//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8: New Friends 
// Story: Subject #7 
// by StarryDay 
//------------------------------//


Chapter 8
New Friends
June 11, A.C. 1014


Pinkie sat on her haunches on the cold, clinical tile floor, wondering when the mean lab-coat ponies were going to bring her that cupcake they promised her. She supposed they were not trying to be mean, they were probably just grumpy from not having any friends. Well, she would just have to fix that. Suddenly, her tail twitched uncontrollably. Something must be about to fall. Then her left ear moved back and forth. That could only mean one thing! She turned behind her, and in one smooth motion, reached out her head, turned it upside down, and clamped her jaws down on the cupcake falling from a hole in the ceiling. She smacked her lips as she pulled her head back into an upright position.
"Mmm! Strawberry icing!" She turned to the mirror on the wall that she knew the other ponies were watching through. "Thanks!" she said happily. "It was delicious!" She ran her tongue around the edges of her mouth, cleaning off the excess icing. "It's been a while since I got the falling-food combo!" After a moment, the door of the cramped room opened up to reveal a yellow unicorn in a lab coat levitating a clipboard.
"Well done, Twenty-Five! You have passed the first test. You shall now be escorted to the cafeteria for the evening meal, then shown to your room." Pinkie followed the pony, bouncing along.
"Ooh, food! I'm feeling really peckish right about now. Even after that cupcake! I wonder where that word comes from, 'peckish.' Maybe it's because when chickens get hungry, they start pecking, or maybe-" Bonk! She bounced a little too high and hit her head on the ceiling. She landed and sat on the floor rubbing her noggin. "Ouchie, that hurt!" The researcher kept moving, not paying any heed.
"Please keep moving, Twenty-Five," he said. Pinkie resumed bouncing, apparently not deducing that the ceiling was slightly too low for her antics.
"I dunno why you keep calling me 'Twenty-Five,'" she said, confused. "If I'm any number, I would be number 1, because I'm the funnest pony around!" They entered an elevator and Pinkie stopped bouncing, suddenly conscious of the enclosed nature of the space.
"Are you alright, Twenty-Five?" asked the scientist. Pinkie's ears moved back on her head.
"Yeah, I'm fine," she said. "I just have a problem with little places." She cleared her throat. "It's no big deal." The elevator came to a halt and the doors opened to the cafeteria. Pinkie Pie gladly exited the cramped space then looked back to see that the researcher was not following her. "Aren't you going to come eat, silly?" asked the pink mare, giggling. He shook his head.
"No, I have some sandwiches at my office." He left it at that and pressed the button to close the doors. Pinkie just shook it off and hopped happily over to a table that was nearly empty, save for a stoic-looking brown earth stallion with flat black hair and a spiral-looking cutie mark. He ate slowly, almost like it was a chore. Pinkie sat down on the bench across from him.
"Whatcha doin'?" she asked. He just looked at her like she was a death-row prison inmate; with what seemed to be a combination of sadness, pity, and condescension.
"Newbie, huh?" he said in a low, quiet voice. He had a slight accent that Pinkie could not quite place. "Lesson One: I don't talk to ponies." He went back to slowly eating his sandwich. He stared into nowhere, making Pinkie feel that she had done something wrong. But she had not done anything wrong, had she? All she had done was try to cheer him up. There were very few ponies that Pinkie did not feel happy around, but this pony was one. She felt her mane begin to droop ever so slightly.
"O-Okay," she said with a tinge of sadness. "I won't bother you again." The second she was away from him, she resumed being her normal giddy self, her hair returning to its former fluffiness. She bounced over to another table, this one with several ponies, most notably a blue earth mare with a cutie mark that looked like a foreign symbol.
"What are your names?" Pinkie asked, sitting at the table. The ponies murmured.
"We don't have names," said a lavender mare. "Just numbers. I'm Four, these are Eight and Eighteen." She pointed to the blue earth pony and a skinny pegasus, respectively. "What's your number?" Pinkie smiled.
"I'm Pinkie Pie, but for some reason, they keep calling me Twenty-Five."
"You must be the new arrival," said the pegasus. "Welcome to Area 68. What's your ability?" Pinkie cocked her head to the right.
"Ability?" she asked. "What do you mean?"
"Well," he said, "we're all here because we have some sort of ability. For example, my ability is super strength." He slid his wing underneath the blue mare's stomach and lifted her up over his head with ease. She cleared her throat and gave him a look. "Oh, sorry," he said, setting her down. He then turned to the lavender mare on his right. "Four here can shapeshift." The mare briefly turned into a copy of the scientist Pinkie had seen earlier, then the pegasus, then back to her original form.
"Ooh, ooh!" said Pinkie, clopping her hooves together. "Do me!" The mare obliged and took the appropriate shape. She copied Pinkie's every move, turning her head, lifting her hoof in the air, and touching her nose. She then reverted to her normal body. "That's cool!" said Pinkie. "I wish I could do that!"
"And Eight can speak any language perfectly, even made-up ones!" The blue mare poked her hoof into the conversation.
"As long as they're internally consistent," she added.
"Can you understand this?" asked Pinkie. "Gah, toobahk veelem tuben." She contorted her face into awful shapes as she spoke. Eight put her hoof to her face.
"No, because it doesn't mean anything and doesn't have structure. I said, 'as long as they are internally consistent.' What you said was just gibberish."
"Does everything sound like English?"
"No," said Eight, impressed that she had finally been asked a legitimate question, "I'm perfectly aware of what I'm saying and hearing; I can just understand a pony no matter what language they're speaking."
"Can you control what language you use?"
"Somewhat. I can control it, but if I'm stressed or not concentrating or something, I default to English."
"So what's your ability?" asked the pegasus.
"Probably my Pinkie Sense!"
"Pinkie Sense?" asked Four. "What's that?" Pinkie smiled.
"It's twitches and feelings that tell me what's going to happen. Like, if my tail twitches, it means something's gonna fall. If my back is itchy, it's my lucky day!"
"So, precognition?" said Eighteen.
"Uh, I don't know what that word means, but probably!"
"That's cool," said Eight. "We've never had a precog before."
"What's the deal with Mister Grumpy-Pants over there?" She pointed to the brown pony sitting by himself. All the ponies at the table looked at her.
"That's Subject One," said Four. "Nopony knows what his ability is. He doesn't talk much."
"He makes me want to fall off a cliff," said Pinkie sadly.
"Yeah," said Eighteen. "He has that effect on everypony. Especially Sixteen." He pointed to a dark purple earth mare sitting in the opposite corner as Subject 1. Her mahogany mane reminded Pinkie of Rarity. "She's an empath, so she never comes within 20 feet of him."
"One time," said Eight, "when she first came here, she tried to say hello to him. He looked at her, and the next thing we knew, she was curled up on the floor babbling about gods or something." Pinkie looked around and spotted a foreign-looking green earth pony with a leaf cutie mark.
"Who's that?" she asked, pointing with a hoof.
"Oh, that's Twenty-Four," said Eight. "He can communicate with plants. He was the newbie until you came along. He doesn't speak English, but he's okay. Mostly stays on Level Seven and manages the garden."
"He looks kinda lonely," Pinkie said with a small frown.
"Well, you're welcome to try and cheer him up," said Eight. A small, smug grin formed on her muzzle. "If you can talk to him." Pinkie aimed a pouty face her way, but Eight showed no reaction. A voice suddenly called out from the cafeteria doorway, making Pinkie jump slightly.
"Pinkie Pie?" Pinkie turned around to see an old foalhood friend standing some distance behind her in the doorway.
"Sierra!" She sped over and grabbed the mare in an enormous bear hug.
"Pinkie!" she choked out. "Can't breathe!" Pinkie let her back down onto the floor.
"Oh, sorry!" she giggled.
"What are you doing here?" Then her mouth turned downward in realization. "They captured you for your Pinkie Sense, didn't they?"
"What do you mean by 'captured?'" Pinkie asked. Sierra put her head down.
"I mean you're stuck here," she said bluntly. Then she lifted her eyes to Pinkie's own. "Unless somepony breaks us out, which doesn't appear likely."
"Oh, I don't know," said Pinkie knowingly. "Theseus seems to be going that direction." She smiled. Sierra was extremely confused.
"Who?"
"Never mind." Sierra shook her head and put a hoof on Pinkie's shoulder.
"Come on," she said. "I'll formally introduce you to everyone." They walked back to the table and sat down across from Eight and Eighteen.
"I assume," she said, "that you already know these ponies." Pinkie nodded happily. Sierra then pointed to the far corner of the cafeteria to a middle-aged turquoise unicorn mare with gears for a cutie mark. Pinkie guessed she was a bit older than Mrs. Cake. "That's Three. She's a technopath. She can create any machine she wants from whatever materials she has. She's actually invented a lot of stuff in the outside world. I bet she was the one who invented that party cannon you use."
"Yeah," said Pinkie. "I always wondered how that worked. All I have to do is set the dial, and boom! Instant confetti, or candy, or whatever I need!" Sierra moved her hoof again, this time toward an earth pony of muted-looking colors with a pink ball of yarn tucked neatly in her mane.
"That's Eleven. Her power is intangibility, which means she can walk through walls and sink through floors. Oh, and whatever you do, don't mess with her hair. She'll probably tear your lungs out. Anyway, they had to put special magical shields around the place so she couldn't get out."
"Kinda like Kitty Pryde!" said Pinkie. Sierra looked at her in confusion once again.
"Who?" she reiterated. Pinkie giggled.
"Oh, nothing." Sierra rolled her eyes, then proceeded to point out several other ponies, including a unicorn with super speed, an earth pony that could control gravity and walk on the ceiling, and a really mean-looking mare that could control electricity. Pinkie disliked the way the electricity pony looked at everyone except the lackeys she sat with. She seemed to be a bit of a sourpuss. Finally, they turned back to their little group.
"And of course, these ponies are already familiar."
"Yeah," Pinkie said. "Hey, did you ever tell them about how you were a famous explorer named Sierra Nevada?" Sierra gritted her teeth and waved her hooves for her to stop, but Pinkie paid her no attention whatsoever. "And that you were in the news and everything? And how you discovered the city of Pompneigh underneath a volcano-" Sierra shoved her hoof in Pinkie's mouth, but it was too late. Four and Eight spoke simultaneously.
"You were famous?"
"You were an explorer?" Eight put her hoof in front of the other mare and took the lead.
"How come you were always holding out on us, saying you didn't know anything about the outside world?" Then Four spoke up.
"Yeah, you said you came from another facility. As if we needed to think there were more of these places out there!"
"I just wanted to be like you!" said Sierra angrily. Then she lowered her voice so as not to be overheard by the other subjects. "Everywhere I've gone, I've always been recognized. But I place a lot of value on my privacy, and a lot of civilians don't seem to understand that. Then all of a sudden, I get taken away by these ponies;" she said the word like it tasted bad, as if she felt they did not deserve the title; "and they take me to a place where no one knows who I am? I might not like being trapped in here, but at least it's relatively private!" She sharply inhaled and appeared relieved to have finally gotten it all out.
"Wow," Pinkie said quietly. "I never realized you felt that way." Sierra just let out a weary sigh and left the cafeteria.

"Hello?" Pinkie knocked on the door of Sierra's room.
"Come in, Pinkie." Pinkie walked in the doorway, then looked at the wall to see a small but ultra-realistic painting of her face above the bed Sierra was lying in.
"Whoa! Who did that!?" Sierra turned to look at it and smiled sweetly.
"Two gave me that a couple minutes ago. She can copy anything she sees anyone do. She saw us arguing and talked to me about it. After I explained what good friends you and I are, she offered to make that. Apparently, she had seen somepony paint on a video they gave her during a test." She chuckled. "She told me not to hang it up until the paint dried, but I couldn't resist!"
"So," Pinkie said uncertainly, "does this mean we're still friends, even after what I said?"
"It's okay, Pinkie. You couldn't have known that I wanted to keep it a secret. I suppose, somehow, it would've eventually gotten out anyway. I was mad enough at myself when I partially revealed my name on the first day. But I suppose it shouldn't matter." She turned back over onto her side and yawned, covering her mouth with one hoof.
"You tired?" Pinkie asked. "Because I can go if you want."
"Well, I want to keep talking with you, but lockdown is coming in a few minutes, so you better get to your room."
"Okay!" She bounced out and down the hall to the left, turned the corner, and stopped at the doorway. She could still see Sierra through her open door. "Good night, Sierra!" She waved, then trotted into her room, and Sierra waved back.
"Good night, Pinkie."