Consequences

by shallow15

Observation, Geodes, and Frank

The cave Frank was being held in was making him angry. It was too cold, too quiet, and worst of all, it was cramped. His back constantly bumped up against the top and the giant fangs hanging from his mouth kept scraping the floor. His legs were burning as he tried to stretch but he had almost no room to move.

Worst of all were the occasional jolts of lightning that seemed to come every time he roared to let his displeasure known. They hurt and made the fuzziness in his head even worse. In fact, there wasn't much that he recognized as “himself” left anymore. There was only pain, confusion, and anger.

All three got worse when he felt a rumbling in the floor below him and he felt himself moving backwards, even though he wasn't the one causing it. He let out another roar and was almost immediately zapped again. He growled in the back of his throat, hunkered down as best he could.

And waited.

---

Level Four of Secure Site Bravo-Six was different from the other levels. It's layout was very simple: two vast chambers, each three hundred yards by one hundred, and nearly five stories tall. Reinforced alloy walls, a variety of security measures, and an ingenious transport system that allowed the detainment chambers on Level Three to be transported easily to either Observation One or Observation Two.

In between the two observation rooms was a hallway with elevators and stair access on each end. In the middle were two staircases leading up to the control room. From there, STORM's cryptid experts could observe and monitor the abilities of whatever subject was under observation at the time, and activate any security devices should said subject become... rambunctious.

Under the stairs leading up to the control booth were two large sets of doors, one on each side, leading into the observation chambers. Sunset and her friends, along with two visibly armed STORM guards, were standing in front of them. Rarity had been transferred to a wheelchair from the medical bay on Level One.

There was a buzz and the double doors slid apart. One of the guards turned to the girls.

“All right,” he said. “Inside.”

Rainbow Dash frowned and clenched her fists, but Applejack put a hand on her shoulder. When Rainbow turned to look at her, she shook her head. Rainbow let out a snort and went inside with the rest of the group.

“Hey, look!” cried Pinkie Pie. She pointed at a small table sitting in the middle of the room. On it, the seven geodes sparkled in the fluorescent lighting.

“Aw, yeah!” Rainbow grinned. She zipped across the room to the table, followed closely by most of the other girls. Twilight looked behind her and stopped as she saw Sunset slowly walking behind them, a thoughtful look on her face.

“Sunset? You okay?” she asked.

Sunset looked up at her and smiled. “Yeah, sorry. Spaced out for a second.”

She sped up until she caught up with Twilight. They started walking toward the table, and Twilight leaned closer.

“What's really going on, Sunset?” she whispered.

“I'm trying to figure something out,” Sunset answered. “Give me a few minutes.”

“Do you think we can get out of here?”

Sunset was silent for a moment, then: “Maybe. But that's not the problem.”

“Then what is?”

Sunset shook her head. “The walls have ears. Let's get to the others first.”

They hurried to the table, where the others had put on their necklaces. They picked up their own and put them on.

“Feels good havin' these back,” said Applejack.

“I agree,” replied Rarity. “I felt like a part of myself was missing.”

“So now what?” Rainbow asked with a grin. “We pony up and lay the smack down on these assholes?”

Sunset shook her head. She gestured that the girls should come closer. “Getting out of here isn't going to solve the problem.”

“What do you mean?” Rainbow asked. “We go all rainbow lasers and pewwwwww! We get out of here and go home.”

“And then what?” Sunset asked. “We still have STORM on our trail and they know where we live. If we just break out of here, they'll be waiting for us. Not only that, if we decide not to go home, we're going to need to split up to make it harder for them to find us. And that's going to need money.”

“Which we don't have,” said Twilight.

“Exactly,” Sunset nodded.

“And there's Frank,” said Fluttershy. “We have to find him and help him.”

“Right,” said Sunset. “What we need to do is to find a way to do all that and make sure these guys leave us the hell alone after this.”

“Ladies!”

The girls looked up at the observation booth. They couldn't see anyone as the window was one-way glass. The voice of the Director continued.

“This is one of our observation chambers. We're interested in seeing what you can do and we'd be obliged if you would demonstrate your powers for us.”

“Fat chance, asshole!” Rainbow cried back. Behind her, Applejack smacked her hand over her face.

“Not helping, darling,” Rarity trilled through clenched teeth.

“I figured you might be reluctant,” said the Director. “So I decided to give you a little incentive.”

There was a rumbling in the floor and across the room, another set of double doors opened in the walls, and a large rectangular vault slid into the the room. As soon as it was fully in the room, the doors closed again, disappearing as quickly as they appeared.

There was a roar that shook the vault and made the hairs on Sunset's neck stand on end. She looked up at the observation booth.

“What's in there?” she demanded, having a pretty good idea.

“I decided to reunite you with your friend from the woods.”

There was a red light on the front of the vault, which turned green and the door popped open.

It was like watching a large purple explosion as Frank burst from the vault. Metal groaned and shrieked as he wrenched himself from the vault. The seams of the vault burst and Frank emerged. Now nearly thirty feet tall, his fangs were the length of one of the girls. His fur was a fluctuating shade of purple, with stars twinkling throughout, making him look like a living nebula.

“Frank?” Fluttershy asked. Frank roared in response and glared at them. There was no intelligence in those crazed eyes, only pain and anger.

“It's your call, ladies,” said the Director. “Because either you or it is going to walk out of this room today.”

Sunset cursed under her breath. She looked from the booth, to her friends, to Frank.

“What do ya wanna do, Sunset?” asked Applejack.

Sunset started to shake her head, then stopped and her eyes widened as something clicked in her head. She looked up. “Pony up.”

“Are you sure?” Twilight asked.

Sunset nodded. “They want a show, we'll give them a show.”

She let herself give a small smile as they grabbed their geodes, ears, tails, and wings appearing. She walked around the table and began heading toward Frank, trusting her friends would follow.

We'll give them a show, all right, she thought. And we'll bring the house down.

Comments

[Skyblazer9]

I do hope they DO bring down the house and make STORM regret their actions as well as take down the director once and for all. I do hope that Vice Principal Luna gets the letters from Sunset and does whatever she can to help out.

Keep up the good work.

[An-Twan Star]

Good to see Sunset thinking about the bigger picture and planning on the fly. Surprised STORM doesn't have some kind of artillery piece or other measures in place in case things involving cryptids went south but it would seem they've never encountered such a situation before.

[Sollys]

Don't be shy burn it all down.

[Teraunce]

Nice update even if it is tiny.

[CapNTilfy]

I wonder what Sunset has in mind?

[sunset-starlight]

FLUTTERSHY TO THE RESCUE!!

[Ilovechips4ever]

Ooooh, I can’t wait to read what Sunset has in mind. I’ve got the feeling it’s gonna be awesome and epic. The director really is going to regret his actions, I hope.

[w11drose]

i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/788/251/14a.jpg

[SilverDiamond]

10513208
No intellect to appeal. No shame or familiar connections. So not sure Flutters gonna do much in this case.