//------------------------------// // Chapter Twenty Seven // Story: The Mare from the Moon // by Evilhumour //------------------------------// Celestia stared at the mare laying flat at the Nightmare Moon statue and felt her frustration at the situation grow. Genome had just confirmed their suspicions about her being a mass murderer via chemical warfare but not to this extent. The number of lives she had ended were far greater than that of Equestria; at least three times over with plenty of room to spare. Even Discord at his worst had not ended that many lives. The desire to protect her ponies by banishing this… creature to the sun was almost overwhelming. But she was stopped by a number of things. Firstly, there were laws, ancient ones about how to deal with criminals from other dimensions, and if she went afoul of them, she’d effectively be giving those from Genome’s dimension free legal reign to take what they believed was their due from her own dimension in return. Her Equestria was nowhere near ready for that sort of conflict, not with how advanced they were from what she had gleaned from Twilight’s reports on Genome. More importantly, the mare below her seemed genuinely horrified by her own words and their implications. Celestia forced herself to think through the entire conversation she’d just had with Genome and tried to determine if Genome was telling the truth or just using this as a decoy, with things pointing to the former. While Genome had no reason to suddenly share the details of her war criminal actions, she could have easily made up something far less dramatic as to appease her opposed to the obscene amount of lives she had ended which pointed to the mare being honest. Along with that, her entire posture and tone of voice enforced the belief that she was feeling true remorse over her actions but again, the sudden timing of it was very suspicious which cast doubt over her entire confession. Genome was very intelligent so she could have planned all of this but one had to be a masterful actor to show as little empathy as Genome had which she highly doubted was true. All of this was confusing and contradictory with no clear answer presenting itself so Celestia went back to what she knew about Genome without any doubt. The mare was a war criminal that had little regard for others unless it benefited herself and she had just admitted to killing almost thirty million people. She was an immortal that made normal death sentences an impossibility and she came from another dimension. Her choice of action was clear now; contact Luna and then transport this mare to one of the holding cells under Canterlot Castle. Tomorrow the two of them would debate on how exactly they would deal with Genome. Keeping her eyes focused on the mare, Celestia sent out two focused, specialized pulses of magic into the air. Without having to wait long, her sister appeared with a pop, still under the guise of Nightmare Moon. “This better be good, Tia, for we were in the midst of a grand battle of bobbing for apples with our dear knight Pip-” Her joyful tone abruptly ended when Luna saw her pointed look and asked in a flat serious voice. “What happened.” Celestia inclined her head slightly to the side to draw her sister’s attention to the kneeling mare with Luna absorbing the sight and what must have have happened in short measure. “Bad as we thought?” Celestia tilted her head in agreement and before Luna could ask the next question, Celestia said, “Thirty million, at the very least.” Luna visibly shuddered at that, becoming weak in the knees before she caught herself. “What are we to do next.” Luna turned her gaze onto the mare who had yet to move. “I am taking her to the Chambers, and in the morning we will decide what we will do with her,” Celestia stated as her chariot descended on the grass next to them. Luna moved to speak but Celestia cut her off. “I do not need your assistance; stay and enjoy your night.” Luna gave her a narrow look at the orders given to her but thankfully said nothing to it and instead asked, “What am I to say about her absence; Twilight and her friends will ask.” “Tell them to forget about me,” the hushed voice of Genome caused Celestia to snap her focus back onto her. “They do not need to taint themselves anymore by being associated with me.” Celestia frowned at her words making this decision even harder and steeled herself. “Genome,” she said the mare’s name, causing the pony to look up at her then at the carriages. She then rose to her hooves and made her way over to them. Celestia watched her sit down in the lead carriage before joining her, preparing a powerful spell if Spliced actually proved to be a threat. Nothing to kill her as it would be pointless so rendering her immobile would have to suffice. At Celestia’s command, their chariot began to take off with the other three forming an arrowhead around them with her guards in the other carriages preparing spells of their own in case the situation called for it. They moved in a tight circuit above the clearing with Celestia giving her sister one last look before they began to head off to Canterlot. Luna let out a sigh, shaking her head at this latest wrinkle. The fact that Celestia was actually using the Chambers for Spliced meant things were that dire and Luna had to reluctantly agree with her on this case as Spliced presented too many uncertainties to be left alone in a regular cell for their normally dangerous individuals. Luna thought on the Chambers and found it still had the bitter taste in her mouth as it did the first time she heard of her sister’s plans. The Chambers were a secret alternate reality hidden within Canterlot Castle that could only be accessed on a very complex route that had so many switchbacks, twists and turns through normal and private passageways that it was impossible for somepony to wander into the Doorway by mistake. The Chambers themselves were prisons for criminals too dangerous to be out in public, and even too dangerous to leave alone in Tartarus. Such risks could not be taken lest they threaten the safety of the nation if not the planet itself if they were allowed to be in this dimension. Each one was specialized for their prisoner to the point where escape was impossible as Celestia had had time to perfect the procedures for crafting them by making ones for their fellow Lords and Ladies. Celestia had shown her the Observatory, her own cell if she turned against the nation again and the Elements were not capable of repeating their feat in purifying her when she had returned from the moon. Luna had been quite angry when she saw that room but her anger was stilled when Celestia showed her the Dayroom, her cell if she ever went rogue. It was built with enough spells that Luna could actually see it holding her sister, even with the Lady of Day not holding back her raw magical strength. Only Luna and a select number of other individuals knew how far it actually went beyond simply raising and lowering the sun, and for Celestia to have been able to create such a counter was truly impressive. Along with the creation of the Chambers, Celestia had also drafted a series of warrior to create many different orders to deal with such threats if Twilight and her friends were not able to handle them or if they themselves were the ones who had turned against Equestria. Luna had met those of the Solar Eclipse order, the people that were trained to handle her sister if she ever went against Equestria. She had stayed with them for a while and observed a bit of their preparations and was confident in their ability to stop her older sister and bring her down permanently if need be. She didn’t learn all of their plans nor did she know a full list of all their members as both Celestia and Luna could both be a threat at the same time considering their close connection as sisters and Opposing Powers that did work in concert with each other. Celestia, of course, only had the dimmest of ideas of who they were or what they were capable of per the plans Celestia had drafted herself for them to follow. Luna then thought about the Hidden Moon order, the elite strike force that had been trained to incapacitate, or if the situation called for it, slay her. Her thoughts then drifted to the Library and Silent Knowledge order and wondered how Twilight would react to know that the perfect prison for her existed and there were individuals that were not only capable of completely defeating her, they would not hesitate to kill her if the young Lady of Magic became a threat; all on the orders of her former mentor. She wondered how the other Lords and Ladies would react to know that Celestia had so many plans to deal with them and individuals ready to kill them if they posed a threat but she expected it would be poorly for almost all of them, and that was with the already somewhat frustrated stance they had towards Celestia who could operate so openly with her Duties when they could not. Celestia had claimed it was for the best to have these plans and never need them than to need them and not having them, though Luna was suspecting that her sister might be falling to Order. It was why Luna allowed Discord such latitudes in his pranks to balance her sister out and why she personally did not follow Chaos or Order as they were both too dangerous in her opinion. Some of the other dimensions she had visited in the past had showed just how dangerous Celestia could be if she were allowed to fall to Order, with Solar Array and her brutal, rigid dictatorship of the world, let alone the others- “Luna?” a voice snapped the alicorn out of her musings, causing Luna to see that she had wandered back into Ponyville. “Is everything okay?” “Yes Twilight,” Luna said, bowing her head towards the younger alicorn, noticing that the rest of the Ladies of Harmony, Starlight and Spike were present. “I was just lost in thought.” “That’s fine, Princess Luna,” Pinkie Pie giggled; the mare was dressed up as a clown as per what she expected from the party pony. “We’re just looking for Spliced right now so we can make her first Nightmare Night really special; have you seen her?” Luna flinched and was about to lie when Starlight caught her involuntary reaction. “Is everything okay?” the unicorn asked her and Luna felt her heart sink, the lie dead before it could even be born. “Spliced is currently with my sister,” she said, keeping the truth as vague as possible as telling the whole story right now would only make things very unpleasant. “Why is Celestia talking to Spliced now, Princess Luna?” Twilight asked her, reminding Luna that Celestia had picked a horrid time to disillusion Twilight’s ability to blindly trust that her sister was always acting in the benefit of others. “It is concerning the reason why we had sent Spliced to you in the first place,” Luna replied carefully. “We had some questions about her; we just got the answers and now she is being escorted back to Canterlot so we can properly decide her future here.” “But couldn’t it wait until morning?” Rainbow Dash groaned. “I’ve got so many pranks planned tonight and I need Spliced to help me pull them off.” Luna was about to answer this when she noticed Pinkie was experiencing one of her prediction fits and by the looks on everypony’s face, it was a completely new on- Luna and Twilight each let out a gasp of shock and looked upwards; they both felt the massive surge of dimensional teleportation magic energy shifting on the moon and saw a spaceship leave her moon. Luna saw it was almost a kilometre long with four turrets on each end and worked in grooves for laser cannons along each side of the turret. Despite this firepower, which was far more than whatever they currently had in the public’s hand could ever hope to defeat Luna had the distinct feeling that this was only a scout class ship of Spliced’s home dimension which worried her tremendously for if they had somehow managed to bring this over, then they could possibly bring over their proper warships. Alarmingly, it was already descending quickly and with quick mental calculations, Luna saw it was coming straight for Ponyville. “Alien invaders!” Daisy shouted, pointing her hoof to the sky and causing the town to panic. “The horror, the horror!” Lily screamed before fainting, her two friends dragging her away. “Wait everypony, we don’t nee-” Twilight began before Luna silenced her with a light magical gag. “No, this is exactly what we need right now,” she snapped as she summoned her guards as well as her princess regalia. “We need to control the situation or we could all end up in serious danger.” Her ear flicked as she got dressed and turned to look at them all. “Listen to me very carefully; I will be doing all the talking and under no circumstances are any of you to do anything; this is beyond serious. So no surprise parties, no comment on their attire, no boasting how awesome you are, no comments on how mean they are acting or anything of the like.” Luna leaned her head down to stare at them in the eyes, catching a brief look at her unicorn guards and saw that they were already helping their fellow guards by summoning their parade armour and aiding them in getting dressed. It was going exactly as she trained to respond; they nowhere capable of fighting them but a proper show of their guards in their best could help present a good mental of them to the outsiders. Luna turned her focus back onto the group in front of her and said, “I will banish you from this place if I suspect you are about to jeopardize this.” “Luna, you need to cal-” Twilight began only for Luna to snort in her face as she summoned the young princess’s own royal attire and used her magic to hold Twilight’s face still as Luna’s glare bore into her. “No, I do not; you may think you know what’s best being the princess of friendship but trust me, one wrong action tonight and we could find ourselves at war with ponies that would have no problems destroying everything we hold dear, so if I think you are going to be the reason that countless lives will suffer, I will remove you,” Luna snapped, causing Twilight and her friends to fold back, the reality of the situation finally sinking in. “Now get dressed; you are a leader of this nation, even if you are not ready for the more strenuous parts of it.” “Yes Luna,” Twilight said with confidence which actually helped calm Luna down a tiny bit. Instead of being cowed and intimidated by her harsh words, Twilight saw the wisdom and necessity of what was going on and what was expected of her. She could thank Celestia for this by bringing Twilight and Cadance to the Valley of the Alicorns and explaining more of the multiverse to them and the dangers out there but she wasn’t about to dwell on that headache again right now. Steadying her eyes at the descending spaceship, Luna walked towards the landing location with her guards behind her and Twilight by her side, although a few steps backwards as it was proper to show who was senior princess and again, Luna knew that she would have to thank Celestia later for teaching Twilight this although she was curious as to when exactly it had happened. She had read most if not all of her sister’s former pupil’s friendship reports and this never came-. Luna gave herself a light jolt to focus herself on the spaceship that was landing in front of her. She had to be completely focused for what was to happen and take control of the narrative as soon as possible. The light grey scout ship hovered over the ground with anti gravity propulsion jets while its landing legs were extending. Already, Luna could tell a fair deal from this action; that those in charge of the ship decided to go this remote town for their first contact meant they either wanted to make a show of force or handled things in small steps. She discarded the former as the ship did not land in the middle of the town but on the outskirts, indicating they did not want to raise alarms with the natives which played well for them. The scout ship was now resting on the ground with the engines shutting down although Luna could still hear the faint murmur that indicated they were working to present the best non-threatening image to them while giving themselves the ability to pull back immediately if need be. From the front of the ship, a rectangular slab retracted upwards at the same time a walkway extended out with the ponies from Spliced’s dimension walking down it without pausing, showing how confident they were right now that they did not feel they needed to wait. As she had expected, it was a military detachment with the ponies, all Pures/alicorns as she had suspected, in full body armour and what looked like plasma rifles with standard looking sidearms although she couldn’t completely guess what they used for ammunition for such small firearms. The squad of soldiers appeared to be honour guards for who, judging by their military symbols and position in the group, the captain of this ship and his first officer. Oddly enough, the captain had an unusual modification to his armour with a large backpack section that was connected subtly to the bottom half of his helmet that was out of place from the rest of the other soldiers around them. Filing that away for later, Luna was pleased to see several ponies in more civilian garb that gave the air of bureaucracy which she was glad to see for once as it meant they really were focused on making proper diplomatic overtures towards their government. What really caught her eye was the fact that some of the diplomats were normal ponies. From what Spliced had told them, this would be completely unprecedented and a sign that something was really out of the ordinary and she would have to examine it later as Luna needed to take control of the situation before they had a chance. “Greetings,” Luna said to them, dipping her head ever so slightly. “I am Princess Luna, diarch of Equestria. This here,” she gestured with her wing to Twilight who also gave a proper bow to the ponies opposite of them. “Is Princess Twilight Sparkle, countess of this land as part of her training for her royal duties.” Twilight blinked owlishly at this and Luna stifled a curse as she realized that Twilight never knew her official duties and she had let the proverbial cat out of the bag. “To whom am I speaking with?” Their leader tilted their head before they reached upwards to remove their helmet with the one behind them mimicking the action, although her suspicions about the former’s helmet being specialized was correct as only the top part came off, leaving his mouth covered with what she suspected was a breathing apparatus now. He was young looking stallion, with a white coat and a short cropped mane with the colours of a meteor’s tail and very kind teal eyes. From the way his face moved, she could tell he had a smile on his face. The other officer, in his middle years, had a dark purple coat, with a similar military cut mane of gold and silver with judging gold eyes, from which Luna could tell he was a possible problematic soldier if allowed to talk or left alone for too long. Both of them clipped their helmets to their sides with a magnetic clip and the younger stallion stepped forwards. With a slightly over exaggerated bow with his wing at his barrel, he said, “Hello, your majesty, I am Captain Comet, of Guiding Light of Hesturland .” His voice was almost completely normal although he had a faint mechanical echo to it. He also had to wet his lips to speak again which gave Luna time to take charge. “It is a pleasure to meet you, sir Comet,” she responded, adopting a smile on her face and gesturing with her wing in a welcoming gesture towards Ponyville. “It is a core aspect of our nation that we believe we can make friends with anyone and I hope that we can have such a relationship with Hesturland.” “That is our hope, your majesty,” Comet said to her, the corner of his lips turning up in an even clearer sign of a smile hidden by his mask. “That is part of our mission; we had discovered an entrance to your world and we were charged with making first contact.” He paused to catch his breath, no doubt about to add that the second part of their mission was related to Spliced Genome which was something Luna would rather keep on a strict need to know basis. “We would be happy to escort you back to our capital,” Luna said, walking up to him while directing his attention to Canterlot which, judging by the sharp intake of air did its job to impress him. “My sister, Princess Celestia, my fellow diarch, is currently there and she would be overjoyed to expand our friendship to beyond the stars.” “There is the second part of our duty, your majesty,” Comet said, looking at her with concern. “We are after a very dangerous criminal that has escaped from our dimension into yours,” he said as he raised his right foreleg and tapped it, causing a hologram of Spliced Genome to appear. “This is the war criminal in question; nearly five hundred years ago we were in the midst of a civil war and she had aided one side with biochemical weapons in the form of diseases, infections and toxic gases.” Luna stiffened at this, as did everyone behind her at hearing Spliced’s past. “She has been sentenced to a thousand years in prison for the death of over twenty eight million and ruining countless other lives.” There were gasps from everyone and Starlight stepped forward, shaking her head. “I-I, I can’t believe Spliced did that…” she said softly but not soft enough as Comet and his fellow officers clearly heard her by the sudden shift in body language and the hard look in Comet’s eyes, not to mention the near murderous look in the other officer’s face. “I never said her name,” Comet said in a careful tone, glaring at Starlight before turning towards Luna. “Where is she.” “With my sister in the capital; we are transferring her to a secure location while we decide what to do with her,” Luna replied without hesitation. “She is to be turned over immediately,” Comet replied sternly, his hoof resting on his sidearm. “As I said, we are going to be deciding her place in our world,” Luna said, hoping that this could be dealt with diplomatically. Unfortunately it didn’t seem to be with the other officer stepping forward, pulling out his sidearm. “That is not acceptable,” he spat, taking another step towards her with her guards behind her stepping forwards with their own weapons pointed at him, remembering not to reveal their magic as per their training for this situation. “You will turn her over to us or-” “Shooting Star, stand down,” Comet whirled onto the officier, fire in his eyes. “I will not have you start an interdimensional incident.” The older stallion glared at his captain before reluctantly putting away his own sidearm. Comet gave a brief nod at this before he turned to face Luna again. “Ma’am, I apologize for my first officer’s actions but there can be no talks of peaceful relations so long as you give Spliced Genome sanctuary.” “Is that meant to be a threat, Captain Comet?” Luna asked sharply, feeling the whole situation slip out of her control and stabs of fear ran through her that they might find themselves in a war that they couldn’t win without risking permanently damaging their dimension’s balance and send everything into chaos. Judging by Comet’s eyes, he clearly didn’t want to do this either but he knew that he had no option but to say, “Again, ma’am, if you harbour Spliced Genome, we will be forced to-” “You will not need to do anything,” a voice called out from the side, causing everyone’s heads to turn as Spliced Genome walked away from carriages that had Celestia and her guards disembarking. Instantly, all of the soldiers from the other dimension pulled out their guns and aimed them square at her head. “Oh please, use some logic. Using lethal force won’t do a thing to me; if you want to do something that will actually be useful, set it to stun.” None of the soldiers did what she suggested, only squaring down harder with hate clear in Shooting Star’s eyes and furious anger in Comet’s eyes. The diplomats were cowering in fear, all trying to make as much distance as they could from her. “In any case, you will not need to do anything as I am turning myself in on two conditions.” “What makes you thi-” Shooting Star began only for Spliced to speak louder. “My first condition is that no one here is to be charged with accessory,” Spliced growled with Luna jolting in surprise; was there an actual chance that they would try to make her own ponies face the same sentence Spliced had? “My second condition is that I am to be moved planetside. I don’t care where you place me, either at the bottom of the sea or deep underground, so long as I am on a planet and not a moon.” “And what makes you think we would give you anything,” Shooting Star snarled with Comet giving him an angry glare. “Because if you promise me these things,” Spliced said with a smirk on her face, telling Luna that Spliced was hoping for this. “I will provide you with cures to everything.” That caused everyone from Spliced’s dimension to freeze. Some of the soldiers lowered their guns and looked at one another in what could only be complete surprise with the diplomats talking in huddled rapid conversations. Shooting Star was clearly having a hard time comprehending this, his face flicking from confusion to anger to hopefulness back to confusion and anger again. Only Comet seemed to be in control right now and it showed as he returned his firearm to its holster and walked straight to her. “You can do this?” he asked, looking down at her. “I remember each and every one of my creations and I know how to fix what I have done,” Spliced said tensely, her body language indicating that she was barely holding herself back from some explosive emotional response, perhaps grief or anger or something else. She gave the pack on his back a look and then looked at his face. “Preventive organ development; with your lungs being the organ in question?” She tilted her head with Comet nodding his own in confirmation. “If your ship has the same standard medical stations that we once had back in my time, I can cure you within several hours.” He narrowed his eyes at this and seemed to be thinking when Shooting Star grabbed him and hissed, “Sir, you cannot be seriously thinking of believing her.” Comet shook his hoof off of him. “Star, I am placing you in temporary command while I investigate this possibility. I expect you to act with all the dignity that is expected of your position.” He then leaned in close and whispered to the stallion. “If they try anything to spring her, you are authorized to incapacitate them, but only then. Do not try to harm any of the rulers or the locals; if they are here with their leaders, then they are important for some reason. Am I understood?” “Yes sir,” he said with a strained voice, clearly unhappy to work with those that had aided Spliced. Comet nodded at this before gesturing for Spliced to follow him, with several of his soldiers shadowing them with their guns still pointed at her head. As they were walking up the ramp, Luna saw that Twilight and her friends were terrified. They were struggling not to race to her, to try and comfort her, but Luna’s warning held them in place. Spliced didn’t even give them a final look before the door closed. Spliced felt her heart lurch as the door closed behind her, doing her best not to show how much it hurt her to turn her back on everyone but they would be safer if those from her home didn’t know her connection to them. Not only because they could be legally sentenced to the same fate she was, they would also be targets for people like Shooting Star who hated her… which meant everyone else back home. Her left ear flicked as Comet led her deeper into his ship, her eyes flicking to the mounted gun turrets on the walls that were tracking her movement before letting out a sigh. They would be wasting their time if they shot her as she would just come back as she always did no matter what. Her wings dipped at the thought of being unable to die and she felt incredibly tired right now. But she shoved it down inside of her as she couldn’t let her own troubles distract her now, not when the girls’ safety was on the line. Walking side by side with the captain, they turned down a series of hallways before reaching a doorway that opened up to show a medical bay with a number of of ponies pausing in their work to stare at her in shock and what had to be horror or hate. “Sir?” one of them, a mare with a navy blue coat and a black mane, stepped forwards. “What is she doing here?” “Deep Probe, she has agreed to produce a cure for all of the diseases she created, starting with mine,” Comet said, turning to face Spliced. “Are you prepared to start?” Spliced nodded her head and moved to the main terminal, shooing out the pony sitting in the chair and for the first time in a long time felt a part of herself wake up. Already she was creating three of the secondary injections Comet would need; easy enough as the formula for adrenaline, biomass and anesthetic were part of the prefabricated chemical formulas within the terminal’s computer. She tried to access Comet’s medical information on the secondary holographic display next to her but was blocked by the low clearance that the pony she had thrown out had access to. “I need to full access to your medical database to fix you,” Spliced stated as she already began to craft the two cures that she would need to administer, her hooves and magic flying across the interface screens to bring forth everything she needed. “Otherwise it will not work and-” Deep Probe leaned in and let the computer scan her eye with the mare adding in her own code clearance, allowing Spliced deeper inside of their medical files. Spliced quickly examined the reports of the routine medical check the stallion had luckily done recently, searching for the sole pieces of information she needed and added in the information to her cures with the other vials in the midst of being synthesized. She then wheeled around with a syringe and stalked over to Comet, jabbing him in the neck with it. “I need a sample of your genetic code so I can finish my work,” she told him, only faintly hearing his grunt of pain as she took his blood before she went back to her work. Running the blood sample through the genetic reader, Spliced saw the biochemical marker that she had developed ages ago on his DNA and was relieved to see that her disease had not mutated in the slightest which would make her current work even easier and faster. She felt the outside world drop away as she worked in the correct chemicals to disarm her old disease, manoeuvring around the traps that she had put in place to prevent anyone from undoing her work, and crafted her own chemical creation that would fix him, trusting her knowledge, talents and skill that this would work and not do any further harm to him. Finally after a period of time had passed, she saw that she completed her work and began to synthesize both of the cures. Spliced let out a sigh with the knot in her stomach easing a tiny bit, and lifted her head up to see an entire gaggle of scientists staring at her with awe on their faces, a few even examining the prepared secondary supplements she had made early on. Her horn lit up as she used her magic to grab the medical injectors and the cures before rounding onto Comet who was talking in hushed tones with Probe. “As I said,” Spliced said to the captain. “Everything to fix you.” He gave her a measured look before tilting his head slightly down as he moved to antigravity medical bed that had apparently been prepared while she was at work. “Explain what they will do.” “This one will remove the disease from your genetic structure so it will not be passed down your lineage,” she said holding up the first injector to him, placing it down on the try next to her. “This one will cause your body to produce growth on your lung mass to reach the proper state it should be. These,” she gestured to the supplementary injectors, “Will supply you with enough mass that it will not cannibalize your body to do this, this one will make your body go into overdrive so it will happen in a much accelerated time frame and this one will make sure you are not awake for this as I have no idea to how painful this will be.” She took a moment to breathe before looking at him and continuing. “I would normally not advocate going for such a drastic measure of fixing you and instead go for supplementary injections over an extended period of time but I have to prove that I am not lying,” she said a bit too forcefully, her fear for what would happen to everyone in Ponyville flashing through her head if she failed to deliver what she had promised. “Are you ready Comet?” “I am,” he answered her as several of the ponies began to attach medical detectors to his body. “However, you are not to use the anesthetic; it would do us no good if I am not awake to vouch for you.” Spliced blinked at this, feeling surprised he would actually think of her well-being before she shook her head. She had work to do. Taking a deep breath, she began to inject him with her concoctions. With the adrenaline she had prepared, there were already results appearing. According to the blood and tissues taken from him, there was no hints of her former disease inside of him which was good but then suddenly, he began to seize and thrash on the bed with the ponys staring at him in shock and horror as he suffocated. Spliced’s mind began to race at what went wrong with people yelling at her and holding guns at her head before the answer came to her. Before any of them could shoot her, Spliced raced over and and slammed a hoof into his gut, causing him to breathe in sharply, his eyes opening wide in pain before he blinked in surprise. He then breathed in deeper before he started to laugh, removing the rebreather covering his mouth and disconnecting the air tubes from the pack on his back. “Look at that!” he laughed loudly, pulling Probe into a hug. “I can breathe!” He took another deep breath of air, a grin splitting his face. “Do you hear how deep that is?” Deep Probe blushed heavily at his reaction before she nodded her head, placing a hoof tenderly on his arm and rested her head on his barrel. Comet had a big goofy grin on his face that almost made Spliced smile before the realization hit that if it wasn’t for her, he wouldn’t had even been broken in the first place. She had nothing to feel proud of for he was only one person out of the countless billions or trillions of lives she had ruined and destroyed. The couple smiled at each other before one of the soldiers coughed to bring them out of their happy musings with Comet stepping off the table and standing straight. “Scarlet Sentry, please take her to the holding cell,” Comet said as he reached for the transmitter inside of his helmet with his magic and began to speak into it. “Shooting Star, stand down. She has proven truthful-” whatever else he said was muffled as Spliced was led out of the room and down the corridors with Spliced doing her best to keep her calm and repeating to herself that she deserved this and much worse over and over again in her head. Finally, she was led to a pitch black room before she was directed to step inside. Standing in front of the door frame, she forced herself not to cry, with waves of guilt slamming into her as the door shut, leaving her in complete darkness with only her thoughts.