Chapter 4: Memory
«Those aren't your memories. They're somebody else's.»

The world was gone. I was not there, nothing was. I panicked for a moment, or maybe for an eternity, then suddenly I gained my senses again, but what I saw was not what I expected.

In front of me were hundreds, maybe even a thousand ponies, all frantically getting in some sort of large metal box. I wanted to look around, but I found I wasn’t able to move on my own. Then I realized what I felt, and if I was able to move, I would have screamed at the very wrong feeling between my legs. I was starting to really get scared, but I couldn’t do anything but stay where I was as I watched. Then I heard a rumbling voice, only to realize that it was in my own throat as I heard the words.

“Everypony calm down, get on the train slowly so that as many ponies have room as possible. Take the absolute minimum necessities!” my – no, his – voice was loud and piercing, and I recognized the tingle of magic being used. It was odd, I could feel all the things he felt, but couldn’t control it myself. It was incredibly odd, but I was intrigued about what was going on. I wished I could ask questions about what was happening. The ponies didn’t seem to be calming down, but I shook my head and started walking away. Well, I didn’t but the stallion I was experiencing this through did. He went down a tunnel and opened a door. I took in the details and noticed several suspicious things, but my vision was roughly turned as a crack was heard, then a muffled boom. I looked behind, and saw first dust, then rocks falling down, as well as screams from the other side before the roof caved in, boulders crashing down in front of the door, trapping me inside. Instead of yelling or panicking, the stallion called out “If anypony can hear me, just go! I’ll be fine! Get on the trains and leave now!” No response was properly heard, but he turned away and looked around the room, then headed for a door, opening it swiftly and rushing down the stairwell behind it.

It was only then that I noticed where I was. A terminal glowed in front of me now, but the screen had much more on it than before as the stallion approached, and started typing out a series of commands, telling the computer to backup and lock all information on the systems, as well as shut down all other functions. His typing was fast, but I noticed he kept it connectable, probably to access the data remotely some other time. Then he slowly typed in the password to lock it, and I memorized it quickly.
>CRYSTAL HEART
He hit enter, and the screen was wiped, resembling more how it had looked when I first entered this room. Then he turned and pulled on a panel, revealing a toolbox and a safe. The safe he opened with a code, not quite as slowed down as the terminal’s password, but I managed to mentally note it. The safe opened and inside wasn’t jewels or valuables, but pictures, and a glass orb. He pulled out the toolbox, lifted one of the pictures, showing a family of ponies smiling at the camera, and he softly kissed the photo. I felt his tears falling as he placed the picture back in the safe, locking it again after taking the orb out. He opened the toolbox, and placed several tools from it into a pouch on his work clothing. The last thing I saw was him lifting the orb towards his horn as he whispered “I’m sorry…”

I gasped as I sat up, a pair of hooves grabbing me instantly and I found myself in a hug with a pony as she was trying to speak, but I couldn’t make sense of the words at first. I couldn’t see, my vision was blocked by the pony holding me. The moment I started trying to break free, the grip was released and I fell backwards, sprawling onto the cold, hard floor as I saw the light from the head of Versa, and I finally could heard the words from her mouth.

“- is still nowhere to be found, and you weren’t responding, so I didn’t know what to do! All I knew was you had that stupid little orb thing, and wouldn’t let it go. I was this close to just shattering it, and-“

“Versa? What’s wrong? Why are you freaking out?” I started to get up, noticing the orb on the ground and I warily watched it, this time not grabbing it as I considered what had just happened.

Trompe looked at me with a look of incredulity. “You haven’t heard a word I said, have you?!” When I shook my head she started speaking quickly, “You went to grab the glass thing, and then you just dropped without a sound, holding the orb to your horn with magic, and no matter how much I yelled at you, you weren’t waking up, and I even moved you all the way up the stairs and shouted for that Darklight mare to come, but neither of you would respond and I was so alone! I was terrified that the ball was some trap or something!”

The idea that it could’ve been a trap stopped me short. We had already encountered one small group of ponies that had attacked us. Their trap was an obvious one for me, but something like this… If I wasn’t careful, I could get us killed. But these glass balls didn’t seem to be very common, and the enchantment that had to have been used on them would be a powerful thing, meaning that only ponies with both the knowledge and power to cast the spell could set a trap like that…

But it wasn’t a trap. It was a vision. “Versa, how long was I out?” I started thinking, my mind going through all the details of what I’d seen.

“It was maybe seven or eight minutes. More than long enough for me to think you were in a coma.”

“Versa, I think you would need to wait a little longer than ten minutes to judge if somepony is in a coma.” Seven or eight minutes… The entire dream, or vision, or whatever it was has taken something like that. I couldn’t tell exactly, but if I was right, then that might have been something I was experiencing in real time. Meaning… “Versa. I think that the glass orb we found shows memories. Like, fully recorded memories, including feeling, voice, and sight. Not the thoughts, but everything else…” I frowned. There hadn’t been a record of something like this existing in any part of our archives at home. No data of any sort of spell or object that could record memories of ponies. The idea of something like that could lead to dozens of applications for it, from simply keeping mementos of things or memories of the best days of one’s life, to hiding secrets or passing messages that only could be seen by unicorns. If it was possible to copy memories, could it be possible to wipe them?

Perhaps the minds of ponies were as easily manipulated by magic as the hard drive of a terminal. The thought terrified me with its implications.

The cold, even voice of Dark made me jump. “You found a memory orb. What did you see?”

I looked around, only to find her right next to me, almost making me flinch. I looked back at the orb, then to her before I replied. “Why don’t you have a look? Or tell me what you know about these things, since you knew what it was.”

“I know of them, yes. I have not seen one before. We must continue on now.” I watched as she lifted the orb with her magic, placing it in my bag. When I had tried to lift it magically, it had sent me into a memory. There was a lot she wasn’t telling us, and I watched her blank, grey eyes, trying to get some kind of sense of emotion or recognition.

She didn’t even blink. Her eyes weren’t focused, and they didn’t even move. I found myself unable to keep my focus locked on her eyes for very long before I looked away, “First, I want to check something down at the terminal.” I looked at Versa first.

She looked back, stoic as she replied, “Only as long as I’m there with you, got it? Any more creepy stuff happens, and I better be there.” I nodded, smiling at my friend. “Alright then, let’s go.” She led the way down the stairs again, and I glanced at Darklight, who was standing by the hole leading back into the tunnels. She didn’t seem to plan on leaving us behind, but it didn’t seem like she was particularly attached to us, either. Or attached to anything, really.

I walked down the stairs, the clopping of my hooves the only sounds besides my own soft breathing. I realized that the silence of these tunnels was far more eerie than anything else, but once I was down the stairs, the soft hum of the terminal filled the silence a little.

“So, whatcha looking for, Kryssy?” Versa looked at me expectantly as I approached the terminal, my thoughts once again racing. I started typing carefully, mimicking a stallion long since dead.

>CRYSTAL HEART

Verifying…
Password accepted, releasing deadlock protocol

The terminal lit up, lines of code running along the screen, then suddenly half a dozen windows popped up and closed as various executables were initialized, then I saw that a screen popped up and stayed up, but showed nothing. I frowned, then saw that the window was named CAM. This terminal was able to view the cameras in the train tunnels, then. I assumed that the usefulness of this was negligible until another window opened, a notification asking if I wished to have additional data stored externally. I paused, then pressed y.

Connect external storage.

I looked on the side of the terminal and found the slot I was looking for. I plugged my PipBuck into the terminal, and almost instantly both devices pinged, signaling the finish of the transfer.

“So what exactly are you doing, Krys?” Versa was still watching, obviously clueless as to what I was trying to do. I had to give her credit for letting me waste time like this though. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had wanted to just get out of here.

“I don’t know yet. I guess nothing much, but there’s one more thing here I want to check.” I unplugged my PipBuck and left the terminal standing idly on standby, waiting for input as I looked for a specific panel. “Which one was it…” I tapped on a few panels, before a hollow thud greeted my ears, and I started pulling it out. Behind it was the safe I’d seen, untouched in the last two centuries.

“Krystal Clear, treasure hunter!” Versa laughed. “But seriously, how did you know that was here?”

I was turning the knob to put in the safe’s code, but I hadn’t used this sort of safe before. My focus was much more focused on the safe than Versa, and I kept turning it, hearing the clicking as I turned it to one number, then the other, and so on. With a more solid click, I raised an eyebrow and tried the door handle, the safe swinging open easily. Not even rusted slightly. Somepony had made this safe to last, and succeeded with flying colors.

Inside was a small stack of pictures and a toolbox. I hesitantly lifted the top picture, and though it was faded, I recognized the smiling, happy faces of each pony, and I felt sadness, on behalf of the stallion I knew was long gone.

“Hey Kryssy, is something wrong? Your eyes are all watery.” Versa’s comment brought me back to my own senses, and my vision was a little blurry as I wiped my eyes, surprised when I felt the wetness on my leg.

“Weird.” I frowned. If a memory that wasn’t mine could cause these feelings in me, either I was far more emotionally sensitive than I ever knew, or the orbs were very influential. Either way, I slipped the few pictures into my bag, then opened the toolbox. Inside was what looked like a tiara, but with an indent at the front, perfectly round. I lifted it gently, in case it did something similar to the memory balls, but nothing happened. “Versa, what do you make of this?”

She picked it out of the air and looked it over, then put it on with a laugh, “Look, Krys, I’m a princess!” I raised an eyebrow at her, and she sighed, “You have no sense of humor sometimes, you know that?” She grumbled as she took off the headpiece. “I dunno what it is, but we might as well keep it. Who knows, maybe we’ll go to a dance or something and we can wear this to look pretty.” She chuckled again, “Or at least sell it. You never know, right?”

I rolled my eyes, but now that we were done, I closed the safe again, putting the panel back into place as I turned back towards the exit. When I reached the top of the stairs, Dark still hadn’t moved, staring out into the tunnels through the wall. Now I started to wonder. There was no body here. Had the stallion unicorn managed to escape? There was no way he could’ve made the tunnels all the way to the caves on his own. I frowned a bit. I couldn’t keep getting off track with mysteries two centuries dead. “Darklight, are you alright?” Better to try to deal with the mysteries still alive in front of me first.

“Yes. Are you ready to proceed?” Her eyes were blank as always, and I found myself less willing to meet her gaze each time I saw them.

“Yeah. Uh, let’s get going. Will you lead the way?”

She nodded and Versa and I flicked on our headlamps before all three of us began to walk down more of the tunnels.

The tunnels seemed to go on endlessly. With little to talk about – partly due to the ominous silence of the empty tunnels, minus the hard clop of our hooves on uneven stone – and even less other noise that would signify life in the tunnels, I had since decided the radio didn’t really help, only made me feel less comfortable somehow. Our lights were still on, but with nothing notable to be seen, I had begun to simply walk without thinking, monotonous movement with almost no changes barring a growing soreness in my legs.

“Stop.” It was the first word that had been uttered in ages. In fact, Dark’s single word warning came out so softly and suddenly that it didn’t register to myself or Versa that she’d spoken.

As such, it was a moment longer before we realized what she’d said, and we walked right into nothing. We took a step and suddenly everything around us was dark and we started to fall, fabric that had covered the hole wrapped around the pair of us as we screamed.

The fall made an abrupt, but oddly painless stop. Before either of us could make a move, however, the darkness parted by a blinding light, and while I was still wincing, I felt hooves grabbing me and dragging me out of the trap hole swiftly.

“Only two of ‘em are here!”

“Ours still haven’t come back?”

“Nope.”

My pupils contracted enough for me to at least make out the things around me, though I still had to squint. I was being held by two ponies against the floor. They were both male, one a dusty brown color with a mane roughly the same color. The other was covered entirely but for his face. His eyes were an icy blue, and his coat was nearly pure white, mane almost matching with a tinge of blue. I recognized his gear as outside scout gear, though the clothing looked far more worn and different styled than my tribe’s gear.

They pushed my face against the stone floor, facing the hole we’d fallen into. The inside was filled with pillows or something to cushion the fall. They’d been waiting for us.

“Who are you, and who do you work for?!” The yelled question was accompanied by a painful shove against the ground, and brought my attention to the third pony I’d heard. He was a unicorn, and seemed far less bulky than the others, but there was fire in his eyes as he stared me down. “Well?”

“My name is Krystal Clear, and I don’t-” another shove cut me off, then I was pulled off the ground and brought roughly to my hooves, standing face-to-face with the stallion who seemed to be in charge.

“Crystal, huh? Where’s the rest of our boys?” He sneered at me, his menacing gaze trying to intimidate me as I was still held tightly by the two stallions.

“What boys? I don’t know who you-” this time I was cut off by a slap from the leader, the stinging pain surprising me.

“The hell you don’t, Legion bitch! But if you won’t talk, I can have some fun instead… Get the wires.” He nodded and the scout let me go and walked to open a door off to the side, swiftly coming back, long cords in his now uncovered mouth, rubber covering the wires that were visible at the cut ends. They briefly touched and a spark flew between them, making my eyes widen. “This oughta help you remember who I am. I’ll give you one last chance. Where the fuck are the scouting boys?”

“I don’t know who you are, I don’t know who you mean, and pain isn’t going to make me remember what I don’t know!” I was looking at the wires, tracing them to the back room, but I couldn’t see any further. I closed my eyes tightly, focusing on figuring out a way to at least survive this.

Then a roar was heard, and a stallion hit the wall hard with a sick crack. “Get the hell off of her!” Versa’s voice was full of pure fury, and I opened my eyes to see her, with two stallions on her as she bucked like she was insane, a broken gag on the floor and a limp pony off to the side, slumped against the wall. She caught one of the two ponies off guard with a sudden donkey-kick, both her hooves hitting his chest mercilessly, sending him crumpling to the ground.

Only then did I react, and I was still faster than the two stallions next to me. First I briefly jerked the wires upwards, both ends touching the buck holding them, making him let out a scream of pure pain. At the same time, I shoved hard against the stallion holding me, sending him off balance and tumbling, letting me go in order to catch himself. By the time he rose again, I levitated the wires in front of his face warningly.

“SHUT UP!” the leading stallion with the furious eyes. He had a gun floating next to him, aimed at me. “You, drop the fucking wires, NOW. And tell the other bitch to surrender, or I’ll shoot you both!”

I hesitated, then lowered the wires slowly. As they hit the ground, I grasped the wires as far as I could see, from inside the room next to us, and I yanked hard with my magical power, causing a wave, which moved along the wires. He never looked away from me until my horn stopped glowing, which was his mistake. The wires were out of his vision now, and the wave moved along the ground, reaching the tip, flicking both ends into his hoof at once. With a scream, the shock caused his magic field to interrupt, and the gun dropped right on top of the exposed wire ends.

It exploded, making everypony flinch as the stallion screamed with more pain than I had ever heard, even during the fire. Versa clearly wasted no time, as I heard scuffling before a thud was heard. “Kryssy? You okay?” Her words made me open my eyes. I couldn’t remember them closing, but I soon realized my vision was blinded from the flash of the explosion. Versa helped me to my hooves as my vision cleared slowly.

The stallion was down, one of his hooves a bloody mess, torn apart by the shrapnel of the gun as the electricity blew the gunpowder in the bullets, causing the pressure to blow the gun up. I gagged slightly as I looked away, finding the other stallions out cold on the ground, Darklight glancing at me with the same blank stare as always.

“I said to stop. You two walked into a trap.”

“Thank you, Darklight, we didn’t notice.” Versa’s voice dripped with sarcasm as she glared at Dark. “You coulda helped us a lot before right then, you know?”

“I was to assist you without risking any of our lives. The moment was only right when a distraction was made.” Her voice reflected no reaction to the sarcasm. I wasn’t surprised by this point.

“Is that what we were? Just a distraction?” Versa’s tone was getting angrier, but I noticed the room around us. The leader had passed out from the shock and pain, the others that had tried to restrain Versa had been knocked out by her or Darklight. The one dressed as a scout had been slammed into a wall, presumably by Darklight after I shocked him. The room was clear of our ambushers. I paused, realizing I had counted one short.

“Stop, there’s a pony that isn’t here that should be. Quick, we need to catch him before-“

“I-I surrender!” A buck’s voice came from the room where the electrical wires had come from, and his hooves stuck out from the door frame, showing him being unarmed. “I didn’t want to do this, I swear! I’ll do anything if you just don’t kill me! I-I’ll join the Legion of Hearts, I’ll take you to the city, anything!”

I slowly approached the stallion, picking up a bottle from the ground with my magic, just in case. I reached the door, and the stallion very slowly moved to show himself. He looked younger than I had first thought, perhaps younger than me. His cutie mark was of an open book, on top of his rugged brown coat as he kept his eyes on me in fear. I lowered the bottle.

“Okay, then. The first thing I want to know is some information. Come on out here. Versa, Dark, you two mind tying the others so that if they do wake up, they won’t cause problems? Oh, and make sure that stallion doesn’t bleed out or anything, if we have supplies for that.” I backed up, letting the cowering stallion stand and slowly move to join us in the room as my companions dropped their argument in favor of taking care of the other problems.

When the colt, as he looked like he had only gotten his cutie mark maybe a year before, had sat down in the room, I began my questions, with Dark and Versa finishing up the incapacitation of all the stallions, especially the unicorn. Versa took a thin metal wire and looped it around his horn, then put the end of the wire next to me with the electrified wires next to it. If he tried anything, I’d be able to force him to stay put. Not that he’d be able to do much with his wounds anyways.

“Okay, colt, first things first. What’s with the Legion of Heart thing? Why would you think we would want you to join them?” I watched the unicorn closely while Versa sat down next to him, Darklight off to the side, watching us. I could’ve sworn she didn’t blink once, but I wasn’t focused on her.

He blinked a couple times with a confused look, then slowly began to speak, “Y-you’re Legion scouts… aren’t you? We saw a large group headed through the tunnels and planned to ambush them on the way back.”

I stayed still while I felt Versa look at me, knowing she understood the same thing I had, that we’d fought a group of ponies who simply thought we were enemies, because we’d snuck up on them. I’d forgotten to check if they were even still alive.

Now, however, I needed to ask more questions. “We’re not Legion scouts. We’re… refugees from a tribe that was assaulted by the Legion. We thought you were enemies or something, and the group we ran into shot first, so we had to defend ourselves.” I looked at Dark now, who still hadn’t moved. She wasn’t even sitting down. “I apologize for the mix up… but tell me what you know about the Legion.”

“FUCK!” A loud cry from the unicorn stallion made me jump, and Versa pulled her gun. “W-what the fuck did you do to me?!” He screamed as he slightly moved his ruined leg. Versa had found a few rags among their supplies and had tied one tightly around his leg, near the knee in order to cut circulation, and a couple others had been wrapped and tied to cover his wound.

It still looked painful.

“Stop, boss! They’re not Legion-“ The young buck tried to intervene.

“You little traitorous shit! I’ll fucking kill you all!” He roared at the slightly smaller buck, causing him to cringe, then the unicorn also winced in pain, falling back onto the ground.

I walked up to the injured stallion, “Listen to me. You ambushed the wrong ponies. We’re fleeing from the Legion, they attacked my tribe and I had to leave. We thought you were raiders or worse. “ I looked at his wound, “We could have killed all of you in defense, but I don’t kill.” I didn’t mention Versa and her gun, and I wasn’t sure what Dark would do, nor did I want to speculate too much on her.

He was silent for a moment. I had to look back up at his face to make sure he didn’t pass out again, only to step back from the hatred and fury in his eyes as he glared at me. I glared back, though I doubted I was quite as convincing.

“Get out of here. If you’re not gonna kill me, get the fuck out. And take that cowardly fucker with you.” He shifted his glare to the stallion, who became very obviously unnerved by it, then back to me. It actually felt as if there was heat from his eyes trying to light us all on fire. If I didn’t know better, I’d be a little worried.

“Fine. We’ll leave.” I noticed Versa glancing at me oddly, “If you tell us where the nearest town is.” I knew he’d either lie or try to follow us there later, so I took out a bag of medical supplies, including a couple powerful potions and bandages, “In return, we’ll leave you with these, if you do not try to betray us. Fair?”

He paused, and the hatred diminished slightly, replaced with some suspicion, “Who are you really? Nopony in this place would give something to someone like me in this situation.”

I paused before I could reply, “We’re just travelers and refugees. Trying to find where to go next in this place.”

He frowned for a moment longer, then relaxed a little with a pained sigh, “There’s a map in the wall over there. The kid can show you it. Shows the surrounding tunnels and where the towns are. Covers the tunnels from here to the City. You guys got any fuckin’ painkillers on you?”

I started to shake my head, but Versa walked over to the bleeding unicorn and pulled out a bottle of whiskey from her bag. I raised an eyebrow.

“All we got. Better than nothing, right?” Versa chuckled and set the bottle down before standing by my side, watching the young stallion who was still looking between everyone with a slightly panicked look.
I took a moment to look at him. His face was less rough than most of the other ponies I’d seen in the tunnels, and his young brown eyes looked at me in fear as silence filled the room, only to be broken by the whiskey bottle being opened and the unicorn taking a long drink from it.
“Go, get the map and lead us out to… wherever.” I motioned to him, and he scrambled to his hooves before quickly moving towards the far wall, turning his head to glance back at us every few seconds before he picked up the map in his mouth and brought it over. Upon seeing it, my PipBuck beeped, and I checked it, finding a note saying “Map Scanned” before a multi-layered map appeared on the screen. I looked back at the buck as he offered the folded paper to me, and I nodded, taking it and stowing it in my bags. “Now let’s go.” I looked at the wounded stallion once more, “Sorry, I never meant to hurt you.” I felt like I had to say that before turning away and letting the young colt lead us out.

Level up (Krystal Clear)
Level up (Versatile Soul)
Krystal: Traps skill at 15
Versa: Medicine skill at 15