As Principal Cinch slowly rose from her desk, Cadance was already running for the door. There was a sound, like a whip cracking through the air, but Cadance didn't look back to see what it was. She dove into the hall and rolled into a runners crouch before sprinting away as fast as her legs would carry her.

Something caught Cadance's eye as she rounded the corner, the sound of Cinch shrieking behind her ample intensive to keep going, but even so, she paused. It was the fire alarm. Why hadn't she thought of this sooner!? The students didn't necessarily need to know why they were evacuating, just that they needed to. Without hesitating another moment, she smashed the protective glass and yanked the lever down. Immediately emergency bells sounded and the sprinkler system activated.

There was no telling what effect this might have on the already enraged Cinch, but Cadance didn't stick around to find out. She flew down the stairs, leaping them four at a time, before she nearly ran over a wall of students.

As she waded into the student flooded hallway, Cadance risked a glance over her shoulder and was relieved to see the Cinch hadn't pursued her. It seemed that whatever these monsters were planning, they didn't want to reveal themselves to everyone just yet. That was cold comfort to Cadance, especially given the loss of all the students that she suspected had already been devoured. Why did she even doubt it at all anymore after she had seen what had happened to Diamond Tiara?

She couldn't worry about that right now though. For now, the best she could do was save as many students as possible and escape to tell the authorities.

Which she would have done, if it weren't for one problem.

The exits were guarded.

The main entrance had several sets of what looked like concerned parents, helping and guiding students out of the building. They must have just looked like regular volunteers to the students, but Cadance recognized them immediately. These were the parents of students who had 'dropped out', the self same that Cinch had told Cadance not to bother following up with. Each of them wore some kind of eyewear, be it regular glasses, sunglasses, or hats pulled down low so as to obscure their eyes. Cadance couldn't be certain, but she had a pretty good idea of why that might be when one of the parents looked right at her and something squirmed behind her big flashy lenses.

Given what she had seen in Cinch's office, there was only one thing that could mean. The way the adults heads all snapped up at once and followed her movements sealed it for Cadance. She turned, and pushing against the flow of students, headed for another exit.

And another.

And another.

Every last one had one or two guards, and their glares as Cadance approached forced her to retreat back into the school every time.

There had to be some other way out! Maybe she could break a window? Surely they couldn't be everywhere!

But as Cadance tried to find a classroom with a suitably large window on ground level, she discovered that several teachers had remained in their classrooms. Each and everyone wore a knowing smile, and something slithered gently just behind their glassy eyes. How deeply had Crystal Prep been infiltrated!? Was she the only adult who was still human?

There was no time to contemplate this horror, however, as the students had all trickled out of the school now. She could see several adults lined up down the corridor, sweeping the halls and checking any rooms that didn't have a smiling teacher within. It was only a matter of time before they spotted Cadance! As they made their way towards her, the thick pink tendrils that hid inside their heads began to wriggle out. As disgusting and horrible as that was, it was their smiles... Their terrible pumpkin grins!

Panic rose in Cadance's thundering heart, but all she could think to do was run again. It was no use! Every corner she turned, their was a line of grinning madmen and women bearing down upon her! The noose was closing shut around her!

There was no escape!

Hope fading, all Cadance could do now was try to hide. A sudden thought struck her. She barged through an unmarked door, and then another, moving out of the publicly accessible parts of the school and into the service and storage rooms that existed behind the scenes. She knew her destination now and, with luck, even if the creatures followed her they wouldn't be able to get in!

Cadance shouldered her way through another door. She could hear the faint sound of pursuit, but the possessed parents and teachers were taking their time.

If Cadance played this right, she just might survive!

Ducking into a hidden alcove, Cadance finally came to the room that was her goal. She slammed the door behind her, locked it, and struggled to move a pile of heavy machinery in front of it.

That done she turned around... And was struck by a sudden wave of nostalgia.

It was all still here.

She suspected it would be, but she didn't expect seeing everything like this to stir such melancholy emotions inside her at a time like this.

'Twilight Sparkle's secret lab.'

It was amusing to think that was how Crystal Prep's honor student had thought of this broom closet, but there was no denying she had turned the space into her own. Computers, laptops, and other devices both modern and decrepit were piled on tables and in corners of the room. It wasn't that the space was untidy, but it was clear that the controlled chaos of a genus mind was well at work here.

Or had been...

It wrenched Cadance's heart afresh seeing the layer of dust that blanketed all of the half finished experiments. How brittle and yellow the bits of paper looked pinned to the cork-board on the wall. This had once been a space alive with the busy industry of a shy, bookish girl that Cadance thought of as a little sister.

Silent as it was now, Cadance couldn't help but think of the lonely, empty grave where they had buried her memory because there wasn't enough of her body left to bury instead.

Such sobering, morbid thoughts calmed Cadance's heart, even as they broke it. She caught her breath and tried to push away the thoughts and emotions that this room brought back. She could feel sad later. Right now she needed to focus on survival.

Already she could hear the doorknob rattling as someone tried to force the lock. So much for this being a good hiding place. It would suck if all Cadance had managed to do was trap herself. But if this was where she had to make her last stand, so be it. She'd defend herself with everything she had!

"There has to be something here I can use," Cadance muttered, eyes darting over the half finished gizmos and science equipment. Talking to herself when she was under stress was a bad habit, but that was the least of her worries if she didn't find something fast. Already the door was shaking, sending the mound of forgotten devices piled against the door falling in a mini avalanche. "Aha!"

Cadance had found a long metal rod buried beneath a mound of notebooks that had been filled with scrawled diagrams and formulas. She went to pick up the would be bludgeon, but found it seemed to be stuck fast to the floor.

The sounds of someone trying to batter down the door had faded now and, to her horror, Cadance could see a thin pink tendril slithering in from underneath the door.

It might not do her any good, but she frantically tried to lift her chosen weapon. Finally, with a loud clunk, the rod came free.

Cadance had just a moment to realize the bar wasn't a bar at all, but some kind of lever before the floor opened beneath her and swallowed her whole.

Welcome.

The voice was robotic, but female, with a slight hiss and pop as though it was coming from an old set of speakers. Cadance couldn't see any speakers, but then she couldn't see anything. She had landed on something soft, that's all she knew, which was a good thing after how long she had fallen down that metal slide into darkness.

Commencing Bio-metric Scan Now

Lights flickered on now as wide green laser beams moved up and down Cadance's body. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, Cadance found herself in a confined space, no larger than a changing room, sitting on a pile of space aged looking cushions in front of what looked like an old fashioned super computer. The machinery looked ancient, with several broken vacuum tubes, but that didn't seem to stop it from functioning.

ERROR

Okay, maybe she had spoken too soon.

Bio-metric Data Does Not Match Parameters

That didn't sound good.

Preparing Pod For Sterilization Of Foreign Biological Matter

That really didn't sound good!

An orange glow rose from below, revealing that the floor was not solid but rather a grate. Tiny gas flames like a million birthday candles had flickered to life. Already the temperature in the enclosure was rising, but Cadance suspected that it was about to get a whole lot hotter in here.

"Help! Help somebody let me out of here!" Cadance screamed. She could be blamed for panicking as she started banging on the bare metal walls. She tried pushing buttons and pulling levers on the rusted computer, but all they did was click and groan uselessly. The flames were licking higher now, some were already high enough that they were flickering up through the grate.

Cadance could no longer take standing on the floor so she hopped back onto the cushions. Sure enough, the soles of her high heels had started to melt, and the smell of singed rubber and burning leather filled her nostrils. The pillows themselves seemed fine... They must be fireproofed for just this purpose, she thought. Which was wonderful for them, but not much help to Cadance right now.

"Can anybody hear me!? I don't want to die!!!" she wailed, tears running down her cheek and evaporating before they reached the floor.

First some alien horror had appeared and devoured one of the students. Then it had turned out Principal Cinch and who else knew how many parents and staff members had been taken over by similar monstrosities. To top it all off, now Cadance was going to fry to a crisp at the bottom of a hole under Twilight Sparkle's old 'secret lab'.

Cadance been pushed well past her breaking point by now and all she could think to do was bury her face in her hands and wait for the end.

She hoped it would be quick.

She doubted it would be painless.

The flames suddenly roared up through the grate, filling her tear blurred vision with white hot fire... Before the flames died down completely and everything was plunged back into darkness.

Manual Override Confirmed. Welcome. Twilight. Sparkle.

The sound of a latch turning was followed by the appearance of a crack of light. The supercomputer facade of the door swung aside, revealing a room so blindingly white that for a moment Cadance wondered if she had died and gone to heaven.

Then she noticed the guns pointed at her.

Men in black uniforms, covered in pouches and belts of ammunition, each outfitted with a bandoleer of grenades and other hardware glared eyelessly down at Cadance. 'Eyeless' because their faces were completely obscured by goggles and gas masks beneath black helmets. A circular emblem with three arrows pointing inward was emblazoned on each soldiers right arm.

Cadance could be excused not noticing this, however, as her immediate attention was occupied by the array of gun barrels that were trained upon her.

There was a sound of static and then one of the soldiers spoke, "Confirmed, intruder appears to be human. We are in position to neutralize." There was a pause as the soldier apparently waited for a reply.

She couldn't quite make out what was said on the radio chatter from where she sat, very still and making no sudden movements, on the floor. However, Cadance was surprised when she thought she heard her name..

"Say again Command? That is not protocol." the radio chatter was louder now, angry. "No Command, I am not questioning orders. We will prep intruder for transfer." The radio chatter died back down, and the soldier who was in command lowered his weapon. "On your feet. Come out slowly."

Cadance rose, wobbling, tears still running down her face. She tottered over the grill, which had already faded from a cherry red back to black, and then fell out of the room and onto the cool tile floor beyond. She had twisted her ankle as one of the heels of her shoes had given out. She looked down at the charred and melted mess that had been her favorite pair of heels and couldn't quite suppress another sob. Carefully she removed the half melted mess and got back up.

Barefoot, she put on the bravest expression she could muster. "I assume I'm under arrest?" she asked.

"No questions. Do not speak," was the soldiers clipped response. Three soldiers closed in behind her while six more took position on either side of her. It was almost funny how cautious they were being. Then again, if this somehow had something to do with what was going on up top, she couldn't blame them. "Seems Command wants to speak with you. You can ask questions then. Lets move."

As they rushed her down hallways and stairs, Cadance noticed that the lighting was not very reliable. Many of the fixtures were flickering or flashing as though there was something wrong with the power. The walls, which had seemed so pristine and white before were scratched and slashed here and there. Cadance was hustled by more than one hallway that was smeared with blood. Her eyes had gone wide as they had come to a corridor that looked like it had been a war zone. Smoke still hung in the air as she had threaded through a blanket of spent shell casings on the floor.

Every now and then the blare of a klaxon siren would echo through the halls and then cut off abruptly.

What exactly was going on?

And where exactly was she?

As the soldiers continued marched her through the halls, over metal scaffolds that hung over bottomless drops into clouds of steam, and up and down concrete stairs, Cadance got the sense that they were in a truly massive complex.

Did the facility just spread beneath Crystal Prep? Or did it perhaps extended out beneath the entire city? There were no windows, so there was no way to estimate the scale of the place.

What had Cadance gotten herself into?

At last, the soldiers brought her to a room at the end of a long corridor. With the swipe of a key card, the leader opened the door and gestured for Cadance to walk through. Her feet were tired and hurting from walking for so long, and without any shoes on top of that. When she saw a plain plastic chair sitting in front of an equally austere table, she sat down immediately, if only for a little bit of relief.

The door slammed shut behind her. She'd half been expecting it, but it still made Cadance jump.

She looked around at her surroundings. The same plain concrete tiles were the only decoration on the walls, ceiling and floor. In one wall was set a long dark mirror. Ah, an interrogation room. Cadance thought to herself, I should've guessed that's where this was going. Given the hardware the soldiers had been packing, it was easy to guess that she was in some kind of government facility. She didn't mean to trespass, and she wasn't exactly sure why Twilight had some kind of express tube into their base to begin with, but she really doubted that they were going to believe anything she had to say.

If they were being this secretive, then that might mean that this was some kind of black ops site, like she'd seen in all those action movies Shining Armor had insisted they watch. That meant there was a very good chance that this all would lead to torture, or worse. If her interrogators decided she didn't know anything of value, or that she was lying, they might just make her disappear to keep this place a secret. She had the feeling from those soldiers that they were used to making people disappear... Permanently.

Everything depended on what happened next.

If she told them everything about how and why she had gotten here, they'd think she was either lying or crazy. If she tried to resist them though, that would only make them more suspicious. Cadance gnawed anxiously on a thumbnail. What was the right move here?

Running was out of the question. Even if she could get out of this room she didn't know the way out. After all the twists and turns they had taken getting here, she wasn't even sure how to get back to where she had come in. Not that she relished the idea of going back into that tiny furnace or climbing all the way back up to what was waiting for her at Crystal Prep. Chances were she'd be gunned down before she managed to make it five steps.

But that didn't change the fact that no matter what she said she was likely only going to get herself into more trouble.

A hidden door on the far side of the room swung open suddenly. Cadance head whipped up in surprise, and her eyes went wide.

"T-Twilight!?"

"Hi," replied the somewhat scruffy looking teenager, waving awkwardly. She still wore her lab-coat as she had always done in the past, though now she wore it over a uniform similar to the soldiers that had escorted Cadance to this interrogation room. "Long time no see Dean Cadance."

"What!? But how! You're dead! I mean, they never found a body of course, but everyone said you were dead!" Cadance shook with agitation and confusion, her chair flying out from underneath her as she suddenly stood. "We mourned you!]I mourned you! And you've been down here, where-ever here is, all this time!?"

"Just try to stay calm," Twilight started, raising her hands defensively. "I know this is a lot to take in and I'm sure you've got, well, a million questions. I know I would. But this is actually a pretty bad time."

"A bad time! A bad time, Twilight!?" Cadance threw her hands in the air. "I can tell you all about a bad time! Just ask me about the one I've been having! Now to top it all off, my former fiance's sister isn't dead, but instead involved in some kind of government spook show!" Cadance lowered her hands and put them to either side of her face in horrified realization. "Shining Armor canceled our wedding over this! Did he know? Was this all one big lie!?"

"I know this is hard Cadance, but we'll get to that." A sudden explosion in the distance caused the room to shake, the table and chairs sliding around wildly as both Cadance and Twilight tried to keep their footing. "Like I said, this is a bad time for this. We... Kind of have a situation..." Twilight Sparkle's weak laughter was not reassuring in the least.