeville laughed. "Oh, that. That's not why you're here Sparkle. Our appointment is far more ‘professional.’ ”

Twilight found a nearby sofa and sat herself on it. “Well, I’m a busy mare,” she said, doing her best to gain ground in the conversation. Mandeville smirked at the sight and sentiment.

“Whatever you brought me here for, please get to the point so I can return to my f—”

“First thing’s first, buttercup: some ground rules to this little rendezvous. You seem to have the idea already, but I go over this spiel with everyone.

“Have any bright ideas about taking me out? Stow ‘em. You've got no magic, and if you trampled me to death, my vitals are rigged to a dead-man's switch. Get cute, and your friends get gassed.

"Best you could do is knock me unconscious, I suppose, but these doors don't open without my say so. It's like you said Sparkle, you're stuck here, where I want you, until I'm done with you.”

Twilight groaned. “Yes, fine! But before anything else, I want to talk about the working conditions of the earth ponies.”

Mandeville sighed. “Here we go...”

“You circumvent the philosophical norms that compose the ethics of the scientific method, by randomly testing potentially hazardous materials and technologies onto live, sentient creatures, whose species are more than proven capable of calculus!

"Why would you do something like that?" Twilight asked, not looking at the man who was alien to her in so many ways. "That's just not right!"

"Because it creates suffering, a thing of which you ponies neither know or understand. It'll be better if you do, you'll appreciate your lives here far more."

Twilight glared at Mandeville. Unable to retaliate in any other way, she leapt off the couch and faced him eye to eye.

"Is that what this is about?" Twilight glared, trying to get inside Mandeville's head through those great green eyes. "You think our lives will seem better if we suffer first?"

"That's certainly part of it. It's more that your kind deserve to know what real suffering is."

"Just what is it that makes you so qualified to tell us what we deserve?" she demanded. "How did you suffer in any way that justifies what you're doing?"

"I've suffered a Hell of a lot more than a lot of people, Sparkle, even on my world," Mandeville shouted, leaning towards her until they were nose to nose. "You lost your little lizard buddy, did ya'? At least you grew up with a mother!"

Twilight's expression softened. "You never had a mother?"

Mandeville's eyes closed, and he breathed deeply before answering. "No, Sparkle. My mother died giving birth to me. It's rare, in a prosperous nation, in a wealthy family, that birth complications end fatally for the mother, and yet it happened to us. So I killed your friend? That's nothing when you think about how I killed my own mother."

"Wha— No, no, that's not true!" Twilight protested, too shaken by the idea to remember who she was comforting. "You didn't kill your mother, you were just a baby, it wasn't your fault!"

"Wish you'd been there when I was growing up Sparkle, it would've been nice to hear that before I was ten years old," Mandeville grumbled as he got off the couch and walked across the room, staring out one of his porthole windows.

"What does that mean?" Twilight asked.

"My father loved my mother," he said. "He raised me for her sake, but he never loved me. He never struck me, never abused me in the traditional sense. Never fed me a poor diet. But he hated me all the same.

"He blamed me for my mother's death, called me 'murderer', explained how I killed her, and how much better everything would be if I'd never been born."

Twilight stared, almost unable to comprehend what she was hearing. "That's—" She choked, almost ashamed to realize she was close to tears. "That's awful! That's one of the saddest things I've..."

"Of course, it was only the few times he got raving drunk that he said these things. He always apologized and assured me he hadn’t meant it. But alcohol is a powerful truth-serum if nothing else, and you can’t just take back the kind of things he’d said to me. I used to hide whenever he drank in a foul mood, but later I stuck around sometimes, just to hear if he felt any different. And then that word again. ‘Murderer.’

“Can you imagine what that would do to a child, Sparkle? What he did to me?" Mandeville asked, turning to look at her, his facial muscles taught. "I believed him. For years and years, I remembered that shitfaced bastard making me apologize, simply for being alive. And I was sincere."

Twilight stared, thoughts of her own beloved parents flooding her mind. They were good memories, and to picture the scenario Mandeville described was too painful and wrong.

"I lived a harsh life under my father. Suffered through years of Doc Jekyll and occasional evenings of Old Man Hyde," Mandeville said, a smirk suddenly adorning his face, "before recording one of his many gin-soaked verbal tirades and getting the police involved. I was taken from my father and lived with foster parents who showed me the first real kindness I knew. That, and pity. I never heard a word about him until I was grown and in college.

"College I had to earn on my own merits, through a scholarship. I was gifted, you see, in understanding electronics and mathematics, and developed some impressive artificial intelligences in school."

"'Artificial intelligence'?" Twilight asked

"Computers function by code, using billions of logic-based true/false values to calculate in ways useful to us," Mandeville answered. "An artificial intelligence, or 'AI' is a sophisticated code that tells a computer how to interact with subjects or circumstances in a virtual world, or in the real world. That's the layman version, anyway.

"CAIRO was my magnum opus, a computer that oversaw its own code, could evaluate it, and improve upon it. He could learn. He could evolve, in essence. There were dangers to this, of course. The old tale in my world was always that we'd one day create a self-perfecting synthetic organism and render ourselves extinct. The lesser species. I countered that with firmware, which forbade him from taking certain routes of logic, and directed him in how he may improve himself.

"For instance, CAIRO is smart enough now to second-guess me, but he's hard-coded to inform me of his thoughts when this happens and await my express consent. If not for that... well, let's just say Sparkle, for as highly as I deem logic, pure logic can work against beings like us with minds not bound to it.

"Anyway, the University got spooked by CAIRO even though he was just code in a little desktop tower at the time. They threatened my expulsion if I didn't relinquish and destroy the source code. Too afraid of what might happen if my code reached the Internet."

Twilight barely registered a frown before Mandeville answered. "Oh of course, you wouldn't know. Wonderful thing, the Internet. Every computer on the planet, hooked up to a global network. Accessible by anyone, a place to talk with others on the other side of the world, receive news as it happened, access a database of images and information as grand as can exist. In effect, a library for everything. All at the speed of light."

Twilight stared off into space, the idea captivating her. Intoxicating. "That sounds amazing. Incredibly, incredibly amazing."

"Yes, well," Mandeville said smiling, "When I refused, I found my home had been broken into. Searched top to bottom, hard drive stolen. So my little spot saved online kept CAIRO from being destroyed. It was a few months of working at an electronics store after that before things came to a head. Turned out my dear-old-dad had hanged himself."

"Hanged?" Twilight asked, once more at odds with an unfamiliar term.

"Strapped a ring of rope to the ceiling, climbed atop a bar-stool, put his head through the loop and fell, strangling himself to death."

"He—" Twilight recoiled. "He killed himself?"

"And left the family fortune to me," he said. "Nobody knows why, though I like to think he finally realized what he'd done to me and tried to make up for it.

"Anyway, that kind of money meant I could go into business for myself. I had CAIRO, now I had the money to make him everything he could be. Bought a little island in the Atlantic Ocean, in a country where regulation was poor, and nobody would stop me developing CAIRO, not that I shot my mouth off about him, given past experience.

"Started as a warehouse, where I constructed CAIRO's framework. For the first time, not only could he upgrade his code, he could actually replace and upgrade his parts with the use of robotic limbs. He'd tell me what he needed and I'd have it brought to the island, until he decided that was too slow, and had me bring him the raw materials to create mills and machines that could manufacture and design parts.

"Once that happened, CAIRO surpassed everything I'd ever dreamed. His constantly refined and perfected electronics made him intelligent, complex. And it wasn't long before this facility reached the grandeur you see before you.

"But we wanted to change the world, for the better. We needed a legitimate means of doing that. CAIRO decided that weapons manufacture would be ideal, and I agreed. We made a killing, since CAIRO could refine weapon designs the way he did. On the side, we aided revolutions, made trade difficult for the wrong regimes. We started making a difference."

"Difference?" Twilight wondered aloud, intrigued, but slowly burning out on such floods of information. "Difference in what?"

"In humanity," Mandeville said, simply. "My world, as you've gathered, is not an ideal one. Our global resources are dwindling, the world population is out of control. We're not doing nearly enough to reverse the effects of our early pollution. It's a combination of ignorance, greed and natural progress.

"We could probably solve a lot of our problems with certain technologies that were developed, but nearly all of it was bought by the people profiting off the status quo, patented to keep others from using it, and then hidden from the world until the patent runs out."

"That—" Twilight said, frowning. "How can they be that selfish? None of that makes any sense!"

"Companies in my world are like small countries, Sparkle," Mandeville said with equal revulsion in his voice. "They're huge, powerful, and will do anything to stay relevant. That includes holding the world back so they don't become obsolete."

"And nopony is going to stop them?" Twilight said, finding herself more upset the more she considered the implications. "I mean, what will happen if it stays on that course?"

"Global cataclysm," Mandeville answered, far too casually. "Famine, steep population decline. The whole system will collapse, and until they rebuild it to cope with those circumstances, it'll stay broken. It won't be the end of the world, but it'll be pretty bad."

"And your 'difference' was to make more powerful weapons?" Twilight asked, shaking her head violently . "How does that help anything?!"

"It was just a starting point, an industry that I could advance globally without skirting patents. Something that provided me with personal security in case my competition got tired of me. I needed to establish that I wasn't to be fucked with, so when I moved on to other industries CAIRO could improve, none of them could threaten me.

"But then we screwed-up."

"How?" Twilight asked.

"We got some bad information regarding a cause," Mandeville said bitterly, "and gave weapons to a regime that ended up being a gaggle of loons. They happily used my tech to rampage through a major city, in one of the worst, most effective terrorist acts in recent history.

"Needless to say, them being caught with my stuff wasn't good. Nothing official was done, as we could rightly claim it was a clerical error, but the media had a field-day and a lot of people blacklisted us. They sent some people to investigate the facility. I expected they were there to map the place for some kind of silent takedown when they couldn't pin me the old fashioned way, so we made that little tour you and your friends experienced.

"It looked like a real tour, but mostly it was staged to show my visitors what would happen if they sent any kind of military force to my island. The MISS was a great idea, but mostly a scare-tactic to keep them from trying to bomb me or something.

"But I guess they found a way around that, because here we are."

"That's it?" Twilight asked, hoarsely. "They couldn't prove you'd done it on purpose, but they tried to kill you anyway?"

"I was too much of a threat, I suppose," he answered in deadpan. "That's how it goes though: no good deed goes unpunished."

"Then, between your father and everything else," she said, pondering, "it's not your fault really, that you're like this—"

"You fucking ponies, you're all alike aren't ya'?" Mandeville spat. "Always comes down to how much fuckin' better you and your world are than mine. You look at me, you hear my story, and then you tell me, 'oh, no wonder he's so horrible, he was messed up as a child, never learned right from wrong!’ "

"I never said—"

But Mandeville was on a roll. "No, but it's what you meant! Don't you lie to me! Don't even lie to me! You judged my entire species before we'd even met! The second you saw the kind of weapons we use in our world, you thought poorly of all of us.

"You're all so perfect, you pity us and our world for not having what you take for granted! You have magic? We didn't! Science, technology, that was our magic; the fruits of diligence and ingenuity.

"You have a pair of goddesses that lovingly control the world, who do their duties every day, who can be seen and spoken to whenever. If any supreme beings exist where I come from Sparkle, then we've certainly never seen them or any evidence of them. We're alone, and a lot of the weaker-minded among us can't handle that fact. They invented legends and beings and realms to explain the world before we applied science. They made rules to live by, and those rules got popular, strict and the keepers of the mythology became powerful as a result.

"In a world full of opposing legends, where the people were ignorant enough to take them as truth, we've created differing cultures with differing values, some of which are despicable when you look at them with any critical eye. Even in my day, when those who can see reason are growing in strength and number, many hate and fear us because of disinformation their holy books give them concerning non-believers to their brand of madness, to the extent that they'll trick you into selling them weapons, and then kill every man woman and child in a city block in the name of a god who thinks little old granny deserves to die because they can see more of her skin than a postage stamp!"

Twilight stared wide-eyed as Mandeville hyperventilated in his own wake, cheeks red as his tirade wound down, and he finally composed himself with a few calming breaths. "So much of our warring and our hatred spawned from finding certainty within ignorance, Sparkle. All we really wanted was to find the truth, find that we're not alone, find meaning in our own existence. I've come to terms with knowing I will only live once, and that at the end of the day, the Universe doesn't care about what 'good' or 'evil' are, let alone which one wins.

"But you. You have those two. Nobody can deny they exist, nor that they do what they claim to. You are not so divided as us. And you take this for granted."

Twilight stood there, merely trying to process everything he was telling her. "You resent being looked down on, and yet you seem to think you're better than most humans."

"Most humans don't know what I know, Sparkle," he said. "They don't bother, too concerned with believing things because they want them to be true."

"Maybe you're right. But I still don't understand. If you've never met anypony you didn't kidnap, then why do you think we're judging you?"

"I told you how I first met Peppermint, forget already?" he taunted.

"Oh," Twilight said, staring at the carpet, "I thought you were lying."

"No. He was taken by CAIRO, but I wasn't even awake by then. We met later. Peppermint became Equestria's little ambassador. Over a few days, he stayed here, teaching me what he knew of the land, and I told him about my Earth, and humankind.

"All in all, nothing about him seemed judgmental until after I'd agreed to come with him to introduce myself to the world, and start my new life here. Offhand, he said something about how I wasn't so bad, despite my race, and how I might benefit as a person from learning how ponies did things. I didn't confront him about it, but it shook me, how condescending he was without even meaning it. After that, I had my first real abduction."

"Abduc— What?!" Twilight shouted.

“I wasn't sure if Peppermint's attitude was typical, or unique," Mandeville said. "So I had my Spotters bring in a second opinion. A Pegasus girl. I forget the name, something about 'cotton'.

"Anyway, when Peppermint walked in on her unconscious body being carted-in, he assumed the worst and attacked me before I could even explain. He'd called me a friend before all this, but at the first opportunity he turned on me like he'd been expecting it all along."

"So you killed him?" Twilight scowled.

Mandeville's face darkened, and Twilight instantly realized she'd made a mistake. "There it is," Mandeville laughed, mirthlessly. "There it is again! Guilty till proven innocent.

"No, Sparkle, I didn't kill him. He died in the course of testing much later, as the normals tend to do around here, unfortunately. I only had him sedated. I gave the girl her chance to redeem your kind, but no sooner had I welcomed her, explained myself and informed her she was to be released the next day, but she was caught attempting to escape that night. That was only the final nail in the coffin though. I'd had time to think, Ms. Sparkle, and I came to a decision."

"And what was that?" Twilight asked, cautiously.

"That if I was never to be welcome in my world or this one," Mandeville cried, "I was going to be every fear my detractors had of me!

" 'Murderer', am I Dad? 'Terrorist' ? 'War-monger' ? 'Monster' ? Why not! I'll not only show you that monster, I'll make monsters of you.

"This isn't the land of the 'Houyhnhnms', and I sure as shit aint 'Gulliver'. You're not better than me, you're not better than the human race, you're just a bunch of privileged high and mighty snobs, and I'm going to bring you all down to our level and show you the realities you never had to face!"

Twilight stared at Mandeville as he wound himself up again. "I—" she said, before rethinking her words. "We're not snobs, we're just overwhelmed! We don't understand, everything you're saying sounds so foreign to what we have in Equestria."

"And that's precisely the point," Mandeville said, gravely. "You couldn't possibly sympathize with something like me. Not till you've known what it is to suffer, as we have suffered. Until then, the best you can do is pity me, and I got enough of that from my foster parents, thanks."

"Mand—" Twilight considered, "Adrian."

Mandeville had mostly been staring into space, but now she had his full attention.

"I don't think you or I could ever be friends. You've hurt me too much, and I could never forgive what you did to Spike,"

"If this is an inspirational speech," Mandeville deadpanned, "then you suck at them Sparkle."

"But," she continued, "It might not be too late. Princess Celestia is firm, but she's also kind. If you turn yourself in, explain yourself, you'll be put in a dungeon, yes, but it might—"

"It's too late for that Sparkle," Mandeville replied, turning his gaze to the floor. "I already considered my options, and I'm sticking with my decision. I'm not going to be a second class person for another second of my life. I'm not going to be shut down by another stupid authority working against its own interests. I'm going to prove I can change a world, and I'm going to prove that however bad you think I am, you can be equally so. It just takes the right people, and the right circumstances."

"Is that why you called Trixie a 'muse'?" she asked flatly. "Because she proved that a pony could be driven to do desperate and horrible things?"

"Mmhmm!" Mandeville answered, suddenly smiling. "You catch on quick. That's good, it shows you can think like I do. Truth be told, Twilight—"

"May I call you Twilight?" Mandeville asked.

"'Ms. Sparkle' is fine," she simmered.

"Hmm," he grunted. "Truth be told, I kinda' like you. You're naive, like the others, but you've probably learned more from what you've experienced than anyone else I've met. You know a bit of earthly suffering. I am sorry about your friend, by the way. I meant it when I said it wasn't personal."

"That just makes it worse!" Twilight snapped. Tears ran suddenly down her cheek as she continued. "And you dis it for nothing anyway! Because he still told us what he knew, and even that wasn't enough to find you! How dare you even mention Spike to me!"

"I am really not in the mood to be lectured, kid,” Mandeville said. “If it really means that much to you, hit me."

"Wha—" she asked, brows knitting across her wide eyes. "Hit you?"

"Free shot, no consequences. Get some of that pent-up anger out," Mandeville offered, arms spread. But like I said, 'deadman switch'. And try not to break anything, please. Human bodies aren't the toughest.”

Twilight approached him as he stepped in front of his bed. "I-I don't like seeing others get hurt," she told Mandeville, who chuckled.

"You know you want to do it, Sparkle. Am I not the guy who killed your cold-blooded pal in... well, cold blood?"

"Two wrongs don't make a right," she replied, weakly.

"Aww!” Mandeville said, mockingly. “What, you learn that in Kindergarten? Come on, I blew him away with cluster grenades, and ran off laughing as your home burnt to the grou—"

Twilight wasn't even aware of doing it, really. She felt a flood of emotions overtake her, and turned around to buck the source of her pain directly in the chest. Air belched from Mandeville's lungs in a choked gasp as he flew backwards onto the bed, before rolling off the side and smacking into the carpet.

Her sense returned to her as Twilight realized what she'd just done. Meanwhile the human groaned on the floor, moving gingerly with a hand to his chest as he tried to stand back up.

He winced. "Feel better?"

"I don't know," Twilight answered, searching her own feelings. She couldn't recall ever acting out of anger like that. Well, against something alive, anyway. She had wanted to hurt him in that moment, more than anything. Now that he was on the floor, in real pain, she realized seeing him hurt didn't make her feel any better.

"Not really.”

"Seriously?" Mandeville wheezed, finally back on his feet. "I probably bruised a rib in that."

"I told you, I don't like seeing ponies get hurt. Or humans, I guess."

"Hmm," Mandeville said, slouching over as he approached her to meet her eye to eye. "Well if you're holding out for me being put away or something, you'd better get used to disappointment and take what you can from this.

"I'm aware that this land has experienced a number of threats in its time, so maybe you're a bit desensitized to someone like me coming in and knocking your sandcastle down. That's something else that needs to happen. You need to learn what it is to lose. You came here thinking you could make things better by bringing me to justice, but where I come from, nice guys don't always finish first. A lot of times, people get away with their crimes. A lot of times, justice simply never comes."

Twilight could only stare into his great green eyes. What could she say to argue with him? He was insane.

"Anyway, that's not why I wanted you here," Mandeville continued when Twilight said nothing. "I wanted to speak to you in person, because I thought maybe it would make this warning a little more real than if you heard it through a screen."

At that moment, Twilight gasped as Mandeville seized her by the horn and tilted her head back roughly.

"I. Know. You and your friends are hatching a plan to escape. Do I know how you're doing it? I'll leave that to your imagination. So I'll make something clear right now."

Twilight groaned against the discomfort as Mandeville whispered directly into her ear, which was currently folded back against her head.

"My drones are set to use live ammunition for security now, which means any little ponies caught outside the places they belong, are going to die. Do we understand each other?"

"Y-yes! Ah! Please, let me g—"

"Good," Mandeville said, releasing her after pulling her head forward again. "Now if you don't mind, I've got other things to attend to. I trust you know the way out?"

Twilight nodded, backing out of the room, grateful to be going. It had been an interesting conversation, but in one fell swoop Mandeville had cast doubt upon everything they'd been certain of before. She found the glass module had already returned after taking Spring Fresh back, and stepped inside.