//------------------------------// // Sunny Skies // Story: The Cutie Mark Hunters // by Subject 19 //------------------------------// “How much farther is this place?” Fire Whirl asked his red maned companion. They had been walking through the Everfree Forest for a good hour now with no end in sight. “It should be right up here,” Aqua hollered back. The two approached a clearing through the dense forest. Before them stood the Castle of the Two Sisters. The stone castle was in complete disrepair owing to the battle between Nightmare Moon and Celestia, and thousands of years left to rot away. Aqua and Fire trotted over the wooden bridge to what was left of the main entrance. Even with the sun shining down on it, the castle gave off a very ominous aura. It was as if the dread and sorrow of the events that happened so long ago lingered on to this day. “Well… here we are,” Aqua announced with a slight shiver. Fire took note of Aqua’s unease but decided to pursue it. “Hard to imagine the two most powerful beings used to rule here,” he commented, walking through the entrance. They continued down the main hallway until the reached the throne room, still bearing the tapestries of both Celestia and Luna, although heavily torn. The sun’s rays beat through the collapsed ceiling, providing much needed light on the otherwise dark castle. Fire Whirl spent some time observing the throne room and all of the exits around in it, being sure to cover all possible ways to make an escape. Most of the corridors leading out of the throne room had collapsed and were completely inaccessible. However there were still a few that seemed to provide a viable, if slightly questionable means of escape should the need arise. “I must say, the damage this castle has sustained might work to my advantage, if I need to make a getaway,” Fire observed. “I think it’s time I let United Front know I’m very much alive.” “And I don’t know about you, but this place is kind of starting to give me the creeps,” Aqua said, a shiver running down her spine. “Yeah, I’ve seen what I needed, let’s get back to Ponyville.” “Okay let’s go then,” she said.   The doctor pushed up her glasses as she wrote some notes for her other patient before she came. She never knew this job can get this hard. On the other hoof, she had met great friends because of this job. A strong knocking on the front door disrupted Aqua’s thoughts. “It opens!” She hollered. The door slowly opened and a nervous looking mare stepped in. Aqua looked up from her paperwork. “Hello there, do you need help with anything?” “Uh… yes, you see I’m looking for somepony and…” mid sentence her bright red eyes landed on Fire Whirl. “Subject 19! You’re alive!” The red unicorn rushed up to Fire as he simply took in the mare’s nearly blinding features. Her flame yellow and orange hair complimented her red body surprisingly well. She looked like she was the daughter of Celestia’s own sun. “Who the hell are you?” Fire asked, taking a step back from the mare. “Oh, sorry. I’m Sunny Skies, I was one of the scientists that helped create you.” The pegasus raised a curious eyebrow. “Then you know Paradise Lost,” he said more as a statement rather than a question. “Where is she?” “Wow, I’m surprised you actually remember her, considering you were barely conscious before the accident.” “The memories aren’t very clear, but I remember bits and pieces. Now answer the question.” “I’m sorry, but I don’t know where she is. I was still at home when the accident happened. I wasn’t able to find her at her house and no pony else has seen her since the accident. I’m afraid she probably died down there in the lab.” “That’s not good enough for me. If she’s truly dead then I want to see her body.” “I’d assume the first place you went to was the lab, or what’s left of it.” When the orange pegasus nodded she continued. “Then you know that it’s going to weeks, maybe months, before the debris is cleared. I’m shocked that you managed to survive it.” “If I was able to survive whatever happened, then so could she.” “Well let’s say you’re right and Dr. Lost did survive the incident. Why hasn’t she made contact with anypony? Why hasn’t she let her colleagues know she’s alive? Why would she, of all ponies, want the world to think she was dead?” Fire Whirl frowned, knowing that Sunny raised very valid questions. “What could have caused the entire lab to be destroyed in the first place?” “I’ve been wondering that myself. We had countless safety measures in place so that something like this wouldn’t ever happen. My gut says that it must have been sabotage from someone in the lab.” “That’s a pretty heavy accusation to throw. Do you have anything to back that theory up?” “What we worked on down there was highly controversial, especially creating you. A few of our own scientists even voiced their concerns about what we were doing. I don’t even think the princesses knew exactly what went on in the lab.” “What?” Fire asked in disbelief. There was no way that Celestia and Luna weren’t kept in the loop on something as big as this. “Are you telling me, that you all kept information from your princesses?” Sunny shifted on her hooves nervously. “We may have been… uh… a bit selective with the information we shared.” “Did they know about me?” “...No. We kept your creation a secret from just about every pony except for the general. I was never told what his business there was, but he seemed really interested in you.” “I’m well aware of General United Front’s involvement with me. But why did Paradise keep information from the princesses? She reported to them after all, right?” “That’s the thing. I don’t know why exactly, but Dr. Lost resented having to report to Celestia and Luna. She made it very clear that you were not to be shared with anypony other than Front. Dr. Lost insisted that the princesses wouldn’t understand how great of a scientific breakthrough you’d be, and that they in their shortsighted thinking would shut it down. I, as well as most of the other scientists, agreed with her. What we were doing was decades ahead of all known science. Creating life to the extent we did with you is a rather grey area.” “So you deliberately went behind their backs all for the sake of creating me? Why? Why go to such lengths and probably risk charges just shy of treason?” “For science! You have no idea what your existence means to Equestria! You are the gateway to solving some of life’s greatest problems. Cancer, infection, disabilities, disease, maybe even death! Making you has brought us closer than we ever thought possible just a few years ago,” Sunny insisted, her eyes lighting up just thinking about the good that could be achieved. “So why would anypony be opposed to that if the benefits are as great as you claim them to be?” Sunny sighed and lowered her head. “Because others see you as the next evolution of ponykind. And that it would mean the very likely extinction of the obsolete race, which would be all of us. If science has taught us anything, it is that when a more evolved race comes in contact with a similar, less evolved one…” “They’re destroyed,” Fire finished. “They would see me as the first step towards their own demise.” “Exactly. So you can see why you fall into this grey area of science,” she said with a sigh. Fire ran a hoof through his red and black hair. Sunny had provided him with many answers to his questions, but there were still more that he had. Ones that could only be answered by Paradise Lost. If Division 516’s security and safety measures were as extensive as Sunny claimed, then the most likely cause for the accident was sabotage. Fire Whirl didn’t believe for a second that the doctor was dead. But he couldn’t deny that the mare in front of him raised a valid argument. If Paradise was alive, why wouldn’t she reach out to her colleagues and let them know she was ok? “Is it possible that Paradise was the one who destroyed the lab?” Fire asked Sunny. “I mean, it’s possible, yes. If anypony knew how cause a catastrophic failure in the lab, it would be her. But why would she? Do you have any idea how much data and research we lost down there? That was Paradise’s life work down there. She would willingly die before sacrificing so much as a single file of her research.” “A true scientist in that regard. Look, I’m not going to be satisfied until we find her. I don’t care how long it takes to do that. I will dig up that entire fucking lab if that’s what it takes just to find her corpse. But I figure that since Canterlot’s rescue crews are already doing just that, I can spend my time entertaining the possibility that she’s alive and somewhere in this kingdom.” Aqua looked to Fire then to Sunny. “Say, do you have a place to stay?” “I do actually. I’m staying at the hotel just down the street,” Sunny replied. “How much are you paying for that hotel?” “It’s only about fifty bits per night.” “No no no that won't do. You can stay with me!” Aqua said “Uh in what bed?” Fire asked. “She can have yours and you can take the couch!” Fire shot her a dirty look, mouthing the words, “fuck you.” “So it's settled you're staying here!” “Uh are you sure? I wouldn’t want to impose.” “ Yes I'm sure, you can take Fire’s bed! Follow me and I will show you where it is!” She jumped up from her seat. “Oh ok.” Sunny slowly followed Aqua upstairs, leaving Fire downstairs by himself. Fire Whirl looked up at the ceiling, deep in thought. With Sunny literally showing up on their doorstep, he finally had a chance of narrowing his search. She was also able to shed some much needed light on a number of his questions, even if there were still many remaining. “Just hope she’s as useful as she appears,” he whispered to himself before following the mares upstairs.