She just had to crank up the Dizzitron…

No, I just had to run into Hispano, that’s what started this all. Maybe if I was a better flyer and didn’t tend to crash into things, I wouldn’t have gotten us into a situation of being shot by some giant lakeside camera-cannon-thing.

The blinding shine from the cannon near the lake drained off, and the world around the three of us resolved only slightly. Instead of pure white light, everything turned to an off, manilla sort of color. Sort of like that of a piece of paper that’d been left out in the sun too long. Past the odd coloration, I had the peculiar feeling that I had been squeezed into a hallway much too small for me to even move around in.

“Night?” Violet’s voice came from above me. Strangely enough, I couldn’t turn my head up to even get a look at her. “I think we’re flat…”

“I don’t care if we’re flat!” Hispano whined from somewhere behind me. “Get me the hell out of here!” Another bright flash enveloped us with a sizzling snap. The three of us were released from the hallway, and collapsed onto each other on top of a cold and hard surface. “Less painfully, would have been nice.” She groaned, digging her claws into my side as she pulled herself off of me.

“What the hell was that?” I asked, blinking a few times. My eyes were still adjusting to the change in lighting, but it seemed to be that we were somehow inside of a small, plain, concrete room. A single flickering fluorescent light above us buzzed noisily, and the sound of dripping water outside of the thick metal door I sat next to made me wonder if we’d somehow managed to fall down below the green lake.

“Night, what did…” Violet spoke up. Without any warning, I found her forehooves clamped around my head, brushing my mane aside hastily. “I… I think something is very wrong here. You’re missing part of your mane.”

“What!?” Pushing her hooves off of my head, I reached up and ran my hooves all over. Near my maneline, I could feel it, a patch of my mane had been shaved. It wasn’t big, but more distressingly, I could feel a bump under it.

“I’m missing plumage…” Hispano squawked in surprise, running her talons around her head. “Wait, where’s my flight cap?” Looking around, she turned white as all the color flushed from her. “Where is my sister? What the fuck is going on!?”

Looking around, I noticed that none of us had been brought into this secluded room with anything we’d just had on us. Panicking, I looked down and patted around my neck. Gone. Mom’s tags were just… gone.

“Hello in there!” A shrill voice came from the other side of the rusty door beside me. “Are you all doing alright? No transfer errors I hope.”

“Where did you take my sister, you bastard!” Hispano squawked. She shot over to the door in a blur, ramming against it uselessly and scraping at it with her talons. “I’ll kill you for this!”

The voice laughed. “Oh, relax. Maybe the Haycartes transfer didn’t push one of you out of the spell buffer. A relatively simple fix, happens all the time.” The voice on the other side of the door gave a quick set of knocks against it. “I’ll double check it and return for you all shortly.”

“Wait!” Violet called out as she ended up shoving Hispano out of the way. Planting her head firmly sideways against the door, I watched as her hopeful expression started to sink. With a sigh, she pushed herself back. “Damnit. He’s gone.”

A soft chime came across the air, seemingly coming right through the ceiling. It was shortly followed by the meekest sounding mare I think I’d ever heard in my life.

This is a reminder to all Ministry of Peace and Ministry of Arcane Sciences staff members. Please remember to display your facility issued identification tags at all times as to avoid unneeded conflicts with the internal security systems. Thank you for your cooperation.

“What?” I let the words just slip out of my muzzle. “I thought all the ministries died out at the end of the war…”

“They did.” Violet sighed, slumping back against the door. “This place must still be undiscovered.” Looking over at Hispano with a cocked eyebrow, Violet eyed her suspiciously. “Who the hell wanted you to scout this place out anyway?”

“That’s... none of your damn business.” Hispano grumpily folded her talons across her chest and looked at me. “It’s all his fault we’re here anyway.”

“What do you mean it’s my fault!?” I didn’t know this place was here any more than she did! “I wasn’t the one who shot at it!”

“Yeah, but you ran into me, remember!?” Hispano groaned and grimaced at me. “I swear that every time we see each other, you’re always getting into some sort of trouble.”

“Yeah, well he’s not the one who’s been following somepony around, is he?” Violet rolled her eyes as I nearly locked up in fear. She… couldn’t have known who Hispano really was, could she? “I mean let’s face it, you lied about scouting this place, didn’t you?”

Shit! She was going to tell Hispano she knew, and then Hispano was going to kill me because she’ll think I told Violet! Oh goddesses, how did this go so wrong!?

“So. You know then.” Hispano deadpanned, looking over at me. “And here I’d thought Dum Dum was trustworthy for once.” Shaking her head, she shrugged. It’s not what it looks like! “I can’t believe I thought you actually had a thing for me.” She did? Wait you idiot, that’s it!

“I do!” I nearly screamed. Yes, I lied, but I just needed to say something that got their attention. Thankfully, both Hispano and Violet went wide eyed at my outburst, but then the sudden silence between us all started to claw at me. I needed to sell this to Violet and Hispano, or they were going to kill each other before killing me! “Violet?” I turned to her and sat down, pulling every detail out of my mind about liking somepony. Annoyingly, all I could pull from was everything I’d originally thought about Salt. “I don’t know if you’ve ever felt this way about somepony, but… when Hispano saved me, I felt something for her. Something that just clicked inside, that felt new and exciting.” Looking over to the young griffon, her surprise had transitioned into a sort of odd speechlessness. “I don’t know for sure, but… I think she feels the same way about me. That’s why you were following me, isn’t it?”

“I…” Hispano stuttered for a moment. I think she was so swept up in the moment that it had taken her a second to realize just what I was doing. At least, I hoped that she understood... “Y-yes. Of course.” She laughed nervously, looking at the floor as she ran her tallon over her head feathers. “I’ve never felt this way about a pony before. I don’t know how to explain it either, but… I just like him.” Her words were soft, and this time it was my turn to second guess if she was being sincere or not.

“So… you were actually following us?” Violet sat down and just looked plain confused. “Why hide than?”

“Well,” I mirrored Hispano’s nervous laugh to try to hide what I was really thinking. “Delilah probably wouldn’t like some stranger hanging around and not helping, right?”

“I just… never thought of it that way.” Violet muttered before turning over toward Hispano, offering her hoof out to her. “Sorry I jumped on your case a bit.” Giving a soft smile to the small griffon, Violet seemed to relax a bit.

“No problem.” Hispano said slowly, taking Violets hoof in her talon and giving it a firm shake. “Now, how do we get out of here?”

The door beside me opened up without warning. “Let me handle that.” The oddly voiced stallion spoke, shrouded in the darkness of the hallway outside. With a sizzling pop, bright arcs of electricity sparked out and struck the three of us. My muscles felt like they were immediately on fire and refusing to work at all. I couldn’t even scream from the sudden pain, just collapse to the floor and wait for it to be over.

“Sorry about all that.” The stallion spoke again, his voice sounding even more shrill as he stepped over toward me. A pair of rotten hooves came into my vision, and the smell of old flesh hit me hard. “Juuuust need to apply some... ‘cooperation enhancers’.” From his side, a thick ringed collar slid out of the odd white lab coat he wore, and floated its way over to me. With my body mostly numb from whatever hit it, I could barely feel whatever it was as it was slipped under my neck. What I did notice however, was the solid click it gave as it shut around my coat. “Got one here for each of you until we can sort this all out.” Stepping out of my line of sight toward the others, all I could do was stare out the open door and listen as he did the same thing to them.

Now that my eyes had adjusted a little, the flickering hallway light outside the room fought against the darkness that cloaked it. Just barely visible, was the old Ministry of Arcane Sciences logo, still desperately clinging to the concrete wall.

“There, now…” The rotten pony sighed, stepping back. “Why don’t you all just relax for a bit while I move you somewhere more comfortable. With another click on a small square remote-like device, a soft ringing tone felt like it came into being all around me. No, more like it was in my mind. Trying to focus on it to figure it out didn’t help, and in fact made me feel exhausted. “Good, good.” The stallion's voice sounded farther off, even though I knew he was still right next to me. “Just, let yourself fall asleep……”

“Night, wake up.” It was Violet’s voice. But… why was she in my head? “Who know’s how long we were even out…”

With a sharp jab against my side, I shot up off the floor. My heart nearly jumped out of my chest, and panic set in.

“Woah there, easy.” Violet said, pressing her hoof against my side. “We’re safe, for now.” She looked fuzzy in my adjusting vision, but as I refocused I noticed the odd black metal collar secured around her neck. “It seems that we’ve been left alone for the time being.”

Looking around, I found that we’d changed locations. We were in a slightly bigger room than before, and one that looked a bit better kept. Old floral wallpaper still clung to the old walls, and inspirational posters still hung on them, even if they’d been coated in a fine layer of dust.

Pulling myself back up to my hooves, the floor under me was also different. Like the captain’s quarters back on the Inuvik, this place was still covered with a simple, musty carpeting. A few old olive colored couches sat against the walls on either side of a table and lamp that was cozily nested in the corner. A small round table and a set of chairs sat on the opposite side of the room, along with a tall, silver looking standing lamp. All of the furniture sat beside a moderately sized desk that contained a still working terminal on it.

Quickly scrolling and typing away on it, was Hispano.

“I don’t like this.” She squawked, turning back to look at us. “If this memo has any truth to it, this place doesn’t have a very good history.”

Always the curious one, I didn’t know when to hold my own tongue. “What does it say?” I asked with probably more enthusiasm than necessary. Still, if we were in it deep this time, I wanted to know.

“Well, this first memo is somepony complaining about the entrance to this facility.” Turning back to the terminal, she tapped at a few keys with her talons. “It uses something called ‘Haycarte's method’ to render ponies down to simple information on a scroll or piece of paper, then reconstructs them on the inside of the facility directly into the prisoner holding cells.” Scrolling a bit, she frowned. “Apparently, the guards kept getting their equipment and ID’s stripped during the transfer. So that at least explains where our gear went.”

“That’s not too bad though.” I spoke up. Hey, I could be optimistic about this! Even if my gut is telling me it was never going to be that simple.

“Prisoner holding cells?” Violet asked, stepping up behind Hispano. “What did a research facility need with prisoners?”

“That’s the bad part. Other memos say that they weren’t prisoners, but mostly Equestrian zebra citizens. It dictates quite specifically more than a few transfers were coming from Equestrian cities and not wartime prisoner camps.” Hispano hit a few buttons and pulled up another memo. “The whole idea of this lab was a joint research project by the M.o.P. and M.a.S. on the study of cutie mark magic. The publicly listed goal was apparently to help pacify veterans who were suffering from wartime stress disorder. However, the 'off the books' side of the project, was actually a study of glyph marks, and how they could be stripped off their hosts.”

“That sounds... wrong.” Violet recoiled and shook her head. “You can’t just take somepony’s identity away like that…” Even though I knew she was speaking for those who were here two hundred years ago, I couldn’t help but think she was speaking about her own experience with the Enclave.

“Why not?” The shrill voice of the stallion of before cropped up again behind us. Cracking open the door the rest of the way, a unicorn stallion just as rotten as the captain of the Inuvik stepped inside. His degraded red coat was oddly contrasted by a wavy, long white mane that stretched down past his barrel. The thick rimmed round glasses he wore were scratched and fogged to the point where I wasn’t quite sure how anypony would be able to see through them. And along with the old lab coat he wore, at his side he levitated a clipboard and the small remote from before.

“What makes you think you can just take somepony’s identity from them?” Violet stamped her hoof, puffing out her chest as well. Funny enough, it only drew out a soft, wheezing chuckle from the stallion.

“Please, spare me your righteousness.” He waved a hoof in dismissal before pushing his glasses further up his muzzle. For a moment, I could almost see his yellow eyes through them, but then they disappeared behind the glare of the fluorescent lights above us. "You see, cutie mark magic is very fluid in our reality. Think of it as... a sticker overlaid onto something. Tear it off, and very little of the physical pony changes. However, their identity as a whole is completely different on a universal scale. The theory was first proposed by a colleague of mine in the Ministry of Arcane Sciences, Professor Starlight Glimmer. She offered the theory that if you strip a pony of their cutie mark, then they would lose the feeling of who they once were altogether. They begin to think simply, act simply, and generally become a more passive and happy individual."

“How does that justify anything you’ve done here?” Violet Snorted.

“My dear, if you had seen how this war has destroyed some of the soldiers that we’d tested early on, you’d understand the benefits.” He shook his head solemnly. “Removing a cutie mark can pacify most ponies, make them feel happiness again without the looming feeling of dread they’d come to live with on the battlefields.” Pulling up his clipboard, he flipped through a few pages. “We’re closer than ever to finding a way to perfectly strip zebra marks as well. When that happens, we’ll make megaspells to do it to every pony and zebra the world over.” A wide smile flashed across the stallion’s face. “Think of it! Every pony on the planet, every zebra even! All of them losing any idea of what they were fighting for! With that, this petty war could finally be over.”

“You’re insane…” I muttered under my own breath. However, as I did, Violet mirrored me without lowering her volume.

“I thought zebra’s didn’t have cutie marks.” Hispano chimed up.

"You are correct in that assumption." He nodded with a smile, almost seeming to appreciate Hispano for bringing that point up. "Glyph mark magic is something entirely different than we thought. Imagine if you will, not the sticker as described earlier, but a patch sewn onto fabric. What would happen if you were to grab onto it and yank it away all at once."

Hispano finally mirrored us with a look of shock. “That would rip and tear at any fabric..."

“Regrettably, yes.” Giving a solemn nod, he let out a sigh. "See, we didn't know that at first. The first series of subjects suffered mostly from crippling insanity when we removed their glyphs. Their mark's connection to the universe and our reality was much more intertwined than we’d first thought. It took us a good few refinements to really understand their connection on a fundamental and arcane level."

“Refinements?" If I looked confused to him, it was probably because I wasn't quite sure how anypony could continue down this path if they had caused the insanity of a whole group of ponies, let alone zebras. I may still be uncomfortable with them, but I’m far from wishing that level of hell down on them.

"Of course we needed to refine the process! We had to press on!" He chuckled and rolled his eyes. "It took a few years, dozens of trial runs before we could understand it." All three of us recoiled at this information, which was surprising because I'd honestly assumed nothing could shock Hispano. "It wasn't until the arcane spell matrix was invented did we find a way to mitigate most of the mental degradation, and achieve a phenomenal ten percent success rate."

“That's horrible!” Violet shouted, starting to crack under all this. “Even with zebras, you can't just take away who they were!" With her anger showing through, I was sure at any moment, she was just going to throw herself at this guy and beat him to death with her hooves. Hell, if I had my gun, I’d shoot him here and now.

“So you would rather our soldiers live with the memories of the horrors they saw in combat?” The stallion now puffed up his own chest, the thin skin around his neck distending as he stuck his muzzle up high at us. “You'd rather have them go to sleep each night to relive the battle that literally tore their friends to pieces in front of them? To let them see the visceral and untamed nature of combat for the rest of their lives until they became unstable enough to kill themselves?"

“No, that’s not who we are!” She spat at him, taking a firm step forward. “We’re supposed to do better, to be better than that. Isn’t that what the Ministry of Peace stood for?”

The stallion rolled his eyes. “We’re funded by the Ministry of Peace because this is the best non-violent approach there is. That doesn’t mean it has to be painless research however. The few must suffer for the good of the many.” Folding his clipboard to his side, he glared at Violet. “I don’t expect you to understand, but you'd rather have zebra prisoners who, once released, are even more zealous to destroy equestria than before they were captured? You'd want them back out there, detonating bombs and going on savage killing sprees in public places?"

Stepping forward again, Violet was trembling in rage. However, her voice shifted to a low, cold tone. "Have you even read any of your files? They weren't captured war criminals. They were citizens of Equestria rounded up because of your propaganda and forced into prisons built by ponies like you! They didn't do anything wrong, it was you who..."

WIth a soft click from the remote in the Stallion’s magic, Violet stopped mid sentence and went stiff, blinking a few moments before sitting down in complete silence. It was about then that I noticed the brand on her flank start to glow a dim orange.

The Doctor smirked, floating over a clipboard and pen. With a smile, he started to write stuff down quickly. "Interesting. The pacification magic has a curious silencing effect on those who have already had their cutie mark forcibly removed."

"What did you do to her?" I asked hesitantly. Oh goddesses, please let her be alright…

Almost as if he were startled, he looked up to me with a worried look. "What? Oh, right." Wiggling the remote in front of him, he gave me a smile. "The spell matrix chips transfused into your skulls during the Haycarte transfer are wired with simple cutie mark stripping talismans and memory inhibiting magics. With it, I can make you passive at any point in time I like." He paused, looking between both Hispano and I. "Well actually now that I think of it, I'm not quite sure of it's effects on non-cutie marked ponies. Or even those of the griffin species, for that matter." Leaning forward, he glared between both Hispano and I. "Maybe after we discuss why you are here, I’ll sit down and run some tests on the both of you to find out..."

“Why are we here!?” Hispano Squawked and puffed up her plumage.

“Now now, calm down.” The stallion gave several wheezing laughs again. “Don’t forget your manners.”

Stepping in, I finally felt confident enough to speak up. “You captured us. We didn’t want anything to do with this place.” Maybe if we spoke bluntly, but reasonably, he’d understand this was all some big mistake.

“That’s… no.” The shocked look across the stallion’s face told me that he hadn’t expected that answer. He shook his head and snorted as a heavy frown pulled across his muzzle. “No, you definitely came in here intent on stealing my research for yourselves.”

“What!?” Hispano spat. “Now you listen…”

She was cut off when a P.A. system cut in with a squelch and a fuzzy crackle.

“Hehehe. Hello everypony…” The voice of another stallion spoke up, this time sounding more scratchy than the doctor here.

“That’s… subject seventeen.” The doc said, looking up at the small speaker set in the ceiling. Turning to the door, he clicked his remote. “You three, follow me. Quickly now!” Rushing out the door ahead of us, neither Hispano or I needed a second invitation. Violet still just simply stood there however, but I was sure we could just go back to her later.

“That is correct! Hehehe!” The stallion giggled almost uncontrollably as he spoke. From the pale white that the doctor turned, I got the distinct feeling that this wasn’t a good thing. “I’ve been a bad zebra, but I want to be good! And I want you to be good with me, Mr. Cipher! HehehaHaHA!”

The maniacal, excited laughter coming through the speakers was something that I just knew was going to haunt me for the rest of my days. Suddenly, this old facility seemed a lot more run down, and a lot more full of shadows and death than it had a few minutes ago…

“What’s going on?” Hispano called out as she flapped her wings and easily paced herself just beside the galloping doctor.

“Subject Seventeen is in the central control room.” He belted out between gasps as we ran. “He must not gain control of facility security!” For a guy who’s body looked like he was barely holding together, he sure could gallop!

“Oh, don’t worry, Mr. Cipher,” The stallion’s creepy voice echoed along the dark and winding halls that we were galloping down. “Hehe… You said friendship was important in becoming complacent,” Smothering a snorting chuckle, his laughter was becoming more and more erratic. “So I’ve already made friends with aaaaall of the security robots!”

The whole of the dark facility lit up with red tinted lights. Alarms all over went off from seemingly every direction. Worse of all, a pair of bright searchlights at the end of the hall swiveled and turned towards us.

“Multiple Errant Prisoners Detected!” The mechanical voice of what sounded to be a wartime Protectapony boomed out towards us as it walked out of a protected recess in the hallway wall that had opened with the alarms. With a flash, it began to pulse bright beams of light from it’s glass domed head. You know, I think I would have been more impressed with my first encounter with a non-museum piece wartime machine marvel, if it hadn’t been so intent on killing me.

Screaming as the bright beams flashed all around us, I was tackled off of my hooves by Hispano and shoved into the open doorframe of a dark room. I whimpered as I slammed into the metal frame and tumbled down to the floor inside the room. Skidding to a stop across the checkered black and white tile floor, I groaned and shook the disorientation off.

With a whimper and scrambling hooves, the Doctor dove into the small room along side us. Red beams struck and sizzled the old white paint right off the doorframe. Between all of our panting heaves, the steady, heavy mechanical hoofsteps of the old world machine drew closer.

“What do we do?” I asked, looking up to Hispano.

“Find a weapon.” She said, looking around quickly.

I did as she asked while getting up to my hooves. Looking around the dark room, I found that it looked a lot like the infirmary in the Inuvik, however I don’t quite remember there being actual thick leather straps on the examination bed other than the hoofcuffs I’d had on. A wall of old cabinets and drawers sat barely holding itself together against the wall. Inside the decaying, old cabinets, various medical supplies lay heaped between a few collapsed shelves. Of course, Hispano zipped over and started to tear through them.

Quickly spotting the largest metal object I could find, I picked it up and held it between my hooves.

“A bedpan?” The doc shouted, “Are you two insane!? You can’t fight security!” He cringed as the heavy hoofsteps grew closer. “We… we need to run.”

“No, it’s too close.” Hispano spoke up. “It won’t miss if you leave now. We have no choice.” Ripping the whole cabinet off the wall, a few rusty metal tubes scattered across the floor, along with a heavy looking medical device. “Bingo.” Quickly scooping the device into her talons, she pulled out two handled metal slabs with wires coiling out of them and back into the base of the device. “I hope this thing still has working spark batteries!” Transferring both slabs into one talon, she flicked a switch.

Nothing happened.

“Damnit.” She muttered, throwing it down.

“Hostile detected.” The robot spoke up from just around the doorway. Slowly, it’s glowing, domed head made it’s way past the doorframe, and it’s lumbering form turned towards us.

Looking up, I was just in time to see a blue and purple flash zip by the doorway. The sound of shearing metal and grunting filled the hallway outside. In short order, sparks began to shoot out of the machine, and the long, silvery standing lamp’s spear like body was shoved through the machine’s shoulder joint. Its glowing dome darkened, and the smell of melting drifted into the room.

“Fuck this place.” Violet groaned as she yanked at the lamp pole embedded through the machine. With a cringe inducing screech, the pole budged a bit back before stopping. “Damnit.”

“Night?” Hispano said, looking at me before eyeing the bedpan in my hooves. “Care to do the honors?” She smirked, looking over at the doctor.

Wide eyed, the doctor’s horn flashed and tugged at his lab coat. The remote… he was looking for it! With my heart beating wildly in my chest, it may have taken me a moment, but I finally realized what Hispano was insinuating.

Letting out a furious yell, I raised the bedpan above my head and swung it down against the doctor. With a metallic clang, it struck his horn and muzzle hard. He seemed stunned by the strike. However, his magic refocused and snapped the bedpan away from my hooves. Quickly he turned the tables on me. With a swift upward swing, the metallic object clocked me in the jaw and sent me sprawling.

“That’s enough!” He shouted. “You don’t understand!”

As soon as I’d hit the floor, Violet was on him like a bolt. I was still seeing stars, but I could hear the struggle between the two. A strong, sharp force grasped at my forehoof and helped to roll me back onto my hooves.

“Come on, Dum Dum.” Hispano spoke as she pulled me back up. “No time to rest when we’ve got an asshole to murder!”

“Wait!” The doctor screamed out with a whimper. “Please, you have to know about subject seventeen!”

From down the hall, more heavy mechanical hoofsteps echoed. More security machines must’ve been on their way. Looking back over to Violet as she hovered over the doctor, I really hoped she knew what to do. My heart was still beating a million miles a minute, and I was ready to move the moment she told us to.

“Please, I know where to hide! Where security will never find us!” The doctor gasped, using his magic to adjust his now cracked glasses on his muzzle. His yellow eyes beamed fear at us, and the way he quaked with each thumping step of security, I was sure he was being honest. “Just please, you have to help me!”

“We don’t have to do shit.” Hispano squawked from over at the wrecked Protectapony. She was using her talons to pry off the smoking metal plates from around it’s neck, quickly working at what looked to be damaging it as much as she could.

“You want to live?” Violet dragged the doctor back to his hooves by the lapels of his lab coat. “Then show us where to go.” She growled to him, quickly getting a frantic nodding.

“S-sure!” He nodded and scrambled to move past her. As he squeezed between the doorway and the protectapony corpse, he looked down the hall to where we’d run from. “It’s t-this way.”

“Bombay,” Violet commanded my attention over to her. “Stay close and don’t hesitate.” She spoke with an intensity only paralleled by the steeled, nearly emotionless gaze she wore. Flapping her wings a few times, she hovered to the doorway after the doc. “I don’t think he has that remote anymore, but keep an eye out for it just in case.”

“Almost…” Hispano whined as she grabbed onto both sides of the machine’s head. With a metallic squelch, the protectapony’s head sparked and was torn straight off of it’s body.

Reminder to self. Don’t let Hispano grab your head…

“The hell are you doing?” Violet snapped as she floated out the door.

“Arming myself.” The young griffon grumbled as she flopped to the floor and grabbed at the severed head. Grabbing around the metal bits that I assumed were it’s equivalent of a spine, Hispano twirled a few cables around her talons and pointed the severed head down the hall towards where the new security machines were coming from. Trotting out the door, I watched as Hispano pulled one of the head-wires like a trigger and the machine dome glowed before firing off a bright, but inaccurate beam of magical energy.

I felt my jaw drop. “Woah…” She spent all of a minute tearing at that machine and she made a weapon from scratch!?

“Cool, huh?” Hispano squeaked with a bubbly smile.

“Less talking, more walking!” Violet called out from a ways back down the hallway.

“Hostile Prisoners Detected.” The mechanical voice of the security bots moving in called from down the other way. The pair of glowing heads emerged from around the corner and quickly turned to face us. “Use of lethal force is authorized.” A pair of sizzling bright beams scoured the wall and floor around Hispano and I. “Please cease and desist all hostilities.”

The intercom above crackled again, and the twisted and giggling stallion returned. Only this time, he was singing.

“What the hell is this shit!?” Hispano growled as we both turned to run after Violet. “Fucking pony sing-songy bullshit, that’s what!”

Maddening cackles slipped out between the ‘verses’ in his song, and I suddenly realized just how scared I truly was. I might die down here to the crazy singing stallion… and I didn’t want to die yet!

Another pair of beams lanced through the air around us. I didn’t know if we were lucky, or if they were just that bad at aiming. However, as Hispano flapped hard and kept pace with me flying backwards, she fired a pair of shots of her own. Both of her shots must have missed as well, because another pair of beams scorched the ceiling and cut through a pipe. With a hissing burst of steam that burned at my skin as I galloped through it, the two of us nearly missed the turn in the brightly lit corridor that Violet had turned and gone down.

“In here!” The doctor called out from ahead. The rusted metal grating he had propped up in his hooves didn’t give me hope that it led anywhere nice. “Quickly!” He yelled as another pair of beams hit the wall behind us through the steam.

Swallowing nervously, I galloped toward him and Violet anyway. Anywhere had to be better than here!

Violet angrily tore the grate from his hooves, pointing down into the hole. “You first.” To which, the doctor nodded and quickly jumped down into the hole. Looking back over to me, she nodded down. “Get in, now.”

Not hesitating to get myself out of this nightmarish hallway, I spread my wings slightly and jumped into the near two pony wide hole. The little air resistance there was didn’t really slow my fall at all, but what did help soften the fall was the shoulder deep pool of the same green muck from the lake outside. I was glad I’d kept my wings up, even if the sludge was thick enough that it didn’t splash all over my wings. The abrasive fluid felt heavier this time around, almost pulling me down to the floor as I tried to move. With the feeling like it could pull me under at any moment, I moved myself a bit closer to the doctor.

“Oh, is it time for Hide and Seek, Mr. Cipher!?” The crazed stallion giggled over the intercom. “I’ll count first! One… Two… Three… Four…”

“That’s Dr. Cipher to you, Zedeek.” Dr. Cipher muttered under his breath.

“Doc, you better start to explain shit right now.” Hispano cooed remarkably calmly as she fluttered into the tunnel with us. Fortunately for her, her wings weren’t as useless as mine, and easily let her fly just above the green goop river.

Letting the heavy grate slam down behind her, Violet lowered herself down to just above the water as well. “Yeah, like where we’re going, for starters.”

“My department office…” Dr. Cipher started, lifting his hoof from the sludge to point down the long, dark tunnel. “The only way into it is from this maintenance tunnel, or through a steel bulkhead that we can lock from the inside.”

“So why are we going there if there’s only one way out?” As she spoke, Hispano shook her makeshift weapon at the doc. Each time she did, I could see the Doc tense up a bit, so at least he probably wouldn’t lie to us. Flicking the glowing robot head in the direction of down the tunnel, He seemed to get the idea and started walking.

“I might be able to use my terminal to take back the security systems.” He said, as he trudged along. “With it, I could disable the security, and we could all go neutralize him once and for all.” Looking back over to Hispano, he grew a rotten, toothy grin. “Or, we could head to the armory if you’d like. Plenty of guns there to use to fight our way to him.”

“And have you shoot me in the back?” Hispano laughed at that. “Not on your life.”

He shrugged and continued walking. “Your choice. I’m just the hostage here.”

I did my best to try to stay with him, but with the thickness of this gunk, it wasn’t easy to keep up. It wasn’t fast, but every few steps we both took, I felt like I fell just one short of keeping pace. Honestly, I was more than a bit jealous that Violet and Hispano had it this easy. As the gap between us widened, Violet took notice and slowed down as well. Carefully, she hovered her way next to me, keeping her hooves just about an inch over the sludge as she kept pace.

“I’m sorry.” I spoke up.

“Look, Night.” She sighed. “I have to be honest about something.”

Great, here it comes. The inevitable ‘you really screwed up this time, and now Delilah is going to leave you behind’ talk. Rolling my eyes, I knew I didn’t want to hear it, but that I completely deserved it.

“I… lied to you, before.” She sighed, hanging her head as she hovered along. “And to the Doc.”

“About what?” That was unexpected…

“About changelings.” She looked up to me with guilty eyes, but I just couldn’t understand it. Why did she lie to me? Did she know about Salt before? Why wouldn’t she just tell me? “Look, I know that you have a lot of questions, but what I’m about to tell you… you can’t tell anypony else on the crew.” She pressed her forehooves together and held them out. “Please, promise me.”

“O-okay?” I said, not really knowing what else to even say. “I promise.”

“Back when I first came down… when I was kicked out of the Enclave, I stayed in a small town just north of Vanhoover named Bridleshade. I only stayed for a little while, tried to reinvent myself there. Mostly what I did, was tried to think of what to do with my life now that I was all alone with nothing.” She smirked as she looked ahead, looking lost in her own, far off thoughts. “The folks in that town were decent. They let me bunk in one of their hotel rooms so long as I helped keep the town cleaned up. Staying with them, I found a marefriend named Jess, who in turn introduced me to Solomon. It was then that I... I started to fall into some bad habits with his friends, and I wasn’t ready to give up who I was because I was new in the wastes.”

“What does…” I cut in, quickly drawing a pained glare from her. Shutting my over eager muzzle, I let her continue.

“After about a month, this… amazing pegasus stallion came in from way down south. Alabaster Mask.” She sighed. “Almost immediately, I found him outside my hotel door. Turns out, he was looking for Pegasi to hire on behalf of Delilah.” Smirking, she looked positively happy again, like none of today had even happened. “Alabaster and I? We hit it off, and almost immediately I knew that I liked him.” Nodding over to me slightly, she bobbed her head. “Almost like with you and Hispano.”

“Well, I took the job, abandoning both Solomon and my marefriend Jess at the time to go south with him. Over the trip, we got to know each other a bit more.” Looking back ahead, I followed her eyes. We’d fallen a bit behind, and Dr. Cipher and Hispano were just rounding a corner up ahead. “In the month it took us to get back, we’d become closer than just friends. Which was when he finally felt comfortable to show me...” She looked at me, right into my eyes. “...just who and what he really was.”

“A Changeling?” I guessed. She gave me a nod and crossed her forehooves, hovering a bit higher.

“Sure, I was a little freaked out. I wasn’t sure if he’d been lying to me this whole time or had just been using me to sustain himself emotionally. That’s what only some of them do, by the way. Some of them feed on love and other emotions.” She let out a warm sigh this time, slightly drifting back and forth across the tunnel. “But... it wasn’t like that with him. He told me he was the last of his hive, the only survivor of the slaughter of his whole family. He wasn’t one of those who needed to take love from others, he was just lonely, and he really did care about me. Better yet, he actually loved me back enough that he wanted to be with me for the rest of his days.”

So… he was afraid to show her what he really was? Maybe… maybe that’s what happened with Salt? Could he just be afraid of what I’d think? “So… what did you do?”

“Hah.” She laughed and rolled her eyes. “I was the biggest idiot in the wastes and married the poor jerk.” Looking down at me, her expression hitched for a moment as her grin turned into a nervous smirk. “Not saying that’s what’s in store for you and Hispano, but you speaking up earlier? It just kinda… hit me again. You’re right where I was when I came down, so who am I to judge who you like?” Putting her hoof onto my shoulder, she gave me a firm pat. “Look, the truth is, down here in the wastes? You should feel lucky if you can find somepony, or anyone who makes you feel a little better about living down here.”

Well, other than the fact that she seemed too young for me, far too brash, and lacking in the specific anatomical parts I tend to like, Hispano was someone I could consider a friend...ish. I’m not even sure if she ever would want to go further in the first place, as she could like mares for all I know! But, I got what Violet was saying, and I think it’s advice that I should hold onto. Even if things haven’t really been going my way recently.

“So!” I spoke up, more to stop the outrageous train of thought screaming out of control in my head, rather than to break up the silence. “You… love a changeling than?” Turning around the bend, the Doc and Hispano were already halfway down this hall. At the end was another intersection, so I should probably pay attention to which way they turned.

“More than anypony I’ve ever met.” Violet nodded and curved around the bend in the tunnel. “Yeah, Alabaster can be a bit infuriating at times, but… I just can’t help but love the bastard.”

Wow. I mean, I know it wasn’t something I’d thought about before, but with everypony on the crew being alone, with the exception of Gearbox and Boiler that is, I’d never thought to ask if she’d had any family. “Do... you think he misses you?”

“What?” She scrunched up her muzzle and snirked. “You kidding? He can’t get enough time away from me on this trip.”

Something felt like it snapped in my mind. Not something big, but it was enough that I stopped walking. “What do you mean?” Looking up at her, I was genuinely confused. “He’s here with us?”

“Okay, I didn’t mean to tell you that… but since I told you everything else, I can’t let a question like that eat away at you.” Nervously, she rubbed her forehooves together. “This is the part you can’t tell anypony else. Even if Delilah asks, you didn’t know, and I never told you. Got it?” Floating in close, she dropped her voice to a whisper. “Since Alabaster had gone up north before, and Delilah didn’t want anypony recognizing him, she had him change his disguise.” Then, it hit me. Oh goddesses, why didn’t I think of it before? He’s the only odd one out! “At first, I wasn’t a fan of his want to go with ‘Hardcase, the smart talking and generally cheery unicorn’. But, he does love to roleplay his characters.”

“So that’s why he said he’s not interested in anypony else…” I lightly gasped as everything in my mind chugged forward like gears coated in molasses. Still, if he could change shape, it would explain his perfectly sculpted flanks...

“What was that?” Violet asked with a cocked eyebrow and a smile.

“Hey!” The loud ZOT of Hispano’s energy weapon accompanied her panicked shouts.

Violet gave a heavy flap of her wings and shot forward through the air. I did my best to wade myself faster through the thick sludge, but I just couldn’t move that fast. In fact, I’d only made it a few steps before she disappeared right around the corner ahead.

“Hispano?” Violet called out. If she couldn’t be seen, that definitely wasn’t good.

With a coughing gasp, Hispano popped her head out of the sludge and fought her way to the surface. Taking in deep breaths, she angrily wicked the green sludge off of her head feathers and looked around.

“Where the fuck did he go?” She growled, doing her best to spin around while still mostly submerged.

“What happened?” I called out, finally wading my way close enough that Hispano could latch onto me while trying to glare me to death.

“The fucking asshole ditched me is what.” She snapped, clawing at my side as she pulled herself onto my back. Cringing at the sharp claws jabbing at my sides, I was surprised at how much she weighed for her size. “Said his office was up there.” Pointing her claw up and past my muzzle, she directed us toward another metal grate in the ceiling. “Then he pulled me down and tried to drown me in this shit before taking off further into the tunnel.”

“Then if he didn’t go up, he must be headed for the armory.” Violet sighed, flapping up toward the rusting grate and pushing up hard. The old metal gave a cringe inducing metallic squeal as it pushed up. The ripping of old fabric met our ears as well, as Violet pushed the grating up right through the musty carpet above. With an ease that I wished I could afford, she flapped her wings once more and pushed both the grating up all the way on it’s hinge, and propelled herself up into the room above. “Alright, at least he wasn’t lying. This looks like an office of some sort. The terminal in here even still works.”

“I’ll get to cracking it.” Hispano cood from atop my back. With a few flaps of her own wings, she too flew up into the open room.

Which of course, left me standing shoulder deep in the green muck. All alone. In the dark. Unfolding my wings, I flapped hard. My wings beat the air, slapping against the surface of the muck with wet smacks. Still, the downward pull that the muck gave might as well have been glue, because I wasn’t going anywhere.

“Hello?” I called up to the others. I knew that they didn’t mean to leave me down here, it’s just that if anything happened to them, I don’t think I’d ever get out of this place. Thankfully, quite promptly, I found Violet and Hispano both poke their heads back over the open hole in the floor. Both of them were offering mirrored nervous smiles that helped me know that they hadn’t meant to leave me like this. “A little help?” I whined, flapping my pitiful wings a few more times.

If we ever get out of this mess, I’ll make note to never get stuck in a place like this ever again.

Ten minutes of trying different ways for them to lift me out of that muck, and Hispano had an ingenious idea. While she got to cracking open the good Doctor’s terminal, she had Violet nearly drop the plush couch onto me from the well furnished office. Even with her mostly healed broken leg, she’d easily pushed the heavy couch down the hole. While it made a good enough ramp for me to pull myself out of the muck, I’d wondered just who the hell needed a couch in their office.

“Really. That was it?” Hispano huffed, running her talons across the old terminal keys noisily. Spinning around in the old desk chair she was perched in, she didn’t seem too worried about our current predicament. “Maniacal. His password was maniacal.” I didn’t really get what was wrong with that as a password, but I was more surprised that she’d gotten into the computer in the first place than anything.

“How’d you learn to do that?” I asked, drawing a very proud look out of the small griffon.

“Learned how to do it when I was younger.” She shrugged it off like it was nothing. “Dad had me learn all the technical stuff about talon work way earlier than my sister ever did, or before any of the other talon trainees were required to for that matter.”

Cracking her talons, she sat back in the old desk chair. “I started learning weapon and armor maintenance at six. Spoken languages and terminal coding started at eight. Aerial maneuvers and flight combat at ten, followed by recon and survival training starting at twelve. Used that bit of training for my improvised magical energy weapon here.” Looking back at the screen with a wide smile, she clapped her talons together excitedly. “A talon has to be ready for any and all obstacles on the job. We’re not all just flying battle birds you know!”

“That’s… amazing.” I said slowly. I couldn’t imagine doing any one of those things at her age, let alone all of them. The life of a talon sounded rough, and like a lightswitch, her very sharp and to the point nature earlier clicked with me. She was training to be a soldier, but she was still young. Her naturally energetic and bubbly personality still showed through.

Getting back to typing, she squinted as she talked. “Well, I don’t know about amazing, but I am pretty much the coolest griff you’ll ever know.” With a sigh, she sat back a little as she continued her work. “Hell, if it weren’t for Solomon, I’d probably be headed into Talon certification back in our hometown of ‘Claw right about now. Not that I want to be a Talon...”

I cringed slightly as she mentioned Solomon’s name, closing my eyes and praying to the goddesses that Violet was too busy spacing out to have heard that.

“What.” Violet spoke up for the first time in minutes, sending a shiver up my spine with just how cold her tone was. “You… I fucking knew you were lying!” She spread her wings and lowered herself to the floor. She was like a coiling spring, ready to release and tackle Hispano. “You’re Cora’s kid, aren’t you.”

As stupid as it was, and as much as it would suck, I did the same. Lowering myself to the floor, I didn’t need to spring nearly as much as Violet, but I didn’t have to. Pushing myself up and flaring my wings, I made myself as big of a target as I could.

Of course, Violet hadn’t expected it, springing forward and slamming into my chest hard. Oh goddesses did it hurt as I felt all of the air in my lungs forcibly shoved out of me. Of course, it also didn’t feel very good to slam down against the large, wooden desk behind me. Crumpling like cardboard, I curled as much as I could when I hit the floor. Writhing and whining like I was, it had still been a better alternative to Violet and Hispano duking it out.

“Ah, fuck.” Violet seethed as she pulled off of me. Looking up at her, a crimson line of blood flowed down from a gash just above her eyebrow from where she’d hit the desk. She grunted through her clenched jaw as she patted at the bloody wound, looking down at me angrily. “What the hell, Bombay? Why defend her?”

“Because he likes me.” Hispano chimed in with a mocking voice.

“No.” I snapped. Even though most of my chest still hurt, I fought past the pain. “I did it because we’re all friends.” Looking over from Violet to Hispano, I was happy to see that wipe the smirk off her beak. “I may not have known either of you for long, but you both helped me out when I needed it. Even though you didn’t have to, you both did.”

Hispano rolled her eyes and huffed enough to brush her head plumage back a bit. “Yeah, and you still owe me for that.”

“Yeah, well if you want to get paid back, then I expect you not to fight with Violet.” I sighed, turning back to Violet. All I managed to see was a blurry velvet blue hoof in my face before I found myself painfully fall onto the floor again.

“That’s for my fucking eye.” She huffed angrily as well. “But seriously, you like her!? She and her dad work for Solomon.”

A small electronic whine pulled Violet’s attention up to the desk. Even from my spot on the floor here, I could see the glowing tip of Hispano’s makeshift energy pistol pointed right at Violet’s muzzle.

“Just my dad works for Solomon, but you already knew that, because you’re his informant.” Hispano snarled as she held the pistol stiffly down at Violet. “Aren’t you.”

Informant? Violet knew Hispano’s dad!?

“Woah woah!” I called out as I scrambled up to my hooves. Looking back and forth between the cold glares the two of them gave each other, I was feeling more confused by the minute. “Can somepony please tell me what’s going on here!?”

“Sure, Dum Dum.” Hispano smirked. “Violet here isn’t working for Delilah. She’s still working for Solomon.”

“Don’t listen to her, Night.” Violet smirked, but didn’t even flinch from her cold glare. “She’s just going to try to divide us. She works for Solomon, and that’s what he wants. For all of us to turn on each other.” Violet’s smirk died as Hispano adjusted her grip on the ponytron’s head, and the tip glowed slightly brighter.

“I told you, my dad works for Solomon. I don’t work for anypony.” Hispano laughed. “I always knew that Solomon had somepony on the inside, my dad had to be getting his info from somewhere. Guess I should have known it was you. Solomon always did seem to have a habit of finding the most loyal kind of cannon fodder to work for him.” Violet grimaced at that particular usage of loyal.

“Violet…” I almost couldn’t speak. While I had no reason to believe Hispano, I… couldn’t dismiss the fact that she could be telling the truth. She’d been honest about things with me so far on our trip, so much as to be overly blunt about things like killing the stallion on the Empirica. Why would she lie now? “Violet, is this true?”

“Fine, you know what?” She pulled her gaze from Hispano, her eyes wavering. “Fuck it. Yes.” She laughed at me. I felt myself get lightheaded, and I’m sure I went pale as a cloud. How could she lie like that… to everyone on the crew? “But you don’t know Solomon, Night. Not like I do.” She shook her head as tears began to drip down her cheek. “Only a suicidal idiot would stand up against him. He could wipe out Delilah and the others if he wanted, but this is all a big game to him. And until he gets bored, they still have a chance to live.”

“But… you told me about Alabaster!” I stuttered, scrambling to hold on to my thoughts as I tried to understand why she would do this. “You said you fell in love with him! That he convinced you to join up with Delilah!”

“I...“ She snorted and sat down hard. “The plan was always to join up with Delilah. Alabaster…? He was something I wasn’t prepared for.” Looking up at me, she steeled her gaze and smiled. “But I do love him, and I’ll make sure that Solomon won’t touch him. You… I helped you because you were just like me, cast down from the Enclave with no idea of what to do with yourself. You’re just like me, Night. We’re survivors. I did what I had to in order to survive down here, and I made friends that helped me do just that. Solomon helped me get back on my hooves, and he could do the same for you! You don’t have to take Delilah’s side, you can leave her and come work for him!”

“That’s enough.” Hispano cut her off by shoving the side of the energy weapon against Violet’s head. “Dum Dum might be the only innocent one among all of us, so I suggest you avoid dragging him into this.”

“He’s already in this.” Violet glared through her wavering eyes at Hispano. “But he won’t have forever to choose a side. Solomon will catch up with us eventually.” Getting up slowly, she turned toward the doorway and stopped. “You know what, Hispano? You’re father is already on thin ice with Solomon for refusing to do the dirty work he wants. It’d be a shame if I were to tell Solomon directly that his daughter was an informant for Delilah.”

The metal in Hispano’s talon creaked as she tightened her grip on it. This was getting out of control. No, it was already way out of control! And if something didn’t happen soon, I’d watch as one of the two killed each other, and that’s not something any of us needed right now!

“Hispano, she won’t do that.” I growled. “Not if she wants to keep her loyalties a secret from Delilah.”

Violet smirked. “Well look at that. There may be hope for you yet, Night.” A soft beep on the terminal Hispano had been working on pulled our attentions. “However, I suggest we try to figure a way out of here first. Otherwise none of us are going to have a chance to do anything at all with the rest of our lives.”

“Yeah, yeah. She’s right, we need to get out of here first.” Hispano said as she hopped back down behind the desk, quickly tapping at the terminal. “This transcript here says that things just went from bad, to worse.” Hitting a key, a static filled audio file began to play throughout the room.

“Please state your name for the record.” The voice that played was that of Doctor Cipher. Though, it was less scratchy than it was earlier, so this must have been at some point in the past.

“Sum, please, you don’t have to do this!” Another stallion’s voice came up, pleading to him. The stallion’s voice wavered slightly before he whimpered and began crying. “We’re… we’re friends, you and I… how can you do this to us? You heard the radio, felt the blast! The world above is gone, there’s no need to continue!”

“Of course I have to do this, Dr. Zedeek. We are both stallions of science, so you must understand the importance of finding out what this unusual necromantic effect on us has during the glyph mark removal process. And with you being the only zebra staff member afflicted by this necromantic effect without the accompanying insanity, your sacrifice toward securing the future of this scientific field is a necessity.”

“Please, Cipher. Don’t do this…” The other stallion broke down into tears. “We’re friends…”

The second stallion was cut off as the audio log became a mess of electrical snaps, painfully loud screams, and various mumbling from Dr. Cipher. It was hard to listen to as it went on, seeming to only end once the screaming had died down into nothingness.

“Dr. Sum Cipher, project log update zero one seven. Upon first inspection, it looks like the glyph mark removal process proceeded to go as predicted.” Dr. Cipher remarked calmly. “Subject Seventeen seems to have survived the process physically. No preliminary signs of delayed endothermic chain apparition or disintegration. Attempting to rouse the subject to consciousness to verify mental stability.”

The room around us fell eerily silent. Hispano’s eyes were glued wide as she simply stared at the glowing screen. And even Violet’s smirk had died as we listened in.

It started as a quiet murmur on the recording. I strained myself to listen in to understand it, but as it had before, it quickly became a non issue.

“Hehe… friend… Hahahaha!”

With a click, the audiolog ended, and left us all in uncomfortable silence. That is, until a sharp ping came over the intercom system.

“Hehehe!” The stallion, Dr. Zedeek that is, laughed maddeningly. “Now you know why we’re all friends! Why I brought you here!” Looking up at the ceiling, I focused in on the small hole where the loudspeaker must have been. “Please… hehe… Join me in the security room.” Snickering like he was, he wasn’t really instilling me with any confidence this wasn’t some sort of ploy. “We’re going to have a party for Dr. Cipher… the one I’ve been planning for so long! Hahaha!”

“Shit…” I sighed. “What do we do?”

“If you come, I’ll release the lockdown and let you all go home afterward! But first, we need to surprise Dr. Cipher with his gift.” That was an… oddly prompt answer.

“He… can hear us?” I asked out loud, looking over to Hispano. She offered a shrug and looked back to the terminal.

“That’s right! Hehe!” He giggled at us. Well, that answers that I guess. “But you must hurry! Dr. Cipher is on his way to ruin the party! If he does, he’ll make you all become friends with him like… heehee… like I did!”

“Yeah, fuck that.” Violet said, rubbing her cheeks with her forehoof. Reaching up, she hoofed at a large button on the wall. The metal bulkhead door hissed as it slid open, leading out into a dark hallway. Without another word, she flapped her wings and drifted up and out through the doorway. I wanted to say something to her, but I just couldn’t find the words to use. Why was she working for Solomon? Granted I haven’t met the stallion, but if he was really as bad as he’d been made out to be, surely she knew how badly things could go...

“Come on, Dum Dum.” Hispano said with a flap of her wings. “I’m not getting left behind down here by her.” Pausing as she grabbed her makeshift gun and stepped away from her desk, she looked at me for a moment with an oddly soft look. “But look, Night. I know a lot of lies have been thrown around down here. And I don’t know if what you said before about liking me was real, or just another lie, but… you’re not so bad yourself. Because of that, I need to say this.”

“Sometimes traveling with my Dad is fun.” She offered only a momentary smile at that. “Most days though, I’m left alone. And for the first time, I’ve found somepony who doesn’t hate me for being a griffon. Somepony, who I can be with as a friend. Maybe… even more than a friend…” With a blush brighter than the lights above, she used her normal energetic speed to zip over to my side. Warmly, she pressed up against me and before I could even react, she kissed me right in the muzzle. As my brain screeched to a halt, she pulled away again. “We’ll talk about the future of us later though. For now, let’s kill this asshole and get out of here.” Zipping forward again, she darted through the air and out into the hallway as well.

That… was unexpected.

“You coming or what!?” Hispano squawked from down the hall, jumpstarting my brain again. Quickly, I pushed myself forward and out the door at a gallop. Hopefully we could just find this crazy stallion, do what he wanted, and just go home.

Not that I’d have any sort of home to return to shortly…

“Hehehe!” The pale and ragged stripe skinned former Doctor giggled incessantly from his security chair as the three of us entered the control center. He was in much better shape physically than both Dr. Cipher and the Inuvik’s captain were, but he was completely bald across his whole maneline. His bright green eyes jumped around between us at a dizzying pace, each jump accompanied by a small twitch in his side. “Welcome, welcome! The fun is about to begin!”

Before us sat a wall sized bank of flashing lights and large terminal monitors. Each one blinked and flickered in their own respects, except the one sitting at the center of them all was a constant display. On the large screen, an outline of the maze like facility was displayed. Red sections on it showed the word ‘damage’ over more than half of the rooms, and the section marked ‘prisoners’ was etched out by red digital lines. The worrying blocky letters that spelled out ‘Terminated’ sat flashing underneath it.

“Send us back.” Violet grunted, taking the lead between Hispano and I.

“Now now, hehehe!” The former doctor waved his forehoof lazily at us. For a moment, he diverted his gaze and watched his own hoof. Wiggling it, he followed it with his eyes, seeming entranced with it before a crooked smile crept across his cracked and split lips. “The guest of honor has yet to arrive!”

“I don’t care.” She snorted back at him before turning her gaze to Hispano. “Use your gun and make him send us back.”

Hispano scrunched up her face. “Why? I don’t work for you or Solomon.”

Facehoofing hard, Violet shuddered and quaked in compressed rage. I’d never seen her angry like this before, not even when she scolded me for leaving her to chase Salt. With a sigh that sounded more like a leaking steam pipe, she went still for a moment.

“I will ask you, one. more. time.” Somehow, she found a way to make her voice sound even more hollow than before. If it were me with the gun, I’d have hoofed it over and subsequently curled into the tiniest ball I could to mitigate the boiling rage storm to come. “Do it now, or I will kill you and take the gun myself.”

A soft click pre-empted Violet going stiff for a moment again. This time however, she relaxed as her cutie mark branding again glowed softly.

“Hehehe, I do love the toys around here.” Dr. Zedeek giggled as he pressed the button on the small remote on his hooves. “I wanted to give one to Dr. Cipher for a while, hahahaha! But that was too nice. Not enough friendship in complacency! Haha!” Looking over at Hispano and I, he canted his head to the side and rolled his eyes down towards his flank in a dramatic fashion. “It used to help me, but…” Looking down, my eyes became transfixed on what appeared to be a gaping hole in his flank. It was like somepony had drilled a hole into him, but… instead of his insides, it stretched on into a deep, dark void of nothingness. “You can’t control nothing! Hehehe!”

“That’s enough!” The angry shout of Dr. Cipher called out through the doorway behind us. Hispano and I stepped aside, turning just in time to see the Doctor standing in the hallway clad in full riot gear, fancy ballistic helmet on and everything. He was outfitted with a battle saddle as well, with a pair of shotguns sitting close to his sides. “Everypony give up right now and we can all pretend like this never happened.”

“No, hehe! Don’t listen to him!” Dr. Zedeek giggled and panicked at the same time. That however was about as far as he got before the loud blast of a shotgun silenced him. He snapped against the back of his chair with a solid crack, gasping for air as he was hit in the chest. A small square of fabric flopped off his chest. It looked like a nonlethal beanbag round. Dr. Zedeek was down for now, but not out. And with only non lethal anti-riot ammo, we could afford to choose who to support.

“You’ll send us back?” I asked Dr. Cipher, hopeful that he’d say yes and just want us out of his facility. I mean, we weren’t supposed to be here anyway, so I doubt he’d want us around.

“You aren’t supposed to be here.” He snapped, mirroring my own thoughts for a moment. “Of course you can’t ever leave. This is a highly secret and restricted facility! I can’t have you leaving here with the knowledge of it’s whereabouts!”

“Not really selling us on your side, Doc.” Hispano spoke, slowly inching backwards.

“I don’t have to.” He retorted, shifting his aim. “It’s for the good of Equestria that we remain a secret!”

“Going to have to disagree with you.” Hispano smirked, gripping tighter around her makeshift energy weapon. Goddesses, this was about to go down, and unless Hispano had an opening...

Going for the stupid but sure bet again, I crouched down and flared my wings. Dr. Cipher caught my movement and readjusted his focus. Jumping up into the air, I flapped as hard as I could to make myself a target again. My wings worked well down here, carrying me up higher than either Dr. Cipher or I had anticipated. Both shotguns barked out their shots with a ear shattering blast, sailing under me and into some of the terminals on the wall behind me.

With the doctor momentarily stunned at his miss, Hispano made her move. With the same speed and energy as her normally hyperactive self, she took flight like a bolt. With a hard thwap, she slammed right against the chest of the Doctor. I’d almost thought she’d messed up for a moment as both of them shook off the hit. However, Hispano barely tipped up the Protectapony head in her talon before she pushed it against the throat of the Doctor.

With a bright red flash, the inside of the riot helmet caught fire, and the Doctor himself turned into nothing more than a very fine pile of pink ash. His gear clattered to the floor noisily. The empty burning helmet bounced and rolled itself a bit before coming to a rest just next to the doorframe.

“There.” Hispano spat, turning around with an angry look. “The bastard is dead.” Turning the protectapony head over toward Dr. Zedeek, she glared at him. “Now send us back.”

“Hah…ugh… hah...” Dr. Zedeek laughed and groaned in slow gasping breaths. “Thank you…” Nodding, he grunted and pulled himself back up in his seat. From the way his chest sat, I’d say he’d probably had a pair of broken ribs. “I have waited so long for that.” He said, the pain dropping out of his voice a lot faster than I would have thought it would. Still, like before, a smile jumped across his muzzle. “Hehe… I will free you, friend. Just as I promised.”

“Thank you.” Lowering the robot’s head, Hispano sighed and looked to relax all at once.

“Though, I do have one tiny winey warning to give you… hehehe!” He giggled as he spun himself around in his chair. Even though his chest looked like it had been mutilated on the inside, he acted like it no longer hurt him. Maybe that condition helps to keep you from feeling pain. I don’t know. “The lockdown… hehehe… it activated the chip in your head…”

“What’s that mean?” I asked, worried that no matter what, we weren’t ever going to be leaving this place.

“Failsafe protocol memory dampeners in the Haycartes Transfer… hehehaha!” He giggled, slowing his playful spinning in the chair until he was looking at us again. “Prisoners can have their things back that were taken, but aren’t allowed to remember their time here! No friendship lessons can leave, hehe!”

“So… you’ll wipe our memories?” I… I wanted to leave, but if it meant forgetting who I was, who I am… who my parents were? I’d rather die down here. At least they’d still be my parents then.

“No no no! Hehehe! Only your time here!” He laughed and turned back toward the security controls. Almost with a reckless flailing of his hooves, he started to push all sorts of glowing buttons and flick a whole lot of switches. “Just about the last… five hours or so! Isn’t that fun!?”

“We’ve been down here for Five hours!?” Hispano and I both shouted in unison.

“Goodbye, friends!” He giggled as he hit a few more buttons and spun himself around in the chair again. “Weeee, I’m freeeeee! Hehe!”

Looking over to Hispano, I only got to see a sad smile form on her beak before a bright flash took Her, Violet, and I away again.

A limited memory wipe wouldn’t be all bad, I suppose. Violet wouldn’t have been found out, Hispano won’t think I care for her, and I won’t have made the mistakes I did here. Really, if it worked, this would all be like it had never even happened.

But that’s not quite true, is it? All of it did happen, even if we wouldn’t remember it. The fact is that I screwed up, Violet’s a traitor, and Hispano… well, she didn’t deserve to be led on by me. One thing I’m starting to think, is that I’m jinxed. Disaster always strikes around me, and trouble hitches a ride wherever I go.

And if I don’t leave, or find a way to fix this, I’m going to bring nothing but the worst kind of trouble down on her and the rest of Delilah’s crew. Maybe even onto Hispano, or some ponies who don’t deserve it at all. Hell, while I might be the survivor that Violet said I was, one of these days I might get somepony else I care for killed.

And that?

That’s what scared me the most…

Author's Notes:

Wowee, it's finally time to put this up! I wrote this chapter straight off the back of chapter 8 to preserve the absence of character growth up until now. It feels good to finally post this one up and get this big reveal out there! I really do hope you all enjoy it!

Once again, thanks to TheFurryRailfan for helping with the final edits to the chapter. He's really been a major help in keeping this story up to par, and you should all go thank him for it as well!