The What and Whatiful Who

by cosby7

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE: This Place Sucks

Her laugh rang loudly in the desolate halls of the exhibit hall. “It may not be Great and Powerful, but the Magnificent Trixie has a certain ring to it.”

“It certainly does,” he replied, beaming. “Come along then,” he continued shuffling off in one direction or another, “best we make our exit before learning any more than necessary.”

“Indeed,” Trixie agreed, padding alongside him, “Trixie has already done enough reading today to last her quite some time. And, of course, boorish as always. No mention of my illustriousness.”

“Mm,” Doctor Hooves agreed noncommittally. It was almost as though what she said had actually given him cause to consider something. Trixie found it odd that this particular mention had made him so contemplative. Surely she could not have said something actually important. Even she knew that what she had said was mostly a joke. Mostly. Partially. Like, sixty/forty. Give or take.

By the time Trixie realized that his being in thought had put her just as much in thought, she realized that she had been following Doctor Hooves in circles. Not circles around the museum or circles around the room. No, it was one tight circle that he kept walking around in at the opening of a new corridor.

“Doctor, what are you doing?”

“Not interrupting you,” he replied as if it were the simplest thing in the world. “You looked deep in thought and it seemed rude to bother you.”

“Well,” she said in the midst of a low growl, “Trixie is no longer bothered, so could you please stop?”

“Look, Trixie,” he said in a tone of clear annoyance, “I'm trying to think a bit here, could you not interrupt? You're being a bit rude.”

It was hard to tell if Trixie was growling again at that moment or if she had never really stopped. “Oh, my poor Doctor. Trixie is ever so sorry to have disturbed you,” she intoned with mock concern.

The Doctor raised an eyebrow at her, but did not stop his pacing. “Subtle.”

“Trixie is certain she has no idea what you mean, but, if it might help, she would be quite willing to share the burden of your thoughts.”

Watching the Doctor's eyes roll while he continued his circling was actually starting to make her dizzy. With nary a missed beat, she shook her head, clearing her senses, and went right back to staring daggers at the stallion. The thing about those daggers was once they got stuck in a pony, there wasn't too much that pony could do to shake them out.

“I was trying to decide what to do next.”

“Trixie can help with that. You should find the exit next.”

“That's the exit,” he said, nodding his head toward mysterious corridor.

“Why didn't you say so?” she asked, annoyed, but hardly surprised. Obviously he had been wandering in front of this passage for a reason. It all made sense: The reason he stayed was because this was the exit. The reason he kept turning in circles was because he was a weirdo. “Regardless, let's get going then.”

“I don't think you want to do that.”

“Oh?” she returned, unfazed. “And why is that?”

“Because that corridor has a lot of doors.”

Trixie blinked. Tilting to one side, she craned her shackled neck to look down the length of the exit corridor. Sure enough, both sides of the narrow hallway featured a seemingly endless line of uniform grey metal doors. Each one was complete with a large turn wheel handle and a smaller door at the top that looked like it slid to the side. She supposed it was to see inside the room without opening the door, but it hardly seemed to matter why such a thing would be necessary. This place had been strange enough that Trixie preferred not to question anything, lest it jump out and bite her for the trouble.

“In Trixie's expert opinion, those are indeed doors.”

“I'm going to have to open those doors.”

“Everypony has to have a hobby,” she countered with a shrug.

“Opening the doors is probably going to scare you.”

“That's ridiculous!” Trixie screeched. Clearly, this was the straw that broke the humped Arabian pony's back. So, nopony could possibly be as brave and unflinching as the mighty Doctor? Insolence!

“It's really not.” He was doing that 'stressing the vowel sounds, because I'm so much smarter than you' thing again. “Because the question is, 'Why would a museum have a row of doors like that?'”

Such trifling concerns were not Trixie's to heed. Nothing short of nothing was going to stop the Great and Powerful Trixie from walking over to any sort of door she chose, such as she proceeded to do, reaching the door nearest the entrance in moments, sliding open any little hatch that struck her fancy, as she then allowed her horn, non-magically, she disappointedly reminded herself, to do, and looking inside to see—

“Oh my bucking Celestia!”

In the blink of an eye, Trixie was well away from the open hatch on the door and cowering behind the Doctor's hourglass-emblazoned flank. Unfortunately, her cover did not last long, as the Doctor slowly made his way over to the door with the hatch Trixie had opened. His sad eyes peered through the door's divide, unsure if their sorrow came from the sight they beheld or because that sight did not surprise them.

“Because it's a prison.”

Inside the cramped room beyond the door was an earth pony with a coat of pale gold and a cutie mark like a glowing heart. Her mane and tail were gone, presumably shaved away. Instead, the mare was suspended above the floor by a bizarre web of wires and cables that entered through incisions in her head and spine. The rest of her body hung limp, not even twitching at the electrical hum of the machinery planted within her. What remained in that room was not a pony; it was a corpse in a box.

Unflinchingly, the Doctor maintained his gaze on the view port. His vigilance was soon rewarded as, out of nowhere, an image appeared, perfectly framed by the viewing port's sides. It was like a screen, but it just floated there in the void between the door and what was once a pony. Upon the pseudo-screen though, the affair was quite different. The pony in that picture, very much a match for the one suspended in the room, save for a flowing mane persisting where there were now only wires, appeared to be very much active and alive. In the image, she was yelling at a group of ponies wearing armor and sporting some of the weapons from the exhibit hall. Her hoof jabbed at the air, picking out each of the armored ponies accusingly. Two of the armored ponies stepped out of their formation and made to walk around the mare, looking to enter the entrance of the building to her back. Without hesitation, she jumped in their way and shoved violently at them with all her strength. One of the ponies stumbled backward, but the other, a unicorn, stepped around and his horn began to glow. An instant later and the mare was winded on the ground, as if a blow had knocked her down for the count. Again, two more armored ponies stepped from the line. Each one grabbed one of the mare's legs and started dragging her away. She recovered quickly, struggling and kicking all the while, screaming at the top of her lungs, but it was no use. No matter how she tried, she could not escape their grip. And then the armored ponies entered the building and started bringing out the foals.

“What is it?” Trixie asked in a terrified awe. At some point during the presentation, she had made her way back to the door. Her gaze was nowhere near so intense as the Doctor's, but she made it a point to look over his shoulder and bear witness to the horror she did not understand.

“History,” Doctor Hooves announced sullenly. “The memories of a prisoner. A war criminal.”

“But . . . .” Trixie stammered. Nothing in her life could have prepared her for this moment. “Is she alive?”

“Not in any real sense. Some part of her brain that still has access to her memories is hooked up somewhere, in here, in all this, but it's not what I would call a life, no. As soon as any of these wires come undone, the whole process would backfire, killing her instantly.” Gritting his teeth through the fog of rage, he slid shut the cold hatch to the harsh sound of metal scraping metal. “They made an example of her: The rest of eternity to stand as an exhibit of her crime.”

“Did you know about this? Did you know we would find them this way?”

“No. I had my suspicions, but, no. This is a prison, after all, though. No matter how big the rest of it is, it's still a prison. The cells had to be somewhere.”

“So . . . all of them are like this? All over the park? Every pony?”

“Oh, I'm sure whoever set this all up is vindictive enough to include a different theme in each area, appearances and all, but, yes essentially, you're right. They're all like her. You heard it yourself: They've all been banished.”

“Doctor?” Trixie finally said after a sufficiently long, and mostly unintentional, moment of silence. A practiced facade of a voice betrayed none of the terror and revulsion she felt. “Let's leave. Trixie has had enough of History Kingdom.” The Great and Powerful Trixie does not vomit. The Great and Powerful Trixie does not vomit. The Great and Powerful Trixie does not . . .

“Yeah,” Doctor Hooves replied quietly. He stared at the closed view port only a moment longer, as if it might have one last secret to share with him. Finally, though, he must have given up on solving the riddle of that particular travesty, and he started heading onward, past the countless prison cells. “I think I have too.”