“C’mon now, careful of the aurora,” Barry told the rest of his co-workers as they loaded the creature onto the stretcher. “We have no idea if it’s safe to touch.” He breathed heavily through his chemical mask and grunted as they placed the asset down, he stepped back and wished he could wipe the sweat off his brow, or better yet his whole body. He was sweating heavily inside his biohazard suit, taking a deep breath he pointed at his mates. “Push it to the CT room and get it ready, I’m going to go take a shower.” The rest of the men nodded and barry turned and waddled out of the room test chamber the creature had damaged during the last test.

On his way out, the crack in the one way window stopped Barry. He gazed at the large crevice in the glass pane, his eyes scrutinizing the damage, it was a wonder the thing had even cracked it, let alone rip the bolted down table out of the ground. “Gary,” Barry called to one of the scientist who were rolling the creature out.

“Yes, Doctor?” The man straightened out, his voice muffled by his mask as well.

Barry gestured towards the creature. “I want you to add another round of sedatives to that thing, I don’t want it waking up during the scan. A regular human dosage should do.” The other man bowed slightly before turning away and barking an order at the rest of the men to push the thing out of the room.

Barry hung the hazmat suit up for decontamination and stepped back just as the machine began spraying down the suit. Taking a breath he turned and also stepped into decontamination, opening his arms, the machine worked quickly in spraying him down, also washing off a good amount of sweat as well. Taking a deep breath once decontamination was complete, he stepped out of the chamber and into the main lab where a dozen or so of his team members ran about, going over the last test’s data and running simulations and what not. Stretching his arms he glanced at his digital watch and then the clock on the wall just to make sure before smiling softly, he began to head towards the exit doors. On his way out he tapped one of his teammates at a computer.

“Charlie, if anyone asks I’m just going on my lunch,” Barry told the man.

“Sure thing, Doc,” The man said from over his shoulder, his eyes glued to a matrix that was displayed on the monitor.

“What’s that?” Barry asked curiously as he turned to examine the matrix himself.

“It’s the data from the text before that thing went berserk. I’ve been checking most of the bio readings trying to figure out how that thing managed to rip that table from the floor,” Charlie muttered quietly and grabbed his water and took a sip. “But I’m not detecting any form of energy or disturbance from within the chamber, it’s as if the thing just magically flung the table as if it had the force or something.”

Barry blinked. “Keep looking it over, you might just be missing it, if not we’ll just have to run another test with different equipment.” He straightened himself out and exited the lab.

Charlie glanced over his shoulder sighed. “God, I hate this job,” he muttered before turning back to the computer.

Barry poured himself another cup and sipped it quietly inside the employee rec room. Taking a breath he ran over everything that had happened on the last test in his head along with what General Myer had told him.

“Twenty four hours and if nothing comes up we’re doing it my way!” He mentally paraphrased to himself.

“Guess I’ll be pulling another all nighter,” Barry muttered and sat his cup down before reaching back and rubbing his neck. A small tingle he hadn’t noticed before dissipating with the rubbing, he let his hand drop back down and he took a deep breath before reaching into his pocket for his cellphone, only to remember that it was locked away. “Damn restrictions...” he muttered quietly, reminding himself that cellphones weren’t permitted inside the facility.

Picking his mug up he went over to table and pulled out a chair, taking a seat he took another sip and began to think about home, but not the house the government was letting him stay in. No. His real home, the one he grew up in outside of Ranger City right on the coast of the great lakes in the midwestern portion of the United Northern Republic. Back when he remembered experiencing four seasons instead of what only felt like two; winter and spring.

Barry hated being up here in the north; he hated freezing his ass off or only being slightly chilled. If he could, he’d pack his shit and move to the Southern Union and continue his research in a nice, Brazilian house. Yet, no...he couldn’t, because apparently a nice, temperate environment would be a terrible place for a secret research project.

Instead, how about, we follow the troupe of putting the super secret base far north and deep inside some godforsaken mountains! Perfect!

Barry shivered. “Y’know...if they’d just turn up the heater it wouldn’t be so bad,” he grumbled and then jolted a bit when the mounted phone on the wall started to ring. He placed his cup on the table and went over and tapped the answer symbol on the phone pad.

“Is this Doctor Heinrich?” Came a distinct voice, the Eastern Federation accent confirmed for Barry that it was his friend Hiro on the other line.

“Yes, Hiro, it’s me,” Barry coughed into his fist. “I take it that everything’s set up for the neural check?”

“Hai, everyting is ‘eddy.” His heavy accent caused Barry to crack a smile and even though Hiro couldn’t see it, he was nodding.

“Alright, I’ll be down in a few minutes.” Barry went to hang up but stopped. “Have you guys injected any more sedatives into it?” He asked.

“No. But I wir get ight to it,” Hiro said and the transmission ended, taking a breath Barry went and finished his coffee before exiting the rec room.

“Subject’s heart rate is stable.”

“Neural detectors are functioning.”

“Neural patterns seem stable.”

“ So far there are no interferences.”

“Excellent,” Barry said as he finished the routine checklist before the experiment. “How are we for a clean procedure?” He asked as he took a seat beside his computer, his eyes scanning over the plexiglass displaying the asset laying comfortably inside the CT scan.

Doctor Hiro Hamada, who stood beside Barry, shrugged. “Wit the amount of sedatives we had injected, it is onry posibru––” He cleared his throat and took a second before speaking back up. “It is only possible, that the asset were to remain under.”

Barry chuckled lightly and nodded his head. “Alright then, Doctor, initiate the experiment.”

Hiro nodded before turning away. “Hai!” He gestured towards the men and woman by the machine. “Daremoga, shītīsukyan o kaishi!” His tone almost sounding threatening. Nodding their heads the men and women turn to activate the machine, a deep hum shortly filled the room and the lights dimmed.

“Say, Doctor, what if the asset were to wake up?” Barry asked as he turned to face Hiro who scoffed quietly.

“Doctor Heinrich, I can assure you, we had put enough sedatives in that thing to kill a man,” Hiro chuckled lightly. “And besides, if it would wake up, we have two armed guards and inch thick plexiglass to protect us.” He smiled.

Barry smiled a little and nodded. “Your optimism is refreshing, Doctor Hamada,” He said, “If only I could say the same for the rest of the U.G.N.”

“Agreed.” Hiro stepped forward and glanced at one of his people and tapped her on the shoulder, Barry raised an eyebrow to the two of them but couldn’t understand due to not knowing Japanese.

“Is something wrong?” Barry asked quietly as he stepped towards the two.

Hiro glanced back and nodded. “Yes everything is fine, we just detected some kind of anomaly.”

“Wait what? That’s not fine,” Barry stepped towards the monitor and glanced at the screen, it was displaying live footage of the creature's brain patterns. Yet something seemed to be interfering with the feed.

The woman working the computer mentioned something in Japanese and Hiro nodded his head, Barry blinked and looked at him. “What’d she say?”

“Could just be something with the hard or software, we might need to reboot the experiment,” Hiro let off a deep breath but was then stopped by a man on the other side of the room shouting something in Japanese.

Barry gritted his teeth, he never liked working with the foreign teams. “What’s he saying?” He asked Hiro who immediately rushed past Barry and ran towards the man.

Hiro gazes at the monitor before gasping, looking up he starts shouting in Japanese, suddenly an alarm from the machine started to go haywire, a red light flashing which signaled that something was moving within. Hiro moved away from the computer and jogged back over to Barry, his eyes filled with worry.

“Doctor Hamada, what the hell is going on?” Barry jammed a finger towards the machine. “Why is the movement light flashing?”

The man bit his lip and looked at Barry. “I can’t believe it but...it woke up.”

Luna groaned and rolled over, her head throbbing as if somepony had smacked her with a hammer. Ears twitching she bit her lip as this ringing sounded pounded against her aching head. It wasn’t as near as bad as the one she had experienced in her dream...yet...Luna stopped moving for a moment, though her ears rung and her head ached, she stopped and listened to the sound.

She hadn’t awoken from any dream. The surface she was laying on wasn't’ her bed, and the gods be damned she did not have an alarm that sounded anything as horrendous as what was blaring above her head. Oh no, she had not been dreaming.

Luna slowly opened her eyes and was greeted with darkness which was occasionally extinguished by a red light that flashed off and on, with each flash Luna could make out that she was inside some kind of metallic tube. Blinking she glanced upwards and saw a dead end; however, upon looking down saw another dead end. Her eyes widened as she began to panic, was she inside some kind of coffin? Had the being that wanted to play imprisoned her for breaking the table?

Luna began to breathe in and out heavily, she needed to get out, there was no way she could stay within this metal tomb. Weakly, she extended her leg out kicked the metal wall with hoof, only to his when she felt something prick her arm. The Princess bit her lip and looked at her arm to see a thin, string like bit connecting to a pad attached to right foreleg. Craning her head to look down at her body she hissed and realized her entire body had these string like connectors all over her, including bits of her face.

Fear immediately fell over the alicorn for she had not expected to find what she saw, for that the fear of the unknown kindled within her and was now finally starting to inch out of her. Shaking her head she muttered under her breath, “No, no, let me out!” Her voice rose as she started to buck the metal wall, all of her years of training to keep her composure now falling within a matter of what felt like minutes.

Luna began to growl and kick the wall harder, ignoring the prickling pain of the connectors attached to her body. Her anger and fear boiling, she felt the faint hum of magic in her chest. Concentrating all of her effort Luna let forth another blast of energy similar to the one she used in the white room. Suddenly, her ears were wracked with the terrible sound of shrieking metal being torn apart as light spilled out before her, blinding her retinas and forcing he to clench her eyelids shut.

Then something unexpected happened; as the sound of screeching metal disappeared, Luna was suddenly met with the sounds of terrified screams. Opening her eyes Luna noticed the faint outlines of bipedal creatures of all shapes and sizes scrambling frantically away from her. Blinking a few times to let her vision adjust, she began to make out the details of clothed beings nearly the same height of her running towards metallic entrance on the other side of the metal and concrete room she was in.

“Everyone get out, we have a containment breach!”

“Guards shoot it! Shoot the damn thing!”

Through the madness, Luna spotted two heavily clothed creatures charging towards her wielding what looked to be large, black clubs. Out of sheer panic of one of the creatures potentially hitting her, Luna lifted her magic and created a bubble shield around herself, a rather weak one from what she could feel. The sound around her muffled as the bubble took shape, though despite the distorted sounds, she flinched when a loud, sharp crack silenced everything around her.

Luna yelped loudly when extremely powerful object stuck her bubble at a small specific spot which literally forced her back into the now destroyed, metal tomb. The Alicorn let off a sharp cry when the back of her head thumped against the metal, her knees then buckled and she slumped forward, breathing heavily as her shield dissipated. Whatever had struck her defenses, it had been fast and strong, therefore completely draining her in the process.

Biting her lip, Luna let off a faint whine and kept her head down. Eyes closing she awaited the inevitable; for the final blow to come down on her. Yet nothing happened, the room she was in was completely silent save for the occasional sound of scrambling and sliding objects of creatures moving about.

“Hold your fire!” Came what sounded like a voice from the silent void. “Don’t shoot just yet!”

Luna cracked an eye open and gazed up at her attackers. The heavily clothed creatures with club like objects lowered their weapons when another white clothed being approached them from behind. Aside from the white clothes, Luna could make out its black mane and small, amber colored eyes, its skin was tanned, yellowish color and it also wore what looked like black pants. Luna let off another whine and tried to backpedal from the white coat creature that approached her.

“Doctor Hamada, it’s not safe!” Shouted another creature in similar white clothing, except this one had white colored skin and brown hair, its eyes were also a bit larger and blue.

“Doctor, please––” One of the club baring creatures raised a hand but the yellow skinned one waved a hand back to dismiss the other.

Luna, for the first time in centuries, cowered against the metal object as the white coat being approached her. “Look at it,” The creature began speaking in a tongue Luna could not understand, “It is afraid.”

“That’s exactly why we need you away from it!” The clubbed creature took a step forward and Luna yelped, her wings raising upwards to cover her face.

“Step back!” Hiro glared at the soldier behind him. “If you want me to remain safe you will stay exactly where you.” The doctor turned back towards the creature. “Violence will not teach us the ways of this creature in particular,” he chuckled lightly. “Unlike the others, this one holds great value in that it still possesses its psionic abilities.” His voice was low as to not startled the animal. “But yet it is not trying to use it to escape from us now, how interesting.”

Hamada raised his hand slowly towards the creature. “Hiro, what are you doing?” Barry took a step forward.

Doctor Hamada chuckled. “What does it look like?” He glanced back. “I am seeing if it understands comfort.” With that he looked back and gently rested a hand on Luna’s wing, causing the creature to flinch. Hamada smiled gently, the creature’s wings were soft and seemed well maintained. “Do not worry,” Hiro said as he switched over to speaking his native language. “I will not hurt you.” His voice was softer and calm.

Luna flinched once more and cautiously lowered her wings, her eyes opened and she eeped when she saw the face of the creature smiling at her softly from behind a pair of glasses.