My Most Faithful Mortifer

by hamishwarfare

Chapter. 3 – Goodnight Twilight

A gentle groan escaped her lips; her head felt like it was the loser in a game of chicken against a sledgehammer. Silently she thanked Celestia for the dim light within her room as Twilight slowly opened her eyes; if it was any brighter than they would have been screaming at her in protest.

She sat up slowly, being careful not to provoke her fragile head or do anything that would cause it any more distress. She finished rubbing the sleep out of her eyes and could finally look at her room…this wasn’t her room. Her room did not consist of metal walls. Nor did it lack carpet or windows for that matter.

Panic was setting in as she looked over the room in more detail now, though her movements were careful, lest her skull made its displeasure known to her. Indeed there were no windows in any of the metal walls, just a single door with what looked like two hatches, one at the bottom and one at about adult head height; both closed tight. The floor was just bare grey concrete and the ceiling was the same dark grey metal as the walls. The room was tiny as well; barely long enough to fit one had a half single sized beds in either direction if she were to guess.

In the corner furthest away from where she currently sat and at the hinges of the door was a toilet, with a sink just a little further along the same wall. Then there was a drain right in the centre of the room, crisscrossed with so many metal bars it would be impossible for anything but water to get through. Finally there was the bed physically suspended by its connection to the wall along one length and breadth; there was a very simple mattress, one sheet a simple blanket and a single pillow.

And that was it. There was no obvious light source but light was radiating from the ceiling. Strangely all three pieces of furniture appeared to be made with her size in mind; she almost felt like a grownup, if it wasn’t for the towering adult sized door.

Now fully awake with the realisation that she was not in danger, at least for now, her head finally eased enough to registered what her throat had been trying to tell her since she had woken up. She was thirsty.

Eyeing up the sink and hoping it worked, Twilight slowly and carefully made her way over to it. Nothing happened from leaving the bed, nor from her movements; which was a good thing. She gently turned on the single tap slowly and with a light squeak, trying her hardest not to be noticed by anyone. Still nothing happened. Her mind registered the strangeness of actually having to look down at the sink without using a stepping stool, or actually standing on the sink itself. It was strangely exciting, if it wasn’t for the terrifying circumstances which brought her to this place.

The tap started to drip as the handle was gently and slowly rotated anti-clockwise; a few more twists and there was a small stream of water dribbling out of it. With the tap open Twilight paused for a moment once again, trying to hear if anything was happening on the other side of the door; but all she could hear was the gently trickling water. Finally, she was as satisfied as she could be in this situation; she carefully maneuvered her face down to the flowing water.

Her tong gathered what little saliva it could muster as she wetted her lips in anticipation to the relief she was about to receive; her throat swallowed in reflex to the sound of the clear life giving liquid. Slowly Twilight got closer, her eyes were already half lidded in anticipation. She was moments away from taking a much needed drink; if only her nose hadn’t picked up something strange.

The eye widening shock of smelling something wrong caused Twilight to pull back; not trusting anything right now. The beautifully clear liquid took no notice of her plight however; it was still flowing away innocently, invitingly, tauntingly. Twilight was torn, her throat swallowed air once more, screaming at its owner to take a drink; but she didn’t trust it any more. With her current predicament she was almost sure that the liquid ether wasn’t water, or it had been spiked with something to probably make her ill. With a torn expression, she pulled away from the water fully.

“Well done. Not many stop to think that such a simple thing as water can be tampered with.”

Twilight spun around to look at the corner where the end of her bed tried to reach out too; that was where the disturbance came from. The voice obviously belonged to a mare with quite the air of indifference about her and an edge of refinement, but not from Canterlot.

The figure standing there in the corner was a tall unicorn wearing a tight body suit that even covered her cutie mark. From what little of it was being shown Twilight could see that her coat’s colour was of a redder shade of purple than the young fillies own. Her mane was styled in a Mohawk fashion and was a deep maroon in colour that matched her tail’s colour as well. The most striking thing about this unicorn though was the intensity behind her jade coloured eyes. The right eye even had a scar running over it.

“So, you’re there new test subject and potential soldier. Well I’ve seen better, but you have good instincts at least. They might just make something out of you, provided you survive anyway.” She slowly took three paces, bringing herself into the centre of the room, and further into the light. It did little to reduce her intimidating presence.

“W-who are you? What do you want? Please, I just want to go home.” Twilight had tried to back pedal into the opposite wall of her cell, but for all the good it did this unicorn could still stretch out and touch her with a hoof.

“Right now none of those questions matter. The only thing you need to focus on for at least the next few hours is keeping yourself alive. If you manage to survive then I shall answer all of those questions and more.”

“Gulp, what are you going to do to me? Is it going to hurt?”

“Hmm, better questions. I am only going to escort you to another room; you will receive you some clean water only to help mitigate the sleep powder you got covered in; and then the doctor will use you as a Guinee pig. It will hurt like nothing you’ve experienced before. Now come.” And with that her horn lit up with a jade coloured aura that both picked up the young filly and turned off the water in quick succession.

It was with a leisurely pace that the unicorn walked up to the door and before she could actually touch it, the door itself opened into the room and revealed the corridor beyond the square room. A long metal corridor covered with the same metal cell doors on each side.

Twilight tried to break free in any way she could but she might as well have been fighting the sun for all the good it was doing; this unicorn lady was just far too powerful. The confidence that radiated off of her was almost tactile. She never once looked back to see if Twilight was still trapped, or if she was doing anything she shouldn’t be; though one of her ears was clearly pointing towards the young filly. Hoping that this pony was actually a nice mare; she asked if she could be let go. She just got the silent shoulder.

Passing through a large bulkhead the two had cleared what was obviously the jail section; the walls, however, only slightly changed. They were still metal, but the corridor itself was wider and actually had some character about them; signs for one thing, though windows were still absent. The floor was also no longer concrete but stone tiled instead. They were still pretty plain with a pale red marbled look to them, but it was something.

They rounded a corner and Twilight could hazard a guess at where they were heading. There were no other doors down this corridor and while there was nothing particularly bad about the door at the end of the corridor; the air was almost suffocating.

Double trying, triple trying everything and anything Twilight could think of to escape; but it was as futile as before, and they continued their leisurely stroll towards this haunted door. ’I can’t escape! No, this is really happening. But something inside of me is telling me that this unicorn wants to help me. If she won’t let me go then…’

“Umm, anything you can do to help me? Or any advice, please?” even in this situation, her mother’s ingrained lessons on politeness still held.

This caused the unicorn to stop.

“Good questions. There is nothing I can do to help you; this is something you will face. But advice I can give. Remember yourself for as long as you can, no matter how difficult it becomes; and when everything starts to fade,” she turned around to look directly into Twilights eyes, “keep telling yourself that you want to live. That you must survive! Only through extreme will power and determination to survive can you walk out of this alive. If you manage that, and come out the other side; I will be there to train you, to make sure something like this will never happen to you again. That, I can promise you. Now come, we’ve kept him waiting.” The death march resumed its leisurely pace towards the plain, ominous door once more.

“TEMPEST, YOU’RE LATE! I have been waiting here for three minutes twenty seven seconds for you to bring her to me. MY TIME IS VALUABLE!” stepping through the bland uninteresting portal of foreboding, the two were accosted by quite the sight.

A clearly older earth pony stallion with a greying muzzle had been pacing back and forth in front of the door. His white mane was fanned out in every single direction possible; his tail was cut so short it was surprising the tail bone wasn’t removed along with the hairs. His coat was clearly once beige, but now was closer to a salt and pepper grey. He wore a very clean and presentable doctor’s jacket with a head mirror on his forehead.

Even standing at least two hooves shorter than the intimidating mare before him, it seemed like he had no problem at all treating everything he saw as mud beneath his hooves.

The now named Tempest did not react at to the words of the stallion, simply kept her air of indifference about her. “She asked some good questions.”

A snort followed that statement. “Of course one of, her, pupils would be a questioner. But that’s still no excuse. Get her setup over on the chair; I’ve got eight other experiments in the works right now, I do not have time to just mess about.”

Twilight was hovered over to the chair indicated and everything about it screamed something wasn’t right. The chair was sized approximately for her, was made out of the same metal as all the doors she had seen so far, and was actually bolted down into the white tiled floor with big looking bolts. There were dark brown straps that looked like no fabric Twilight had ever seen before situated around the chair to incapacitate her forelegs, her hind legs and also her barrel and neck. The chair itself was sitting in the centre of a cluster of three very large crystals, each one a separate primary colour. All the crystals, as well as the chair, were surrounded by their own very detailed and complicated looking spell matrix circles with an even larger one encompassing them all.

Twilight was lowered with surprising care onto the chair, before the restraints were applied one by one, locking her into place. Twilight’s heart was beating at a rate that a rabbit would be worried, and it only got faster with each additional strap that secured her to the uncomfortable chair. When the final strap locking her neck in place, Tempest retrieved a single cup of water and offered it to the young filly.

Twilight hesitated once again, her throat was begging for the cool liquid, but her life was in obvious, actual peril. She looked up to the face of the mare offering the water and silently asked if it was safe; after a reassuring nod with the smallest of smiles, did Twilight start to take small sips of the blissful water.

“Already paranoid and questioning everything I see. Yes, I understand now why you like her.” Twilight almost spat the water back out at the sudden appearance of the doctor once again; doubly so with the change in tone of his voice. He was trying to be, kind? Gentle maybe? Or reassuring? Whatever he was trying to say with his tone of voice, it was destroyed by the insanity behind his deep brown eyes.

“Now my dear, you’ve been watered and are now nice and comfortable in the restraining chair. Don’t move while I apply this dampener on your horn, wouldn’t want you to squirm and accidently loose an eye now, would we.” He chuckled to himself, again making it sound like a joke, but Twilight just knew he was looking for any excuse to harm her. A thick black band was placed over her horn and brought down as far as possible before the width of the horn prevented it from going any further; with it securely in place Twilight felt her connection to her magic disappear in a flash. There was just a cold, dark void where there once was warmth and comfort. If she was not already crying in terror, this emptiness inside of her would most certainly have.

“There, that wasn’t so bad, was it? But, just for your safety of course, let’s put another one on shall we. After all, we don’t want any interference from you with what’s going to happen next.”

“Really, a young filly needs two magic suppressors? And you call me paranoid.” The doctor didn’t respond to the jab and set about securing the second black band around the young unicorn’s horn.

He turned to fully face the restrained filly and gave her the most un-reassuring smile that has ever been seen on ponykind. “Now that we are all safely secured and suppressed, we can move on to the main event. Do not worry your little head off there will only physically be an uncomfortable electrical sensation throughout your body; but nothing of any lasting damage to note. You will also experience a variety of lights and noises along with a message and that’s it. So just relax and let what is about to happen, happen. Ok? Any questions before we start?”

‘That’s it, but that doesn’t sound bad at all. But Tempest did say this would be the worst thing I’ve ever done? Wait, he emphasized physical pain.’ “Umm, what about emotional pain or trauma?”

This question must have come as a surprise, because the stallion didn’t speak at first, merely blinked at the question. Before long however his non-reassuring smile turned positively predatory and wicked. “Oh, I do hope you make it through this ordeal; the prospect of moulding such an intelligent mind. Very well spotted there; physically there will be no lasting damage. Mentally, on the other hoof; well when I say cleaning the slate clean, I’m not talking about a chalk board” he got right up close to Twilight staring directly into her eyes before tapping her head with his hoof. “Well, if this experiment works as intended anyway.”

Realisation dawned as her eyes widened even further in panic and fear, and all the while the doctor just stared right into her eyes. “Chuckle, yes you’ve got a very good mind in there.” And just like that he was out of her face and had walked off to one of the crystals out of her field of view. Tempest walked over from where she was standing just off to the side, and as she passed “Remember what I said; you want to survive.” It was a quiet whisper, obviously the doctor wasn’t meant to hear. Twilight gave her a tiny nod of understanding, though it must have been hard to see through all her shivering, and the mare walked off without looking back.

By now it was obvious to see what the doctor had been doing; the one crystal she could see was now glowing with power. “And with the last piece of solidified magic in place, it is time for us to leave you; your experience shall begin in thirty seconds. I shall return in twelve hours to see what fruits have sprouted from this experiment; I’ve documented everything bar the end product. Oh, and don’t worry no one will be with you and the room is sound proofed, so scream and yell all you want if it helps. Personally I find the swear word ‘Buck’ particularly stress relieving. But please try to have some fun until I return, hopefully it’ll be the last thing you won’t remember doing!” The doctor let out what had to be the most disturbing cackle ever conceived as he retreated out of the chamber. Tempest must have left the room as well, whether it was before or after the doctor was impossible for Twilight to tell. With an ominous and deep click the only way into the room was sealed; the noise taking with it the comfort of white light leaving an ominous red, yellow and blue glow from the crystals.

The room was still and silent with the only noise being her very shaky breathing. Twilight had her eyes closed and was currently trying to do the breathing exercises that her foal sitter Cadance had taught her.

They were used primarily to calm her anger, and leave her in a peaceful state of mind; right now she was trying the same breathing exercise to, hopefully, calm her fear and to enter that peaceful state once more.

Slow deep breaths in through her nose, hold for a moment before slowly releasing out of her mouth. The exercise was hampered thanks to her shaky breathing along with her almost constant shivering. She wasn’t cold, the air was quite ambient, but she had also long since passed scared. The exercise wasn’t working, it wasn’t helping her calm down, but she also wasn’t having a full panic attack, so some good must have come out of them at least.

The glow from the crystals was getting brighter, making it hard for Twilight to focus on her breathing; when suddenly there was a bright flash of the three prime colours and the last bastions of light went out.

Slowly she took a deep breath of air in through her nose and held it.

A bolt of lightning coursed through her from the darkness and with it an ear piercing scream escaped out of the small filly. It was more surprise than anything truly painful, but was a relentless strike that showed no sign of stopping. If Twilight could spare a moment to think, she would have realised that there was not enough current to actually kill her from these strikes, unfortunately her mind was in a panic and all she could do was to scream.

Even with the constant stream of energy bombarding her, there was still no light in the room. It was a pitch black room where she was tied up in, and was now being bombarded with lightening. She could barely catch a breath in between screams. She wanted it to stop, she wanted it to end; had even a minute passed since it started?

Piercingly bright lights started to strobe into her eyes, the first one told her that she had her eyes open at the time. It was a sudden distraction from the torrent of energy coursing through her, so much so that she even stopped screaming in pain for a moment; her brain trying its very best to keep track of what was happening to its host.

The lights were disorientating, and were made from every colour of the rainbow and beyond. If she were on her hooves, she would have fallen over from dizziness alone. The piercing shots of light came in no discernible order; some of them were bright, others dim. Big, small, long, short and every other combination conceivable was striking her eyes; regardless if her eyelids were open or shut. Every blinding assault managed to penetrate all the defences and strike deep into her skull. If the lightening flowing through her wasn’t causing her to strain against the restraints, then the strobes of light certainly would have.

The third assault began.

Noise of every wavelength and frequency started to bombard the helpless victim; each strong enough that the vibrations could be felt over the flow of electricity. High pitch screeches at that ideal range that splits open your head, to bass so low fables claimed it would make you defecate yourself. These would be replaced with the feeling of being slowly run over and over by the next wave that could not be heard, or perhaps a series of incredibly high and fast strikes that penetrated deep into the psyche.

Her brain was overloaded. She felt like she was drowning; could scarcely catch her breath. She could not think, could no longer feel the straps scraping against her fur and skin. Her focus removed enough she struggled to remember if she was standing, sitting, or lying down.

“BUCK, BUCK, BUCK, BUCK!” at this point she would try anything to gain just a semblance of control, even take advice from that mad doctor.

That desperation tactic worked, if only a little; Twilight managed to catch one more piece of torture she was being exposed to. Compared to everything else this was nothing, it was just a sentence. But the ramifications if it was allowed to bear fruit were horrifying. It was a simple message. It only had six different words.