//------------------------------// // 13) The In Between Explained // Story: The Experiments // by SapphireRose87 //------------------------------// {Princess Celestia} I stared at my computer screens back at Celestial Labs and I was pissed off at the fact that Group A of this experiment had their tracking devices out now and there was no way any lab could track them. “Stupid Milton! Stupid Group A and losing their tracking devices! Even the nanoes are gone! Stupid Earnest and his son Derek working for The Resistance!” Right on cue, I heard a loud pop and I turned around to see Discord with a stupid smirk on his face. I rolled my eyes, "What's that look for Discord?" “Oh nothing,” said Discord, “you look upset. Is it because your children have lost their tracking devices? I’ve also seen Sarah and Henry practicing their magic while human now!” I gasped, "What?" “Oh yes,” said Discord, “although I saw Sarah do it first. Then she taught Henry and Jane. I don’t know if the others know how to yet. That’s probably why you couldn’t get track devices and reprogramming devices on their left side am I right?” As I nodded my head with grit teeth, I knew this was more ammunition for Discord to taunt me and get on my nerves again. Much to my surprise Discord said something else, "so I was wondering. Why did you all of the sudden decide to skip out on your ‘royal duties’ and dump them all on Twilight?” This puzzled me. I gave Twilight the throne, I didn't dump it on her. "Why do you think I did that? I handed the throne to her. I didn't dump it on her!" “Oh silly me, I guess I didn't get the memo. You dumped the throne on Twilight a lot earlier than you and your sister Luna intended. What did you do that for? I'm gonna take a wild guess and say,” said Discord, “science? I didn’t know you loved the subject that much! I’m almost afraid to ask this, but what are you looking for? A cure perhaps? But what for?” "If you must know," I snapped, "I'm looking for the cure for death!" Discord crossed his arms and rolled his eyes, "And why do you need a cure for death? You’re an Alicorn so you live over a thousand years! You’re practically ancient right now!” Discord's provocations were getting to me. I frowned, "true, Alicorns live a long time in Equestria. But I’m doing this mostly because I want my subjects to live just as long! Everypony should be able to live as long as Alicorns!” “And stealing children from their cribs and tweaking them is the right way to go about getting the answer how?” Discord asked. “That's because the blood that is in the kids from every universe connected to the In Between is infused with powerful magic,” I answered. Discord raised an eyebrow, "And why not just experiment on yourself instead?” “Trust me, we’ve tried that already! And it didn’t work! The magic from the trees here only works on the children that we take!” I said. “That still doesn’t make it right though!” Discord snapped. “And you know it!” I rolled my eyes, Discord had no idea what he was talking about to me. He just looked like a nosy pony sticking their snouts in places where it doesn't belong, “I don’t know what it’s like to have kids, so it doesn’t bother me! Just like Lab 14, their loss is my gain!” “What about Princess Twilight’s kids?” Discord said. “The twin boys she adopted were stolen a couple of decades ago! Her children were stolen by one of your stupid labs!” Once again I rolled my eyes, "I could care less! What part of their loss is my gain do you not understand?” Discord's jaw dropped for some reason, “Wow you’re very cold-hearted! Oh and one more thing Princess Celestia.” I growled, "What?" “I wouldn’t consider the ponies of Equestria your subjects anymore!” Discord said. "Seriously? Why would I do that?" I responded. “Because you stepped down from the throne and handed it over to Princess Twilight!” Discord said. “Duh! And I have a little bit of intel for you, the Group A, the group that Henry's in, isn’t dead by a long shot! But Group E is definitely dead!” I raised an eyebrow, "How do you know this?" “Like I’m going to tell you where I get my information from!” Discord laughed. “I have more ways than you know. I just wanted to give you that little bit of information. And get this, Luna thinks the children are dead! That’s because I told her they were! I think I’m a very convincing actor! Maybe I should get into show business! I guess I'll get the last laugh now!” I was about ready to wring Discord's neck with my magic as he was laughing so hard. After he stopped laughing he snapped his claw and disappeared. * * * {Henry} The next time I fell asleep, I thankfully didn't have any bad memories of Lab 14. I just wished I could have another pleasant memory of my family. At this point, I had given my heart to Derek and he had given his heart to me. I made a resolve that I wouldn’t go anywhere Derek wasn’t when it came down to having a home. If I stayed where I was I would be happy as long as Derek was with me. That was someone that I could lean on for stability in my life. “You okay Henry?” I heard Derek say. I was startled out of my thoughts but then I smiled because Derek was holding me in his arms. Once again it felt like Derek was trying to protect me from anything that might harm me even though we were taking a break from traveling for the moment. I don’t blame him though at all. Since we were running from Lab 14, I guess I was a little bit jumpy at the moment. When Derek put his head on my shoulder I smiled. At first, I tensed up because of being jumpy but then I sort of relaxed. Derek laughed, “You really need to try to relax. Running from Lab 14 isn’t exactly a vacation. But you can’t be on edge all of the time. You’re very jumpy and I suspect that’s part of the reason why you went into Fear Shock. Snips and Snails didn’t explain to me much. Or at least not in a way that would make any sense. I don’t think they know how to explain things. I guess I'll have to ask Leader Felix about that one day.” That was when I heard Sarah clear her throat, “I think it’s time we get moving now don’t you think? It is nighttime after all.” Derek seemed not too fond of the idea of letting me go. I don’t blame him either. Sarah picked up on his annoyance and rolled her eyes. “You can let go of my brother now Derek!” Sarah said. Derek raised an eyebrow, “Your brother?” “Yes,” said Sarah, “we have the same two most important things and we’ve been having the same memories.” “Is this true?” Derek said. I grabbed my hat, put it on, and nodded. “Huh,” said Derek, “I hope you get to meet your parents one day." “Don’t you want to meet them?” Sarah said. “I’m not sure if I’ll be allowed to,” Derek said. “Did you ever read about what a universe is and how it works back at Lab 14?” Jane perked up when Derek said that. “I did! A universe is a really big place! That has a bunch of things that are called stars that have planets that circle them. Those planets are where a lot of different creatures live! That’s because no creature can survive outside of a planet! They can’t breathe the air and stuff like that. The books that I’ve studied don’t say why creatures can’t breathe outside of their planet. I’m going to assume that since we can breathe we’re on some sort of planet right?” “Well,” said Derek, “it's something like that. Did you research what the sky looks like inside those places called planets?” “Yes, I did!” Jane said. “The sky on most planets if you look at it, there are stars, a moon, a sun and clouds the clouds help with the weather, somehow not sure how that works.” “Exactly how do you remember all of this?” Milton asked. “Not sure yet,” said Jane, she shook her head, “I guess my memory is starting to come back. I especially remember reading a lot of books! I guess it was my favorite thing I liked to do growing up! I don’t remember me playing with any toys or anything like that!” “Do you have any weird memories of who your parents are?” Sarah said. “Not much,” said Jane, “I just remember this voice telling me to say mama but I would say dada instead! And then some other voice would laugh and say she likes her father better!” “Are you having any bad memories of Lab 14?” Milton said. “Nope!” Jane answered. “Not yet! And I hope I don’t! I don’t want to go into Fear Shock anytime soon!” “What else do you remember?” Derek questioned. “I remember daydreaming about what the sky looks like. But I never got a chance to see it!” Jane said. “That’s cause I was locked inside that stupid cage that Lab 14 calls a room!” “Yeah,” said Sarah, “I hated being locked inside that stupid cage room! But now that I’m out for the time being I never thought of looking up at the sky yet! I guess I was too busy trying to figure things out. It wasn’t raining although it might’ve just rained because the grass felt wet when I woke up.” “It didn’t rain when I woke up,” added Milton, “did it rain with you, Henry? Because when I first met you, it looked like you had taken a shower.” I nodded my head and smiled at what Milton just said. “Did you notice what the sky looked like?” Jane said. I shook my head, I never thought about looking at the sky when I woke up. That was probably because I was too busy thinking about other things. “Well,” suggested Derek, “why don’t you go look up at the sky and see what it looks like.” We all went outside the tent and looked up. The sky had no stars or a moon whatsoever. Jane looked disappointed when she looked up. But she noticed that there were no clouds in the sky either. “Huh,” said Jane, she looked disappointed, “well, I guess I wasn’t missing anything being inside so much. How come it rains here? There aren’t any clouds!” “The trees in this place cause it to rain,” Derek explained. “I don’t know exactly how it works but my guess is because the trees have some sort of magic in them that causes rain every once and awhile. How many of you were dropped by a tree when you first woke up?” Everyone including me raised their hands. “The magic from the trees causes it to rain here,” said Derek, “and I’m guessing since you can change into ponies that you guys have some sort of magic.” “You just said that there’s magic in the trees,” said Sarah, “wait a second! We have magic when we’re transformed into ponies and now we can do magic as humans too! I guess the trees are attracted to our magic?” “It’s because you have creature magic. From what I researched a tree’s magic can mix in with any creature that has magic. When the tree's magic mixes with a creature's magic and makes them stronger. The fact that you were dropped by a tree when you first woke up means that Lab 14 wanted to make you stronger for some reason.” Derek said. “You like to research too?” Milton smirked. “I’m surprised you didn’t choose Jane to be your lover instead of Henry!” “Seriously Milton!” Jane snapped. “I know you have more in common sense than that! You should know that just because two people are interested in the same things, does not mean they have to be lovers!” “I totally agree on that one!” Martin said. “That’s funny,” said Jane, “your twin agrees with me, Milton!” Before Jane and Milton could argue some more, Sarah quickly asked the next question that everyone was probably thinking about. “So what is this place?” Sarah said. “And what does Lab 14 want with us?” “This place is called the In Between,” said Derek, “from what I was told, this place is connected to other universes and is a means for everyone to travel into other creatures' universes. In Between wasn’t a universe at first, but shortly after it was built it became something else. From what I was told it is considered by the gods to be a universe on its own. I'm not sure why the gods would consider In Between a universe because there are no planets built around this place. The Resistance suspects that the labs were set up here by people who chose this place because it is a powerful place. They would be able to do their testing and stuff like that and probably get good results. The main reason is the residents that live here have magic because of traveling around the different forests to get from place to place. It’s because of this the creatures are stronger than anywhere else. There are also children that have been born here too! And they have magic but don’t start developing any signs of it until after the age of five.” “So how did you get your glass eye?” Jane asked. “That’s because I touched a tree before the age of five and it burned my eye to a crisp!” Derek explained. “After I turned five, I started developing magic of my own and I’m guessing that’s why Lab 14 wanted to take me in the first place!” “So how do creatures travel to other universes?” Milton said. “Did you notice the traveling pattern forest, city, forest?” Derek said. “The forests are what everyone calls a gate they link up to every universe that’s connected to this place. If a creature stays by a tree in the forest for at least an hour or more, the tree's magic mixes in with the magic that the creature has. The forest that you were dropped by had a city next to it. Am I right?” We nodded. “Lab 14 probably wanted to get you out of the forest as soon as possible,” said Derek, “probably so they could get test results from their experiments. I don’t know what they’re looking for by making you guys stronger. But I’m pretty sure the answer they want to their question isn’t a good one.” “But why do they want us to be stronger?” Sarah asked. Derek shook his head, “I have no idea, but I suspect that whatever Lab 14 is after it’s not just to make you stronger. The side effect of your magic mixing with the tree's magic can also make you live longer.” “How long does a person live after that?” Jane said. “I don’t know,” said Derek, “there are two people that lived for millions of years! I don’t know who they are though.” “Their names are Josephine and Alexander!” Snips said. When we heard Snips voice we just about jumped a foot in the air. “Sorry about that!” Snips laughed. “No, they’re not gods, not even close! All we know is that they lived so long because they kept mixing their magic with the tree's magic here! Did you tell them why The Resistance was made? You are an Agent after all!” “Oh yeah! The Resistance was made a decade after Lab 14 and the other labs came on the scene. The Resistance is against any Lab that takes children just for their tests. The Resistance also has access to every gate that’s connected to it. Lab 14 and other labs go through the same gates. Why we keep missing them I don’t know. The Resistance was hoping to catch them when they steal children.” Derek replied. “Yeah!” Snails said. “You should show them your badge, Agent Derek!” Derek bit the inside of his cheek as he went to his bag and brought out a wallet that looked like one of the wallets we used to hold our ID cards in. He flipped it open and in it was a gold star that said Resistance Agent Derek #256.  A silver chain dangled from the wallet that could be worn as a necklace. When Snips and Snails saw his badge they started laughing. “What’s so funny?” Derek snapped. “I’m sorry,” said Snail, “you just look embarrassed to have that thing! The look on your face says it all!” Derek looked like he wanted to punch the crap out of Snips and Snails and I could give the go ahead to do that, I would have no problem doing it all. “It’s okay Agent Derek,” said Snail, “we have our badges too!” Snips and Snails took out their badges and they looked exactly the same as Derek’s badge but their numbers were different. Snails badge number was 120 and Snips badge number was 325. “I thought you would love to show your badge in front of your friends,” said Snails, “especially around your lover Henry!” “Did you tell them the reason why you would have to wear the badge?” Snips said. Derek's angry expression made him look like he wanted to kill Snips and Snails. “The reason is that if we’re not on missions at The Resistance then we’re supposed to wear them at all times,” Derek said. “Is that why you didn’t wear your badge when we were at the Inn and now that we’re running from Lab 14?” Sarah said. “Yup,” said Derek, “that would be it." Snips and Snails fell on their backs laughing. “That’s not funny you two!” Derek snapped. Snips snorted. “I’m sorry Agent Derek!” “All funny business aside,” said Derek, “let’s hope there are not any experiments tracking us other than the tracking animals.” “Why’s that?” Sarah said. "Because sometimes if the labs really want to bring an experiment back to them, they'll use tracking experiments on top of tracker animals to even out the odds of getting that experiment back," Derek said. "It's because the tracker experiments have more power and more experience to track someone down." Snips nodded, “Derek’s right, Lab 14 won’t let us get away so easily, especially since we have Henry here! Like Jane said, he’s the most valuable one!” “Let’s hope no other experiments are after us,” said Sarah, “but all we can do is hope.” Derek sighed but I could see the uncertainty in his face, “Yeah, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up.” * * * {Experiment Rose} So far so good on tracking down my future husband Experiment Henry and I could tell by the look on his face Experiment Sebastian couldn't wait to get his hands on Experiment Derek again. Experiment Sebastian talked about Experiment Derek enough to make me gag. “I think we’re on the right track Experiment Rose!” Experiment Sebastian cheered. I rolled my eyes, “You just can’t wait to get your hands on Experiment Derek, huh?” Experiment Sebastian smiled with a twinkle in his eye. One of the experiments named Experiment Harper saw this and gagged at Experiment Sebastian's behavior. “How can you call yourself Experiments?” Experiment Harper gagged. “Last time I checked, we’re children and not Lab rats!” Experiment Sebastian and I couldn't stop laughing because an experiment would rather be called a child than a lab rat. “You stupid experiments are all the same!" I said. “You don’t want to work with Lab 14 in the name of science! Experiment Sebastian and I feel differently! We prefer to work with Lab 14 and we helped make the scientific breakthrough with Experiment Henry on Experiment #3! Not to mention Head Cora’s chosen me to bear Experiment Henry’s children! And they will be even more powerful than you!” Another experiment in the group named Experiment Poppy made a face that looked like she’d rather throw up than listen to me talking. “What’s that look for, Experiment Poppy?” I snapped. “Don’t add the word ‘experiment’ to my name!” Experiment Poppy growled. “My name is Poppy! And besides what makes you think Henry will go for the likes of you? Why can’t Lab 14 just leave him alone and let him decide?” At that remark, me and Experiment Sebastian fell over laughing. “What’s so funny?” Experiment Harper said. “If Lab 14 wants children, they’ll get children! I almost had him under my spell the last time I saw him! That’s funny though because he was tied up for that one! Oh well, I guess I’ll just have to try again! And I don’t care if he’s tied to the ceiling this time!” I smirked. Experiment Harper looked disgusted with me and Experiment Sebastian. The look on her face screamed that Experiment Harper wanted to run away from me as fast as possible. Like that was going to happen. “That’s enough you guys!” I heard Agent Rarity say. I looked up and smiled, “Ah! Agent Rarity! It’s so nice to see you again! Why I haven’t seen you on an assignment in ages! How are you, madam?” Experiment Sebastian perked up when he saw Agent Liza standing right beside Agent Rarity. “It’s nice to see you, Agent Liza!” Experiment Sebastian said. “Or should I say madam Agent Liza! I should mind my manners especially around future In-Laws!” Experiment Harper coughed, “ass kisser!” “What was that Experiment Harper?” Experiment Sebastian growled. “I wish you wouldn’t call me that!” Experiment Harper snapped. “And it’s nothing! I just had a tickle in my throat that’s all!” “Okay, kids!” Agent Liza said. “Or should I say Experiments! And as far as you Experiment Sebastian you’re never going to be an In-Law as long as I live! And besides, Derek is already in love with someone! Not to mention he’s an agent for the Resistance now! You won’t get anywhere near him!” Agent Liza made it a point to snarl every word in her last sentence. I wasn't sure why she did that but okay whatever. "Who's his lover?" Experiment Sebastian said. “As if I’d tell you!” Agent Liza snarled. “Hmph!” Experiment Sebastian said. “No matter, I’ll get my hands on him sooner or later!” I cleared my throat, “Anyway, you know what we’re after Agent Rarity and Agent Liza and where are the tracking cats?” I wasn't sure why Head Cora wouldn't send the tracker cats along with Agent Rarity and Agent Liza. I tilted my head and asked. "So? Where are they?” “Oh that,” said Agent Rarity, “they got recalled back to HQ!” I could tell by the look on her face that she was lying. “I’m not surprised! Considering Head Cora sent us after Experiment Henry instead!” Experiment Sebastian said. I smiled, “I can’t wait to see my future husband again!” Agent Liza groaned, “So can you see his trail Experiment Rose?” I don't see as the other experiments Lab 14 created can. I have another talent that allows me to see an experiment's magic trail. I pointed my finger at the ground and smiled when my finger caught on to Experiment Henry’s trail. I knew Experiment Henry's magic trail very well because I was always able to find him when I was younger. I lifted my finger from the ground to see that the color of Experiments Henry's magic trail was a darker shade of yellow. “I do believe this string is connected to Experiment Henry’s magic.” I lifted the string of the magic trail to my mouth and licked it. This helped me confirm that this was Experiment Henry's magic trail. It was his. “Yup, this is Experiment Henry’s magic alright! I know that taste from anywhere! This isn’t going to be easy though."