As Scootaloo took a step forward, the ceiling started to glow with an eerie blue light. The filly blinked and looked up, transfixed by the light emanating from above.

"Must be motion sensing," Mochi murmured, looking up at the ceiling as well as she trailed a few steps behind Scootaloo. The glow grew brighter and brighter, and Scootaloo kept taking more steps, proceeding further into the room. It was obvious at that point that the room was deeper than the empty offices that lined the hallway.

"Hello?" the voice rasped, still very faint and far away. "I can see the light... I know you're out there..."

"We should probably go back," Mochi whispered. "Scootaloo, they've gotta be after us by now. There's stairs on every floor, usually at the other end of the hall from the elevator... we can probably still ma—oof!" Lost in her train of thought, the mare bumped into the pegasus filly in front of her, who had stopped walking. "Why'd you—ohhhh buck..."

"Oh, what a... heh... what a pleasant surprise." Scootaloo and Mochi could now see that, through the glow of the light, the voice was coming from the occupant of a chair in front of them that sat several metres away on top of a raised platform. There was a large black cable tied across and around the chair, running down the left side and along the platform, leading off into the darkness. And, strapped securely into the centre of the thing, was a stallion.

"Let's go," Mochi said, staring ahead at the stallion. His features were difficult to make out in the faint blue glow but Scootaloo could see that long scars snaked across the matted beige fur on his face and down his neck, and there was a gap in his hairline and a scabbed-over stump on his forehead that indicated that, at least at one point in time, he had been a unicorn. There were large dark bags under his eyes, making them look sunken back into his face. He flashed a toothy yellow grin to the two ponies that stood across from him.

"No, no... please, feel free to stay a while... eheh..."

"Who are you?" Scootaloo asked. She wasn't quite sure why she was asking, either—it wasn't like she wasn't trembling, scared out of her wits, every muscle in her body urging her to run and escape. But she was curious, and most definitely not a cat.

The stallion let out a loud cough and Scootaloo jumped back to avoid his germs; as he was strapped in, he had no way to cover his mouth. Not that he looked like the type who would do that if he could. "Why don't you ask your friend here? Eheh... we go way back... what was your name...? Mocha?"

The mare in question looked very much for a moment like she didn't want to answer, that she wanted to be defiant and try to ignore this stallion—but, eventually, she caved. "No, it's Mochi."

"Heh, whatever. Same difference in the end... am I right?" The stallion hacked and wheezed. "Looks like you drew a longer straw than I did, huh?"

Scootaloo turned to the mare whose expression had become hard to read. Her pink fur looked purple in the blue glow from above. "How do you know this pony?"

Mochi squinted and frowned, still looking ahead at where the stallion sat. He just smiled in return. "He's... um... he's really not important right now. Just somepony I used to know. We should really get going."

"Haha... 'just somepony you used to know'?" he wheezed. "Damn, Moch, I thought... I though I'd earned better than that. I mean"—he coughed—"aren't I the reason you're in here? We were a team, remember? You and me... ahem... you and me fuckin' up the—"

"Shut the hell up, Bramble," Mochi said sternly. She didn't raise her voice; she just made it clear from her tone that she wasn't messing around. "I'm... I'm a better pony now. C'mon, Scootaloo. Please."

"Y-yeah, okay," Scootaloo said, turning away from the stallion. "This guy's giving me the creeps..."

"Haha! The creeps? Kid, you don't... ahem... you don't know the half of it. And just look at that pony you're with, for Aureate's sake! Has she... did she even tell you what she did?"

"Scootaloo," Mochi said, glaring at the stallion still, "get out of here and start scouting out the hallway. I'll be with you in a second."

"But—"

"I've just got some unfinished business to take care of."

"O-okay," Scootaloo stammered. She turned tail and galloped out of the room, her hooves clanging loudly on the metal surface. Their sound reverberated throughout the room, filling up the entirety of the dark space.

Once Mochi could see Scootaloo had left the room and turned the corner, she turned back to face the stallion. "How come nopony else is here with you?"

"Heh, well, they finally... they finally brought me up here. Seems like after all these years they finally got the sentence they wanted. They strapped... they strapped me in and were all ready to go and then... and then that piece of shit Velvet had to go do something else and he didn't come back. I don't know how long it's been... been tryin' to count but all I got is a few days."

"You're a terrible pony," Mochi sneered. "You ruined my life."

"Hahaha... not like you needed any help with that, dumbass. Can't... can't blame me for all your problems..."

Maintaining her composure, Mochi took a few steps forward as if she were going to walk up to the platform. Then, at the last second, she swerved left and followed the thick black cable along the ground into the darkness.

"Buck, you're really gonna do it," the stallion wheezed. He closed his eyes. "'Night, then."

A few seconds later, there was a soft buzz and a flash of light and the stallion's body twitched before lying still. Mochi didn't even give him a second glance as she traversed the length of the room back to the door, which she closed behind her.

"What happened?" Scootaloo asked once she saw Mochi was back in the hallway.

"Nothing... just had to say a few things. Just leaving him here for the guards to take care of."

"But who was he?"

Mochi sighed. "I'll... I'll tell you about it some other time. Right now, we gotta get out of here." And, to prove her point, the mare started walking further down the hallway, peering in both directions to see if there was any sign of any escape. Scootaloo followed closely next to Mochi as the two of them left that closed door behind them.