Trouble in Neo Neighpon

by ZeroChill

Exploration

As soon as Twilight Sparkle stepped through the open door, her eyes came upon a brightly-lit hallway. The door behind her slammed shut. She softly walked down the corridor and craned her head around the corner. At that moment, she saw two robed figures walking down from a staircase. She gasped as she walked backwards towards the door. The door failed to open. She scanned left and right in a hurried panic. There was no obvious way of escape. She looked upwards and saw an open duct in the ceiling.

“Suspicious, but I have no other choice.” She whispered to herself. She charged towards the right wall and jumped towards it. Her hooves ran up on the white wall. With the momentum from the jump, she immediately kicked the wall and bounced off towards the duct in the ceiling. Her front hooves grasped the metal within the duct. With several grunts and upper body strength, Twilight Sparkle successfully lifted herself into it. She turned around and observed the two figures from the gap in the duct. When the two of them stood at the doorway, the figure on the left turned towards the figure to the right.

“So, now that we got our hosts taken care of, what would our next plan of operation be?” It asked.

“I’m going to have to refill on my energy. I’ve used my biotech skills for days on end. It’s the least I can do for myself.” The other robed figure stated. A bead of sweat dropped from Twilight Sparkle’s face down to the floor below. It splashed onto the ground with what was a roaring ocean within her head. On instinct, Twilight Sparkle silently crawled down the duct.

Beads of sweat dripped from her body as she crawled down the duct. The metal felt hot to the touch as the warm air beat against Twilight Sparkle’s face. With each inch traveled in distance, her speed slowed down to a slug’s pace. In what was a ray of light within the dark corridor, a grate of light appeared ahead on the ground. Twilight Sparkle smiled as she quickly crawled to the area.

In that moment, electric horns blared throughout the entire factory. Her eyes widened in realization of the noise. Wasting no time, she crawled down the duct at light speed. She stomped on the grate below her with her right hind leg, knocked it off its hinges and fell through the gap.

Twilight Sparkle landed on all four of her hooves. As her eyes peered the room, she noticed a blue-coated unicorn mare with a pale blue mane and tail who squirmed underneath three straps that tied her down to a gurney. Her screams were capped by the duct tape over her mouth and her mechanically-augmented left portion of her chest was connected to a sharp needle. Orange light traveled up the catheter the needle was connected to. Twilight Sparkle ran to the mare’s side and swiftly pulled the needle out with her right hoof. She then pulled the duct tape that covered the mare’s mouth.

“Ma’am, are you alright?” She asked. The mare, who lied still, inhaled a rapid series of deep breaths.

“I’m alright now thanks to you.” She shouted with a loss of breath. Twilight Sparkle undid the straps of her gurney with her hooves. The mare slowly hoisted herself upwards with her front hooves and support. She stopped for a moment as her ears stood up. “What’s that noise?”

“I believe I may have set off an alarm. You should try to leave this place while it is in chaos right now. Don’t look back and don’t hesitate to be discreet!” Twilight Sparkle directed. The mare nodded with a smile.

“Thank you for saving my live Miss. It’s not any day when somepony just saves your life.” She ran towards the door way and swerved left. Twilight Sparkle stood there for a moment with a bright smile on her face. She dashed down towards the doorway and took the right.

She rushed down the hallway with breakneck speed. The Flashing lights that danced within the darkness distorted the path downwards. In the chaos of everything, Twilight Sparkle’s eyes picked up upon series of doors embedded into the walls. Out of curiosity, she stopped in her tracks and walked towards the door. The door lifted itself upwards. Twilight Sparkle blinked. Then, she shrugged her shoulders.

"I have the strangest feeling that I'm walking into another trap."

Unlike the rest of the building, this room was eerily quiet. No lights flashed anywhere, which left the entire area completely dark. The door dropped with a loud dud. Twilight Sparkle jolted forward. As she walked forward, her breaths deepened and her legs trembled greatly. A foreboding chill tightened around her spine the further she traveled into the room. After a few meters traveled, her nose bumped against a round object on the wall. A loud sound whirred in the room. Twilight Sparkle smiled as the dark atmosphere became illuminated with light.

“Perfect, now I can see what is in thi-“She turned around and stopped in her words; within the room was a giant machine with a purple-veined worm sticking out on top of it. It had no eyes, unmeasurable amounts of teeth that can gnash the toughest known substances to dust all wrapped within pale blue skin. Attached to the machine were multitudes of catheters attached to various pony corpses on gurneys.

“What is this… thing?!” Twilight Sparkle shouted out. Her hooves trembled as the corpses on the gurneys slowly shriveled as orange energy leaked into the machine. With slight hesitation, she lifted her left front hoof towards the worm-like being. With her right hoof, she pressed a combination of buttons on her hoof. Several hologram screens came up. Just as she was about to touch her screen, the door to the room opened up. Three earth pony stallions of various shades of yellow burst through the doorway with their eyes throwing daggers towards Twilight Sparkle.

“That’s her! She’s the one that killed Blurred Horizon!” The central-most stallion shouted. Twilight Sparkle’s hooves dropped as she jolted her head back in shock.

“What’s she doing in here!?” The stallion to the right shouted.

“I don’t know, but she’s been large trouble. Get her!” The stallion to the left ordered. Twilight Sparkle slid her holographic screens above her gauntlet to the right and imputed several key commands on her hoof. All three stallions stopped in their tracks and shouted with pain echoing in their voices. After several seconds, all three of them slumped onto the ground.

Twilight Sparkle exhaled a sigh of relief as she looked back towards the monstrous worm. From its mouth erupted a monstrous sound that shook the entire foundation of the room. Twilight Sparkle cringed and covered her ears with her hooves from the sheer force of the roar. Within the mouth of the worm, a spark of electricity channeled within. A virulent stream released itself and homed in on the pony before it. Twilight Sparkle’s eyes widened as she rolled out of the way of the attack. The lightning struck the ground and electrified the air around.

“Whatever this thing is, it’s definitely evil. I got to find a way to exterminate it, but how?” Her eyes drifted over to the control panel on the machine that hosted the creature. It has an active screen complete with what appeared to be a complete biological display of the creature. The cogs within Twilight Sparkle’s brain turned rapidly at the sight of the clue.

The creature shot another wave of electricity that zoomed in towards her. Twilight Sparkle jumped off of her right hind leg to the left and narrowly dodged a large portion of the strike. A tingling sensation crept up her leg. Then, her entire vision filled with static. She squealed as the electricity stopped all feelings in her nerves. The monstrous worm began to charge the electricity in its mouth once more.

Twilight Sparkle slumped over with a hopeless frown painted on her face. It was at that moment when another thought sparked inside of her head. Fighting against the paralysis, she slowly stood on all four legs. She shut her eyes as hard as possible. Strain was visible on her face as light contorted around her horn. As the worm fired the electricity in its maw, the electricity redirected itself into Twilight Sparkle’s horn and absorbed it. Twilight Sparkle’s eyes narrowed underneath intense pressure.

“Got to… not let it… go past my horn…” She stuttered out as the electrical energy fought against her own magical energies for dominance over her body. With a single loud roar, she conducted all of the electricity absorbed into the tip of her horn and discharged it within a single beam. The beam struck the creature with a loud boom. Twilight Sparkle took in several exhausted breaths as the creature roared out in pain.

She limped over to the machine as quickly as possible and placed her left hoof on the screen. A hologram came up above her hoof that detailed extensive coding. She tapped a series of buttons on it. After several seconds have passed, the screens from both her gauntlet and on the machine suddenly deactivated. The worm creature that roared slumped over lifelessly. Twilight Sparkle wiped the sweat off of her forehead.

“That was… too close… for comfort.” She said between gasps. “Still, what’s a thing like this doing here? This is probably what Spike was talking about.” She lifted her left hoof above to her face and pressed a single button on it. She scrolled through the series of screens that appeared until an icon with a camera appeared. Tapping the screen, Twilight Sparkle’s eyes suddenly flashed in a digitalized green. Within her vision were numbers and different settings, as if her eyes were a camera. She set her sights onto the worm. “How do I take a picture?” Suddenly, a green bar appeared in her vision along with a percentile number. As the number reached ‘100’ and the bar filled up, her eyes filled with a flash of pure white.

She stumbled backwards in surprise. Her vision filled with black spots that softened over the seconds. As her vision was restored completely, an image of the worm appeared as a hologram screen before her face. She placed her hoof onto the screen and physically moved it into her left hoof.

“That’s a weird feature Spike gave me. It works, but for Pete’s sake that nearly blinded me.” She grated out, walking out of the room.

---

The gate outside the complex was swarmed with various officers, bot and other forms of security. Celestia stood directly in front of the gate with her eyes focused on the building. She stood there, ready to move at any moment. After minutes upon minutes of waiting, her eyes led towards a blue unicorn mare who ran panicked outside of the building.

“Mares and stallions, on your guard!” Celestia shouted as the mare ran over towards the gate. The mare breathed heavily as her mouth gleefully smiled at the sight before her.

“You came! You came! Thank goodness you came!” She happily shouted behind the gate.

“What seems to be the problem Miss?” Celestia asked.

“I was hooked up to some kind of strange machine through some tubes and other things. I couldn’t move nor scream as I had my energy sapped right out of me. I was scared… I thought I was going to die on that table.” The mare’s eyes immediately filled with tears. Celestia eyed her with a confused look.

“With something like being bound and gagged, how did you manage to get out of your predicament?”

“A kind unicorn mare came from the ceiling and saved me. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t make it out of here!” At the joyful words of the mare, a hopeful smile etched onto her face. Thrusting her right front hoof into the fence, Celestia broke a bar on the gate. She bent the surrounding bars around it until a sizeable gap was formed. The mare hopped through the gap as quickly as possible.

“My officers will escort you home Miss. You’ve had a rough evening.” At these words, the mare rushed towards the backseat of the nearest metal carriage. A group of three officers from the squadron followed the mare to the carriage. The carriage lifted itself up and drove off into the distance. Celestia eyed back towards her officers with a stern look on her face. “It seems that the matter at hand has become complicated. I’m going to have to go inside to see if there are any more hostages. I want each of you to remain here and keep a vigilant eye out for the criminal. Is that clear?!”

“Yes ma’am!” All the officers shouted in unison. Celestia nodded and went through the bars. As she progressed through the door, she heard a familiar voice call out towards her.

“It’s dangerous to go alone. You might need me.” She turned her head to her left and saw Spike, whose trench coat was covered in several types of filth. Spike shook himself free of the grasp of the dirt that clung onto him.

“I didn’t expect to see you here Spike.” Celestia stated with a mix of joy and annoyance. Spike eyed the watch on his wrist.

“The place is under high alert, one heartbeat had completely fallen off the map and Twilight’s heartbeat became dangerously unstable at certain times.” He walked towards Celestia with a large grin on his face. “If she barely made it through so far, how would you fare?”

“Very well I would imagine. After all, I’m definitely more powerful than she is.” Celestia responded with an assured voice.

“Is that why you allowed yourself to be stunned through Twilight’s expert hacking skills?”

“Shut up.” She shot down. “But, I suppose you are right. If I had one with your skills and experience by my side, I would feel more secure when going through some place such as this.” Spike walked over towards the cyber-lock. He thrust his claws through the retinal scanner. Green 0s and 1s uploaded from his claws into the scanner. Several clicks and other noises behind the door mobilized. After a few seconds, the door cracked open.

“Ladies first.” Spike smugly stated. Celestia rolled her eyes and walked through the door. Spike slowly followed behind her.

“Please don’t die on us before we reach you, Twilight.”

---

Twilight Sparkle limped down the main corridor. Her right hind leg was all but with motion and looked as if it can fall off of her body at any time. Her mane had several char marks and her left eye was black and swollen. She weakly lifted her left hoof to her right hoof and tapped on buttons from there. Five images of limp worm-like creatures flew to her face along with more images of screens that detailed concise wording.

“What is up with this place? I barely beat my way through several more security guards and encountered five more of those disgusting worms. On top of that, I haven’t seen any more of the hostages in this building. Could they all have had their energy drained that quickly?”

As she continued down the hallway, a stairwell that led deep underground eventually came in her line of sights. “Regardless of what happened, this looks like the last area in the facility. This must be where Sunset Shimmer resides.” A pained smile curled on her face. “It’s time to confront my offender.”

Author's Note:

The second to last major chapter of the fic. What horrors lie before Twilight? Will Celestia and Spike reach her in time?

Comments

[Bebop64]

That giant worm fight was really neat. Actually, now that I thought about it, Twilight seems to be displaying limited usage of her magic.

Plus, love that “Legend of Zelda” reference.