The air felt cold and sterile as Rainbow opened the metal door. Gone were the moderately-welcoming tiled floors or carpeting, the ground here was rough, frigid, gray concrete that almost seamlessly blended into the outer cloud walls. Within this massive space was a maze of more featureless concrete walls, designed to keep an escaping patient as lost and frustrated as possible; reinforced doors with keycard panels offered the only shortcuts. A tinge of disappointment struck Rainbow's heart.
"Looks like we're taking the long way," Twilight put a hoof to her chin in thought for a moment before deciding on a direction to walk. Rainbow followed closely as they took a hallway to the left. Their hoofsteps still quietened, they quickly glanced around the labyrinthine halls, searching for anything helpful to their mission. Everything they passed by seemed entirely mundane and unimportant: a time clock on a wall next to shelves full of punch cards. A small office desk with a computer, clipboards and medical forms not yet filled out. A collection of folders attached to the wall inside plastic pockets. Countless locked doors. The ever-present black domes on the ceiling.
They turned another corner. Lights emanated from the concrete walls in window-shaped patches. Rainbow's heart quickened as she realized what this meant.
Patient rooms.
She ran to the first window, finding the door beside it made of thick metal and heavily locked. Inside the room she saw a pale yellow Unicorn filly with a mane and tail that resembled a sunrise except for one small, bright streak of electric teal. She was strapped to a table with leather restraints covered in magic runes, as well as a dark metal band attached to her horn. A couple of IVs were stuck into her veins, and a nasogastric tube snaked slightly around her drooling muzzle. Her hair hadn't been cut or trimmed in ages, they both pooled on the floor in tangled mats. Behind her, numerous monitors with various health stats beeped and whirred. Rainbow gently tapped on the glass, hoping to wake her up, but the filly was motionless. Between the door and the window, a clipboard with charts sat in a plastic holder. They glowed pink as Twilight removed it from the holder and began reading.
"Subject 04463... a Unicorn filly suffering from Wild Mage Syndrome. She must never be allowed to wake up, and the anti-magic restraints must never be removed." Twilight's expression soured. "I've heard of that... oh, poor thing." Rainbow began tapping a little harder, to which Twilight gently put a hoof over hers and lowered it down. "We'll have to come back for her later... Wild Mage Syndrome is extremely dangerous. Even the slightest use of magic from her could potentially blow up the entire mountain."
"...Oh," Rainbow shrank back from the window in alarm. Twilight put the clipboard back in its holder and the two ponies continued to the next room. Both gasped as they saw the inhabitant: a jewel-colored Changeling, strapped to its bed much like the pony before, similar tubes stuck into its body. However, it wasn't sleeping peacefully - it futilely thrashed against its restraints and moaned in pain as its form undulated, transforming portions of itself into multicolored random pony limbs, furniture parts, foods and even solid rock. Every so often, one of its partial transformations would stress its body so much it ruptured, briefly dripping blood onto the floor until the wound sealed itself back up.
Horrified, Rainbow tried to open the door to its room in an attempt to help, finding it locked tight. Twilight began reading its corresponding clipboard as she moved to knock on the glass.
"Subject 06348... a Changeling injected with modified Wild Mage Syndrome culture taken from Subject 04463. 06348 began displaying symptoms approximately one hour later. The subject's inherent transformative abilities have produced interesting results that have not only helped us better understand WMS, but have exceeded all expectations for its remaining lifespan. Nevertheless, termination has been scheduled for the end of the month-"
"Hey! You in there!" Rainbow yelled only as loudly as she dared, which was barely over her normal speaking voice. "We're here to help you, don't worry-"
"Rainbow!" Twilight shushed as she knocked Rainbow's hooves off the window and back onto the floor.
"But-"
"I know, I want to help, too, but doing that is only going to get us caught. Then what'll happen?" Rainbow felt her stomach turn to ice at her words, but ignored the chill as best she could... Twilight was right, after all. She gazed sorrowfully at the Changeling for a moment before continuing down the hall.
The next room held something a little less gruesome, but only just. Now there was a Zebra stallion strapped to his bed, tubes poking out of him all the same. Devoid of all other accessories, he writhed against the runed leather straps as his own stripes fluttered and rippled and swirled within his skin and flesh. His cries were strained and hoarse, his body was drenched in sweat, and his eyes were screwed shut in agony.
"Subject 06572, aka Condemned #743... a Zebra stallion injected with an isolated culture taken from Subject 06348 three days after exposure to Wild Mage Syndrome. It would appear that with every subsequent infection by WMS, its effects grow more controllable at the expense of bodily integrity and constant pain. Subject is expected to expire within the week." Twilight shivered at the coldness of the writing.
"...Condemned? Why condemned?" asked Rainbow. Twilight shrugged as she returned the clipboard to its place, her expression clear that she did not want to think about the possibilities. They resumed their walk down the hallway of tormented patients, passing by a sedated Unicorn whose drool seemed to be transforming into sentient lumps of coagulated blood, a Griffon desperately stretching against her restraints in a frenzied attempt to gnaw off her own claws, and a Pegasus that had been entirely plucked of all feathers and fur, large rashes oozing yellowish liquid all over his shivering body.
The hallway eventually turned a corner, and for a time there was nothing much to look at. More locked metal doors, more computer stations, more shelves containing folders and clipboards and empty forms. But eventually the endless maze took another turn for the sordid. Rainbow and Twilight found themselves staring down a long, dark hallway, tables and chairs set up to look out through three large windows on the right, each spaced out by a good hundred feet. There was a sign beside each window that was only legible once they came near.
"Condemned #743," Rainbow's voice shakily read out. "But he was in that other room... guess they didn't change the sign yet." She looked into the window, finding it even darker than the hall they stood in. She was overlooking a large, circular, empty room made entirely of concrete, maybe fifty feet in diameter. The walls sloped inward as they stretched another fifty feet towards the ceiling, which was little more than a tube or pipe of some sort, only a foot wide and from which no light came. A metal door lay at the very back, and on the leftmost edge of the room, a thin stream of water from a very small pipe above trickled into a metal grate beneath it. "Was this where he was being kept before?"
"Must be," Twilight murmured. They walked past the first window and stopped at the second. Labeled "Condemned #744", this room was occupied. A male Griffon, limbs shackled together and wings bound to his body with runed leather straps, laid pitifully on the ground a few feet from the dripping water, visibly shivering. A pile of what looked like food scraps and garbage had collected in the center of the room beneath the pipe in the ceiling, and a dirty spot that Rainbow assumed was the "designated bathroom corner" laid to the far right. A clipboard sat on the nearby table; Twilight lifted it up in her magic and brought it over to read.
"Condemned #744. Found guilty of high treason, conspiracy to commit kidnapping and conspiracy to commit murder... ah, these Condemned are criminals," she reasoned.
"So they don't just use innocent ponies and others, huh?" Rainbow asked. "Still, though... are cells like these really necessary?"
"They are... less than forgiving, aren't they?" Twilight agreed uneasily. She set the clipboard down and they continued to the third window. The occupant this time was a pale blue Pegasus with a grey mane and tail, and he was in rough shape. His body was covered in cuts, bruises and abrasions, and one of his wings stuck out from the leather restraints at an unnatural angle. He hobbled slowly towards the barely-dripping water, laboriously quenching his thirst. Another clipboard was nearby, which Rainbow picked up with one of her wings.
"Condemned #738. Found guilty of three counts of extortion and two counts of tampering with evidence. Scheduled for [REDACTED] experimentation with Doctor B, to begin at the Doctor's order," she read out loud with a quivering voice. "Hey... this kind of punishment seems kind of extreme for those crimes, don'tcha think?" Before Twilight could answer, a heavy noise drew their attention to the cell. The metal door in back had opened, revealing a group of four security ponies rushing inside with their weapons. The shackled pony recoiled, his angry yells muffled by the window glass and the distance. Then the security ponies drew their weapons - the long, metal rods that ended in two sharp points - and began jabbing them at the prisoner's body. Rainbow's mouth fell open in horror as sparks of lightning zapped through the rods and into the wounds the points left behind, and the prisoner fell to the ground, thrashing in pain. Tortured thoughts began racing through her mind as she watched the guards continue to prod at the prisoner, whose screams soon weakened into strained grunts. It was only when he stopped moving did the guards holster their weapons; the prisoner was picked up in a glowing magical field, and they all disappeared through the metal door which slammed shut. Rainbow flinched, the slam reverberated through the halls even here.
"I... wonder what's gonna happen to him," Twilight gulped. "If it was redacted from this report here, it probably isn't good."
"Nothing in this place has been good," Rainbow replied, feeling a little part of her very soul die. "Let's... let's just find Spritz, okay?" The clipboard clattered noisily back onto a table as she turned away from the cell, hoping to Celestia that a similar fate hadn't befallen the little filly or her brother. The hallway turned left, thankfully taking them away from this prisoner's row.
More locked metal doors. More computer stations. More shelves containing folders and more clipboards with empty forms. A couple of times they passed by some metal filing cabinets, but they had been locked tight and warded against magical tampering. At one point they could have sworn they heard somepony screaming off in the distance, echoing through a nearby air duct. Rainbow found herself glaring at the black domes on the ceiling, lamenting inwardly that she couldn't fly and make her way through this labyrinth faster. But at last, they came to a long corridor lined with metal doors on both sides; the metal door at the end of the hall had a picture of a staircase on it, heralding the end of the maze. Rainbow's ears flicked as she heard numerous voices quietly wailing and sobbing - unlike the countless doors they had passed earlier, these were numbered and had little slides on the floors for food trays to be slid through.
"More prisoners..." Twilight sighed heavily. A computer station sat nearby, with a large whiteboard chart beside it on the wall. Rainbow quickly read through the contents, a fog of despair, disgust and madness clouding her vision the longer she looked at it.
Cell #1: Earth pony colt. Severe Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.
Cell #2: Pegasus filly. Severe agoraphobia, mute.
Cell #3: _____
Cell #4: Pegasus colt. Born blind and deaf.
Cell #5: Unicorn colt. Borderline Personality Disorder, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Narcissism.
Cell #6: Earth pony filly. Severe Autism Spectrum Disorder, Oppositional Defiant Disorder.
Cell #7: _____
Cell #8: Earth pony stallion. Severe Schizophrenia.
The list kept going on and on. Each and every pony within these cells had some kind of serious mental disorder or disability. No doubt they were here to be subjected to experimental treatments, although from what Rainbow remembered from the confiscated diary she had read, the treatments were truly death sentences that only promised a slow, agonizing, humiliating demise.
"To use such vulnerable little ponies..." Twilight breathed in horror. "I... I can't even... why?"
"How can a place so... so evil exist?!" Rainbow shouted angrily. "Does Princess Celestia know about this?! Princess Luna?" Her heart suddenly dropped into her bowels and a sharp chill paralyzed her body as she realized something truly horrible.
Oh no... no... what if...?
"Rainbow, hey!" Twilight pointed to the chart. She returned her attention to it as well, as she hadn't finished reading it herself.
Cell #58: Pegasus colt. Down Syndrome, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Attention Deficit Disorder.
Cell #59: Pegasus filly. Caught searching for colt in Cell #58.
The moment she read it, Rainbow scrambled down the hall as fast as she could. The two cells were nearly at the end of the corridor, just before the door to the staircase. She found Cell #59 within seconds - across from Cell #60 on the opposite wall to the right - and began banging on the door frantically.
"Spritz! Spritz, answer me!" she pleaded, hoping for a response, but none came. Rainbow blinked a few times, first in denial, then in desperation, and finally in anguish. As she despondently slid to the floor, Twilight caught up to her, a half-terrified, half-furious look on her face.
"Rainbow, you're gonna get us caught! Call out for her more quietly!" she scolded. Rainbow wanted to retort back at her, but her words choked her throat. Tears filled her eyes as she imagined the little filly in Subject 04463's place, then in 06572's, or even worse, though she was having a hard time thinking of anything worse than that.
"...Hello?" A muffled, scared female voice suddenly rose up from Cell #56. Twilight jogged over and opened the meal tray door at the bottom. Peeking in, she saw nothing but a pair of hooves, followed by a pale pink muzzle that lowered in front of them.
"Hi, um..." she spoke quietly, hesitantly. "Do you know what happened to the ponies in Cells #58 and #59?"
"Oh, Dewdrop..." the voice cooed sympathetically as Rainbow wiped her face and approached the door. "They took him downstairs a couple of days ago... he hasn't been back since... none of them ever return, anyway."
"What about Spritz?" Rainbow asked quickly. "She was in Cell #59."
"Was that her name? She was here only for a short time... they took her downstairs as well, just a little bit ago."
"A little bit ago?" Hope began to rise within her. "Twilight, did you hear that?! There's still time!"
"Are... are you here to help us?" the voice quivered. "Please... don't hurt us anymore..."
"We'll get you out of here... all of you," Twilight reassured the voice, though also trying to reassure Rainbow and herself as well. "But first, we need to get to the bottom of this."
"...B-Be careful," the voice began to quietly whimper. "So many others have gone downstairs and never returned... I've heard so much screaming from the stairwell over there... I'm scared..."
Rainbow grimaced in trepidation as Twilight bid the voice goodbye and gently slid the meal tray door closed. The staircase to the next level sat before her. The dim, red light within glowed like an evil eye in a dark, black cave.
She didn't want to admit it, but she was scared, too.
She allowed Twilight to take point as they began their descent.