Minutes before Pinkie expelled her last breath, Berry was skimming through the note on the back of the blueprint to Pinkie's trap. Twilight was trying to go through all of the combinations available, but the numbers were moving very slowly. By the time Berry was done, Twilight had only made it to 073.
Ascending....
"Have. You tried setting 235 on the lock?"
Without turning to face Berry, Twilight gave a quick reply. "I tried it, and it didn't work at all. I might as well try all the numbers I can!" Twilight frantically worked her magic on the numerical lock, the numbers moving oh so slowly, only 078. Twilight's horn shone a deep red, and the numbers started moving a bit faster, though still at a slow rate.
Berry felt that they might not save Pinkie in time, knowing the slow progress will take forever before they actually get the door open. As she once more scanned the note, Applejack had ran out of things to buck in the direction of the door to the freezer as Rainbow Dash flew around the room, hoping to find a different way into the freezer.
Applejack knew that this couldn't go on any longer. If they couldn't save Pinkie, then they had better prepare for the rescue of any other pony they were going to save later.
"Hey, Rainbow! Ah' want chu' to fly back up and get the other blueprints for the ponies we're going ta' save later!"
Rainbow Dash gave Applejack a quick salute before flying off. The three unicorns that Berry had brought along were offering their assistance to Twilight to try and crack the numerical code by sharing their magic altogether, but Twilight felt that any extra "inexperienced" help given might hinder progress on cracking the code.
"The door is hinged to open inward." Colgate said. And that it was. The hinges attached to the door could not be seen from the outside, which leaves the only logical explanation that the door was hinged to open inward.
The two unicorns agreed while Twilight continued going through the numbers on the numerical code, now at 136.
Pinkie Pie's screams of agony could no longer be heard, which made Twilight try harder. The resurrection spell can only work within five minutes of a ponies' death. She fired up a spell that made an orange bolt struck the combination lock, slowly making the numbers spin much faster.
But by then, Berry had found out what Twilight had done wrong. Or I might be wrong myself. The note emphasised the word ascending, which made Berry think through a number of reasons why it should be emphasised. A number of factors went through her mind, but only one had seemed plausible. When it came to her, she couldn't help but shout out the number to Twilight.
"Twilight! 523!"
Twilight didn't ask how Berry knew, but she complied anyway, knowing that she might be right. She tuned the spell on the lock to quickly spin to the number Berry had given. When the three numbers rolled into place, there was the sound of a click, and the sound of the freezer door lock opening. Twilight knew that she might be too late to save Pinkie. Berry, however, held on to the hope that Pinkie was still alive.
The door swung inward, and Berry knew that she was wrong in hoping. Light from the kitchen poured into the freezer, illuminating the room. There, tied to a chair between two steel poles with hoses spraying water, was the pink earth pony they came to save, sitting there motionless. Twilight went through her mental timer, and tried to keep from shedding a tear.
The five minute timer was up.
Rainbow Dash zoomed up the stairwell, and flew to room four. Ignoring the dead stallion in the hallway, Rainbow landed on all four hooves outside room four. She turned her head around to look at the adjacent room. Spitfire's room. Spitfire's inanimate body still lay there in the pool of blood the wound in her back had made. Dash turned away, not wanting to see the scene. Entering the room, Dash started scanning the walls, hoping to look for what she came for.
There were roughly three dozen blueprints and sketches still pasted on the walls. The water that had been flowing through the transparent pipes in the room had gone dry, the tanks of water now drained. Why hadn't we tried to break the pipes instead of trying to break the door? Dash facehoofed. It wasn't the first time that something so obvious got pass the three. In moments of panic and enormous stress, one would tend to look over even the major details.
Dash turned her attention back to the blueprints on the wall. There was Twilight's trap, right next to a sketch of Colgate's trap. Next to Colgate's sketch was a blueprint of what seemed to Dash as giant amplifiers, at the bottom of a deep trench with a pony between each of the four amplifiers,two on each side. Dash glanced around. If I recall correctly.... Dash moved to the southern part of the room. A pipe had been blocking several blueprints. Dash knew that if she hadn't had the strength to buck a door down, though not as much as Applejack, she would have a problem trying to break through the pipe blocking the blueprints. If she reached below the pipe and tugged on the blueprint, she might rip it, rendering it useless if it were unreadable.
The sound of hooves going up the stairwell caught her attention. The pattern of the hooffalls seemed familiar to Dash. She had never really paid attention to the sound of hooffalls before, but ever since she got here, she practically forced herself to pay attention to every last detail. When she didn't major details could be skipped, such as the case of Pinkie's trap. The only hooffalls that she recognised with the pattern that she heard now was Berry's. Which was a relief for her. I need more help to understand some of the stuff written on these things.
She trotted off into the hall, only to retreat back into the office when a harpoon sailed through the air. What the buck?! She wanted to go back out and go crash head-on with whoever had tried to impale her. But all that was gone when she heard the sound of the harpoon gun reloading, and a very familiar voice called out.
"Who goes there?" a frightened, yet educated voice called out. Dash couldn't believe that a mare like Rarity would even know how to fire a harpoon gun, much less reload one, but she did reply.
"Rarity, what the buck has gotten into you?!"
"Dash? Is that you?" the voice called out.
Rainbow Dash stuck her head out of the doorframe, giving the marshmallow white unicorn a glare. "No, I'm a piece of fruit with wings covered with rainbow moss." Rarity snickered.
"Forgive me for the intrusion just now. Twilight and Berry got through the door." For a brief moment, Dash's eyes held a glimmer of hope, until she saw the sad expression of loss on Rarity's face. "But... Pinkie didn't make it." Rarity choked back a tear.
Though Rainbow Dash wasn't expecting Pinkie to pull through, the sheer reality of the truth was still enough to surprise Dash. She had always been around Pinkie, somewhat curious with her ways. Pinkie had thought Dash a lot, and to lose an amazing teacher and at the same time lose one of her best friends was a bit too much, and for the umpteenth time that day, Dash cried hot tears. Rarity joined in seeing as to how Dash was breaking down in front other, and the two cried together as the storm outside intensified.
Applejack sighed. She was sad, that was true, but somehow it wasn't enough for her to cry. Years of being under the sun and months of doing evil things had hardened her feelings, and anything saddening had been brushed off. It was the bad things ponies did that prepared them for the worst. Anypony who had done good would most likely be unprepared for the worst. Such as the case for Twilight. She had been awfully quiet since the tornado outbreak in Appleloosa. She had been reclusive and would give Applejack and anypony who came by excuses not to let them into the library.
Berry patted Twilight on the back as she cried on Berry’s shoulder. Twilight had never experienced the feeling of loss before. Spitfire was different. The two weren’t as close together as Pinkie Pie and Twilight. And losing a good friend like Pinkie was just heartbreaking. The Element of Laughter, no longer tied to the chair, now lay lifelessly on the floor in front of the entrance to the freezer as Berry tried her best to calm Twilight down. It wasn’t what happened to Pinkie that she’s worried about. It’s about Twilight. Her time was almost up, and she still had her needle collar on. The two leather braces on Twilight’s rearhooves still hadn’t been taken off yet, and the darkening sky outside certainly wasn’t helping.
“Hey Applejack.”
Applejack looked up. “Yeah?”
“Would you mind checking the time for me? Please?”
Applejack didn’t ask why. Berry had given Twi’ the correct numbers needed to open the door, so asking for the time would probably be one way of helping out with this situation. Applejack reached into Berry’s saddlebags, searching around for the pocket watch. She laid it on the dusty floor. “It’s 4.50pm”
Twilight looked up from Berry’s shoulder, her sobbing grinding to a halt. “Oh my Celestia! I don’t have time!” With that, she pushed herself off Berry and sat with her back leaning against a wall, like when she did in her office. Looking down on her needle collar, Twilight lit her horn, well aware that the needle brace she left upstairs would have run out of needles already. She didn’t care. If she were to get out of whatever she was in now, she had to take drastic measures. Twilight lit her horn, and a purple aura surrounded her needle collar. For a moment nothing happened, and Berry feared that Twilight might be wasting her efforts. The beeping on the needle brace on Twilight’s left rearhoof started intensifying, signalling the unicorn to stop if it didn’t want to get hurt.
Twilight didn’t stop, and continued. Twilight reached the strap of her saddlebag and bit on it right as the first needle dug into her hoof. Twilight’s cry of pain was muffled by the strap. But she didn’t stop, the aura around the needle collar slowly growing brighter and brighter. A second needle buried itself in Twilight’s hoof, making Twilight choke back a scream. The pain the other needle insertions made were mediocre compared to the needle that just pierced Twilight’s hoof.
The needle had gone through an artery in Twilight’s rearhoof and the wound was bleeding profusely. Biting harder on the strap of her saddlebag, Twilight forced herself further. The aura’s colour change to a dark blue, and 7 needles were detached in an instance, leaving two behind. A third needle went through the same artery the second needle had, and the amount of blood flowing out of Twilight’s injury twofold, or in Princess Luna’s words, the bleeding has been doubled! Berry dashed over to her saddlebag and quickly filled her syringe with the morphine from the quarter-empty bottle. Twilight continued the spell when she felt a prickling sensation in her rearhoof, and took it to be harmless as her pain subsided. Twilight was almost finished with the spell, detaching another needle, before the fourth needle buried itself into Twilight’s hoof. She coughed, making the spell incomplete.
“Shit.” She fired up the spell one more time, but there was no effect on the last needle. Twilight tried one more time, but indeed, there was no effect on the needle brace. Twilight looked back at her rearhoof. A horrified expression crossed her face as she saw the amount of blood loss she had sustained. She knew that any further magic would be near-fatal if she were to lose anymore blood, but there was nothing much she could do.
That was when a blue-ish white aura glowed around her Twilight’s rearhoof. Her rearhoof had gone numb from the pain and the morphine, but she felt a slight tingling sensation in her rearhoof as the aura pulsed through it. A few seconds after the end of the spell, Twilight’s jaw hit the floor as the bleeding miraculously stopped and her wounds had sealed themselves. She looked up, only to see the unicorn she had rejected help from earlier when she was trying to unlock the door. Twilight gave a sheepish grin at Colgate, who seemed rather pleased that she could solve Twilight’s problem.
“Uh...Thanks.”
Colgate nodded. “You really can’t get that last needle off, can’t you?”
A question about the last needle on her needle collar was the last thing Twilight had expected. She didn’t answer, slowly going through her thoughts as to why her magic wasn’t detaching the last needle. Moments later, she shrugged. “I have under half an hour to get the last needle off.”
Colgate once more nodded. Berry looked around the room. Aside from Twilight, Colgate, Berry, Applejack, and Pinkie’s lifeless body on the floor, everypony else was missing. Berry looked quizzically at Colgate.
“Colgate, where’s Rarity and the other unicorn?”
“Rarity had gone up after Dash. The other unicorn, I have no idea. But you have the key to his trap right?”
Berry shrugged, she hadn’t checked his trap yet. And already, the unicorn had disappeared without any of the ponies in the room noticing.
This is not good... Berry thought.