"She's an abomination of nature!"
"There's no place for experiments that distort the natural order!"
"How could anyone have the indecency to violate the sanctity of her passing?!"
The committee of politicians shouted these insults and lashes at the group of geneticists in the center of the large chamber where the current debate raged, and had been raging for several hours. Even though the choice seemed rather trivial, the Supreme Court of Equestria could not seem to settle on a fitting punishment for these scientists. The bulk of the meeting had been comprised of angry shouts and sharp verbal incisions, and only now was the throbbing mass of leaders beginning to make a decision. The Supreme Justice came forward after the vote was cast, and opened up the folded paper that contained their sad fate.
"As a group of geneticists from Everfree Laboratories, you have been sentenced, each of you, to death by lethal injection, by a jury of your peers, for the heinous crime of violation of grave sanctimony." The audience in the courtroom started cheering.
One of the accused stepped forward. "Your honor, this is a false accusation! We had official leave from the family of the deceased to deliver the body to the Laboratory! We have not grave robbed a corpse as so many claim!" The other scientists nodded their heads in agreement.
"The evidence is overwhelming. The decision of this court remains final." The hammer came down with a few resounding beats. "This court is adjourned."
The forlorn purple pony sat alone in the corner of the courtroom, penetrated by the cold stares of hatred and dissaproval from the ponies in the audience. She watched as the group of scientists were escorted out of the courtroom, bearing saddened faces of abandoned hope. The scene was one of genuine disgust; the innocent ponies being jeered at and torn apart by the masses of angry ponies. She looked back to the floor and closed her eyes. Silently, she let her tears fall from her eyes as she remembered the clouded memories of her life. Her friends. Her family. All seemed as if shrouded by shadow; nopony she knew even existed anymore. All save one were vanished into the stretching ocean of time. Eventually a tall, strong guard approached her and lifted her somewhat roughly out of her chair. She was escorted out of the room, bearing even harsher looks from the crowds than had been given to the scientists. These were not just looks of dissaproval. These were looks of outright disgust and abhorrence. At the front doors to the Supreme Court Building, the guard pushed her outside and shut the doors firmly behind her. Outside, there was more to the onslaught; ponies with filming cameras and small recording devices pointed them almost directly into her face. No one spoke to her like normal cascades of attention usually warranted; they all just muttered to themselves in a semi-transparent silence. The cracked ground felt strange and unfamiliar beneath her hooves, itself not being like the normal dirt roads she was accustomed to. She seemed to be able to cut through the crowd like a knife with her every forward step, almost like a repelling magnet going through a pile of iron filings. Once the crowd ended, and the voices of condemnation faded behind her, the distressed pony looked up into the sky to see not the clear blue sky with perfectly motionless clouds she had once known, but a hazy glaze of grey fog perforating the constant flow of puffy white. There were no Pegasi hovering about to guide these heavenly bodies' movement; they were as of the Everfree Forest. She cast her gaze back downward toward the strange, rough ground. Her eyes closed for a brief moment, and in that moment, several tears of utter distress and sorrow poured down in a torrent of hopelessness. She tried to use her horn to teleport away from that awful place, but to no avail. Not even a spark of light came forth. She could not feel that wonderful sensation coursing through her body. The magic she had once worked so hard to master, the magic she had poured her heart and soul into, was gone forever, deadening her hope along with its departure. She eventually found even this last shred of familiarity to be hopeless, and began to walk down the side of the street, with no destination in mind. She looked forward down this road to nowhere, and started walking.
***
"Sir, the scientists presiding over Project Ascendance have just been found guilty of grave sanctimony violation. They're being delivered to their execution as we speak. What should we do?"
The brown pony arose from his chair with a single dolorous move. "You mean to tell me that we've lost seven ponies in just one trial? Not just seven ponies; the ponies in charge of the only hope we have of survival?!" He brought down his hoof upon his desk with the last word he yelled. Before the young mare in the lab coat could answer, he waved his hoof in a signal for silence. "What about the Vessel? Don't tell me that she's been lost too."
"We spotted her leaving the courtroom just after the conviction took place. We can intercept her if we act quickly."
"Well then, what are you waiting for?! Go get her!" He cast a serious glance at the mare.
"Yes sir." She walked away to make the necessary arrangements.
The brown pony turned around toward his office's back wall. He gazed at the official portrait of his many-a-great grandfather, Dr. Whooves. "Find her before those zealots get a hold of her."
***
She couldn't see or breath. An opaque black bag had been shoved over her head, and she found herself being thrust into a containment chamber of some sort. She could feel the inertia dragging her across the floor of this chamber as it spurred into motion. It wasn't like the motion of a train. There was neither bumping nor jolting, but instead a seamless ride that almost felt like floating. Any up-and-down motions that the mode of transport procured were like smooth waves rather than jagged and sudden upheavals and downturns. Eventually, she felt it drift to a stop, and could hear the door to the chamber open. The same feeling of a stranger's hooves grabbing her, dragging her, and carrying her away came over her. She could hear sounds that sounded like the opening and closing of doors, only with a slight hissing sound accompanying every instance of such. The voices of two ponies talking in harsh, yet hushed tones pervaded her ears.
She tried to squeeze out a tangible sentence. "Why....why are you doing...th-this to me? What do you w-want?" She could hardly speak through her frightened sobs.
A cruel voice responded. "Shut your filthy mouth, you abomination."
"P-please, I don't even know why I'm here!", she wailed. The bearer of the harsh voice brought down a solid strike on the back of her head. She cried out in pain.
"I said shut your fucking mouth!"
One final door opened, and she felt herself being chained to a cold metal bar. The door shut tight. Bright light flooded into her eyes as the bag was violently ripped from her head. She lay there in a sobbing heap of disheveled hair and stinging eyes. When she finally opened them, she saw two ponies with red masks on standing over her. Her head throbbed from the strike it bore earlier. She could see that the two ponies also had red outfits on, with the symbol of Princess Celestia's Sun Mark on the flank of the outfits. The room they had brought her to was lined with small white tiles on the floor, walls, and ceiling. Bright fluorescent lights hung down and illuminated the room with a painfully bright light.
"Please! Please let me go!" She broke down into sobs after crying this out.
One of the kidnappers stepped forward. "We don't like it when your kind comes around here. In fact, nopony anywhere likes it at all." He lifted up her head so her eyes met with his. "You look at me when I'm talking to you." When he let her head go and it drooped back down, he delivered a strong smack across her face. "Did you hear what I said, Deadhorn? You will look at me when I am talking to you." Her tear-flooded eyes stared back up at him in hopeless obedience.
"Your kind poisons the world that we live in. Your kind seeks our destruction by achieving what you call 'Ascendance'. Let me tell you something: the only way to this so-called Ascendance is through natural magic! Be sure to tell all of your Deadhorn friends that, if you even live to tell them."
"Please, I don't have any i-idea what you're talking about! I just want to go home!" Her speech was by now, hardly intelligible. The two masked ponies began to violently kick her up against the wall. Her cries for help echoed across the room. This continued until they seemed short of breath, after which they both spit on her. She couldn't even cry anymore. She was just a whimpering ball of blood and bruises, hardly conscious enough to even feel pain. The two ponies left the room, turning off the lights and closing the door behind them. She could faintly hear the sound of a lock clicking into place. The beaten, helpless pony fell into a listless state of half-consciousness; short, awful nightmares haunted her sleep, and she awoke every hour or so (as far as she could tell) screaming and flailing hopelessly against the chains that bound her in place. She tried to use her magic to teleport several times, but as before, her horn didn't even glow the slightest strains of light. She started crying out the names of her friends, even though she knew that they were all dead. Long dead. Now, without friends, without family, without magic, and without hope, the Deadhorn Abomination yielded in her struggle to escape, and fell back into the constant stream of feverish nightmares.