//------------------------------// // The truth is, we were much too young // Story: Secure, Contain, Protect // by Teh_Zodiac //------------------------------// “Welcome to the first Security Seminar of the Foundation. In this seminar, the department of Theoretical Research, represented by Dr. Shuul, and the department of Engineering and Containment, represented by Dr. Pazu, will illustrate to all our field agents their findings on how to deal and contain both theoretically and practically dangerous Zaqar and Keter SCPs. The seminar will begin in half an hour.” Twilight Sparkle slumped in her chair. It was incredibly uncomfortable, since she and Bright Light were the only ponies in the Foundation, every piece of furniture was designed to meet the needs of beings with claws, paws, or tentacles. Back in Ponyville, she saw Lyra sit down like all her colleagues lots of time: her back pushed against the chair and her forelegs resting on a table that could be used for taking notes. She didn’t need it, though. She had something she never stopped being grateful for: magic. It wasn’t only her sore butt, the fact that the meeting took place at The Hole, the most dangerous base of the Foundation (Can you believe that an all powerful supranation organization can run out of space?), it was because of her...associates.To say that the demographics were against her was the understatement of the century: roughly 40% of the F.A. were Griffins, not exactly friendly, modest types. Actually, they were borderline xenophobic with everything that wasn’t feathered. Then, there were the Zebras, that made up the 30%. They weren’t so bad, but they tended to huddle together and keep not striped beings out. The other 30% was made of various, less numerous races. They were- “Oh, look who we have here! Miss Can I Make You A Sandwich” Not only the only pony in the corp. The only female. She sighed and turned around to a familiar sight: Two griffins teasing me. Who would’ve thought? Just fry them already Quiet you She recognized them, they were two jerks working down in Maintenance. She knew that janitors liked to bet on who could get through it. She heard the odds were 10 to 1 against her, and that these fine gentlegriffins lost 3 months worth of salary in one day because they thought she would be coming out in a coffin, or just not out at all. That’s probably the reason they bothered Twilight Sparkle like they were in high school, not in the most secret and elite organization in the entire world. Everything in them shouted moronic, and she couldn’t fathom how they managed to even get a job scrubbing floors; they constantly snickered like little fillies, almost drowning themselves in their own machismo. “Ehi Dan, I know she managed to pass the Hellhole!” The first one, Gill, shouted while looking around, to make sure everyone could see him humiliating Twilight. “How, Gill?” The second griffin responded with a not so subtle rethorical tone to it, something Twilight thought far surpassed the normal ability of his little feathered brain. “She just needed to spread her legs!” Gill shouted, while running in circle and laughing like an idiot. Oh, now you’re asking for trouble He got uncomfortably close to her, threw a scaly arm over her shoulder and whispered in her ear: “That’s how you did it, right? Come with us... I’m sure you never tried Grifonic cuisine... How about I let you taste a purebred Griffin saus-” CRACK It lasted just a second. She encased his arm with her magic and twisted it very rapidly He howled in pain, making some heads and appendices turn in the process. Other attendants started murmuring and pointing at them, but she managed to stay impassive. “No thanks, I’m vegetarian.” Twilight answered, with a smile on her muzzle. It looked Gill was so much in pain that couldn’t muster enough force to insult her. Dan reached his friend and grabbed him before he could tumble down and break something else in the process. His flaming eyes turned to the lavender mare and he hissed: “We won’t forget this, bitch!” And he flew away, taking his injured pal up in the back seats.She was sure that after this graceful display of female force, they wouldn’t bother her for a long, long time. Satisfied, she tried to stretch a bit, but the chair wouldn’t allow her. The seminar wouldn’t start for at least another ten minutes. She looked around the gigantic hall. It was so impossibly big she felt a little overwhelmed. It was so high it could completely enclose the Royal Castle, and so large somepony could’ve dropped Ponyville right in the middle of it and no one would have realized. The rows were concentric, much like a theatre, and they encompassed a small wooden stage. The room itself was just a cubicle, even if titanic in size: it was quite ancient, and even if it was cleaned up for the occasion, the steel plated walls still showed some of their age. Some of them looked corroded by some kind of acid, and other were riddled with holes. Gigantic neon lights dangled from the ceiling, illuminating every corner and cranny of space. It housed 30.000 Foundation members: 1000 were agents, the other were researchers, an entire division of the Security Branch, civilian contractors and maintenance, plus some dignitaries formally invited by the Foundation. Fortunately, she heard that Equestrian ambassadors didn’t show up. Bright Light couldn’t come with her, to her great disappointment: she enjoyed the stallion’s company, but he didn’t even told her what “pretty important business” he had to attend that were so important that he could skip the first seminar in the history of the Foundation. Twilight looked around, trying to find something that could entertain her while she waited for the lessons to begin, and spotted a familiar figure. She got out of her seat and ran through the rows, until she reached one of the nearer to the stage. She carefully approached a wobbly, levitating mass of tentacles that looked much like a squid and jellyfish offspring, and shouted at the top of her lungs “BOOH!”. The strange creature staggered, and turned around. A soothing, otherworldy, if startled voice filled her ears. A voice she missed a lot: “What in- Twilight? You scared the perkentras out of me! Come here, you!” And he threw his tentacles at her, hugging her. The mare happily returned, grabbing one of the squishy yet strong tendrils and squeezing it as firmly as she could. They stayed like this, locked in marine bear hug, for a bunch of second, then they broke it, and started chatting. “Kalos, where in Tartarus were you? After the training, you just disappeared!” She ended the sentence with a fake yet adorable pout. “I’m sorry Twilight, but you know how the Foundation is: First thing you learn in the course, pleasure later-” “SCP first.” and they both giggled a bit ” I know, trust me. So, you were sent out on a mission?” Twilight asked while playfully shaking one of his tentacles. “Yeah, a domestic alarm, but it was just bogus.” Even if wyverns were one of the calmest, most collected beings on the planet, the mare detected more than a hint of anger in his voice. “Well, I was sent out like, the day after we got out. And...” She stopped, waiting for the suspense to rise. “Oh come on Twilight, don’t leave a filion hangin’!” He started shaking his tendrils in anticipation “I found one!” “Well, congrats, emon filion!” She patted her head with one of his appendices” First mission and you got a positive! So, what it was? Draconic? Grifonic? Oh oh, I know, Amoebian!” And that’s way having friends in a multiracial secret super organization that dealed with incredibly dangerous artifacts was to say to your friends that you were almost killed, lobotomized, turned into a talking flower or all of the above because of something their race invented. She gulped and find the courage to say it.“Ehm, actually, it was Idrionentes...” Wyverns didn’t have faces. yet, Twilight spent enough time with him, and they looked each other’s back during the training so many times that even without a degree in Biological Linguistic and Bioluminescence, she could see that she felt real and sincere displeasure. “I am...sorry, Twilight. It didn’t hurt you, I hope” His side mantles sagged, the wyvern equivalent of drooping ears. Twilight approached him and started to caress his body to reassure him. It always felt nice and smooth, much different from fur. “No, no, it’s ok. It’s not like it’s your fault.” she whispered. “I wish my ancestors understood that you’re not supposed to meddle with the darkness and what lies within it.” “It’s ok, Kalos. I mean, ponykind is meddling everyday with the natural way of things! It’s not natural how we control the weather, the sun and the moon...” She realized the self-centered attitude her kind had on the Everfree Forest, the stain on Equestria. The plants and animals were left to fend for themselves, the weather regulated on its own... It was madness, heresy! The horror that something wasn’t actually under their control, that oppressive, suffocating control ponies exercised on everything. Joining the Foundation made her understand something: Celestia, her kingdom and her subjects were going against the universe itself. They abused nature, abused their own celestial bodies, treating incredible, majestic objects like toys that could be tossed around the sky. The things they recovered, some were malicious, evil, downright diabolical. But those weren’t the most dangerous. She wasn’t scared by Nightmare Moon. She was scared by 173 and things like it. What were those things? Why they did what they did? The complete lack of drive, motives, rhymes or reasons why these abominations were so bent on destroying everypony’s concept on normalcy just scared her. But even so, they were more natural that the fake glass world Celestia and Luna built around their kingdom. They were more natural. More chaotic. “I thought you were a student of Basileia Celestia.” He was confused by this sudden tirade. “I was, Kalos. I was. I’ve changed since I was her student. What my race is doing is wrong” He approached her and and started caressing her mane with one of his tentacles: “Don’t shoulder the wrongs of your race, little one. We all have enough burdens and guilt to carry. A lot of times, we need to fix the errors of those who came before us, and tried to change the world for better. Other times, we have to leave some mistakes to the ones that will follow us. That’s how life goes.” “Yeah, I guess you’re right. It’s just... I like it here, I really do. You’ve helped me more in six months than my ‘friends’ in 3 years. When it mattered the most... They weren’t there for me, Discord, Chrysalis. But you, Nakest, Bright Light, you were all there for me when I needed you. I feel ungrateful for missing them, sometimes.” His bio patterns lit up in what seemed to be a fit of surprise. “What am I going to do with you? It’s normal to miss your loved ones. There is not a single being in this hall that doesn’t think of his or her family. But we are sentinels, Twilight. It’s not the deadly risks, the low pay “ he chuckled, but it sounded more like wobbly intestines being smashed together ” or the costant danger. You can’t go back. I know it’s hard, but you have to grasp that reality and keep it as close to you as possible. If you let it go, you’ll lose yourself and, eventually, you’ll die. Well, that came out less of a consolation and more of a threat...” They both laughed. “Oh that’s quite alright, you adorable jellyfish. Speaking of Nakest, you know where he is?” “Maybe I hear he was sent by the Foundation at the Misty Mountains, recovery mission.” “Oh my, is it a Keter?” “I don’t think so. From what I know, it’s just a declassified Zaqar that got shipped out on mistake. Nothing major. So, where were you-” A magically amplified voice interrupted the wyvern, and flooded the hall with reverbs. Twilight and Keles turned around to see who was talking: Dr. Shuul, the dragonling head of Engineering. Bright Light always praised him. He looked a bit imposing, like every dragonling, but she could see in those reptilians eyes a great deal of wisdom and competence. “It is with my great honour that I welcome between us, for the the very first time for the Foundation, one of the heads of the Equestrian Government. Her Majesty gracefully put aside the past experience she had with our organization, and is now here to learn and help us fight against our enemies. Please, make a round of applause for Princess Luna!” And the gracious form of the Moon Mistress appeared behind him, with a small teleport crack. Ok, this is not good, This is not good at all. She jumped under Kalos’s umbrella-like body and whispered: “Kalos, lower your tentacles and hide me!” “Why do you-” “Just DO IT” She almost shouted those last two words. “Ok, ok, sorry” He moved a group of appendices and covered her completely. The wyvern left a small space she could see through: Luna waited for the tiepid applause to wear out, then procedeed to sit down in the front row. It was going to be a long, long seminar. At least Kalos didn’t need to actually use the seat he was assigned to, since he could hover on place like every other of his species; so Twilight slumped in to the chair, and prepared to pass three hours under the mantle of a 2 meters long levitating and sentient mollusk. She surely is over the whole ‘Nightmare Moon’ thing. This nice little hall was her cell, back when the Foundation took over her custody. I wonder if she still uses the Royal Canterlot Voice... That Nightmare Night was pretty fun... “Thank you for attending this seminar! In these three hours, we’ll go over newly discovered and throughly tested ways to deal with the most dangerous SCPs in our possession. Let’s begin with something you will all recognize” Dr. Shuul reached for a small remote on the table in front him, and pressed a button. A really big screen came down from a slit in the ceiling and, following some rails, was set in place mid air. Dr. Shuul pressed another button, and a figure Twilight wouldn’t ever forget. The stubby legs, short arms, the unnerving sensation she proved just at seeing that thing and all the thing it brought up in her memory. “SCP-173 or, as it’s called by our personnel, the Sculpture. Class Zaqar, highly aggressive. Kills by snapping the neck or suffocation. However, it can not move while in direct line of sight. Direct means no magical or mechanical way of observation. It will stay still only when is watched by an eye or another biological equivalent. When facing this SCP alone, it’s important to stay calm. If your species need to blink, remember that being stressed will only make you blink more. So, even if it sounds cliched and ridiculous, stay calm. Instead of resisting the urge to blink, close one eye while keeping the other open. Our major breakthrough with SCP 173 is that you CAN break the line of sight and not get killed. We’ve discovered that if your sight is intentionally or otherwise blocked by something, 173 will teleport beside you, but it will not kill you. It will, however, the second time you break contact. 173 will instantly kill if you stop watching him directly for any reason, like turning your head, blinking your eyes, and so on. You can use this trick to escape in another room. Remember, 173 can’t teleport through doors and walls. So if you manage to break the line of sight the first time with a closing door, you’ll be safe. So, moving on to SCP-” The lights went off, completely encasing the hall with a thick mantle of darkness. Everything stopped for some seconds: Twilight couldn’t even hear her own breathing. She read about this, she knew about this, she hoped it was only a local power failure, like probably everyone else in the room. A red flickering light flooded rhytmically flooded the room with a crimson hue: it ran all over the walls, covering them briefly after letting them dissolve in the dark. It could still be something about the circuitry, or the air, or- “SCP-106 HAS BREACHED CONTAINMENT.” What. “ SCP-106 HAS BREACHED CONTAINMENT. THIS IS NOT A DRILL. CONTAINMENT SQUAD DELTA EPSILON ETA WILL BE DEPLOYED SHORTLY. TO ALL NON-SECURITY PERSONNEL, REACH IN A CALM AND ORDERLY WAY FOR THE EMERGENCY EXITS” The fire flickered and danced in the darkness, opening a tear in the pitch-black, everlasting darkness. Twilight kept looking at the mesmerizing shapes of the flames. Fire was strange; it was capable of so much horror and harm and yet it was so beautiful and captivating: the way it moved, the way it behaved, sucking everything, slowly altering everything. It was the simplest and most basic form of entropy. She crawled closer, and closer. She could feel the heat, building up and hugging her whole body. The walls looked so fragile, so tiny, compared to what was behind them. Yet, every day (day? She already lost the count a long time before, with no sun and moon helping her) they protected them. They were all so tired, so exhausted. Two were already dead when they woke up, the instructors call it the “white death”. They say it’s just his whim. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. One day you could wake up and be dead. The dead can wake up in here. That’s why everything and everyone is burned. You just need to stop feeling, stop caring. They say that if you can actually make it, it’ll come back. Just as you step out of the door, you feel the most amazing rush of joy you could ever imagine overwhelming you. The firm and stern voice of the instructor breaks the silence: “So, you actually survived the Month. I’ll be honest with you: I thought this was the most the pathetic batch I was ever sent” and he glared at Twilight and the wobbly squid that hovered beside her” but I’m glad I was proven wrong. Today, you begin the theory. You all know the rules: never scream, never sing, never say anything out loud. If you want to die, you can just cross the gate and go in the Dusk, no one is stopping you. However, losing two dozens of potentials FA just because someone lost it is not something the Foundation is willing to accept. If you try anything to jeopardize the integrity of Haven One, you will be terminated on the spot. Am I clear?” The nodding mass of heads and appendices was clear enough. “Thought so. Anyway, let’s not waste any time and start right with the big ones. In these two days, I will holo-show you the profiles of all the Keter-class object that are currently in possession of the Foundation. You have to memorize each and every detail I will show you, goddess forbids you may actually have to deal with one of these things.” A small bead of light appeared at the side of the flickering hologram of the griffin instructor, and started dividing in smaller pieces, until there were thousands and thousands of them. Even if they were perfectly visible in the almost dark surroundings of the campfire, Twilight realized they weren’t able to create any shadow at all. They started to huddle together to create strange forms that slowly turned into what was undisputably letters from the equestrian alphabet, the lingua franca of the Foundation. Soon, they formed sentences: an entire essay made out of light was forming right in front of her eyes. Normally, she would’ve jumped at this marvelous feat of magic, but right now, for her own good, she just didn’t care. It wasn’t a simple text, it was a dossier: “SCP-106 Formal codename: Old Dog. Object class: Keter. Special containment procedures: The SCP is kept into a lead lined 2x2 steel plated room, completely filled with glass shards. The room is inserted into an elaborate system of steel plates, iron wires and hollowed out concrete walls that completely surrounds it and encases it. This architectural feat is designed to fill as much space as possible, while leaving a constant amount of void between the various elements. Everything is stored into a 100x100 underground storage room with hollowed out steel walls and equipped with 46 floodlights running on redundant circuitry with a second auxiliary generator powered by a 32 Sw double enchanted neodymium ingot. Maintenance on the system is conducted every month, with security personnel armed with powerful torches .Magical fields don’t seem to have an effect on 106. As of now, testing with 106 is forbidden (See Incident 12-54-AF). 05 Level authorization is required to enter the storage room. Description: 106 is an erected dog, with somatic traits resembling those of a 75 year old Diamond Dog. Appearance may change, but there are two constants: the sex, which is male, and being in a state of advanced decomposition. 106 is capable of slow movement only and has the ability of climbing any vertical surface and stay fixed in place indefinitely.106 is capable of going through any obstacle, no matter how thick. It seems able to do so by entering a completely different dimension on the entry point, and getting out of it on the exit point, leaving a large stain of what seems dried chyme and bile. Magical tests revealed that the half digested matter does not correspond to any known creature to the Foundation. So far, no material is immune to 106’s ability, thus rendering containment fairly difficult. However, it seems that 106 can’t ‘skip’ anything that’s between ‘him’ and his target. So, he will have to enter and exit each and every time he encounter an obstacle in its way. Field reports shows that its ability considers to surfaces as different and not as a whole, as long as there is a 10 millimeter of air between them. Also, 106 is somewhat weakened and slowed down when exposed to a great source of light. Attempts to comunicate with 106 have been numerous and all unsuccessful, but it’s possible to discern some kind of pattern in its behaviour. 106 will always look for victims, with no preferences for a specific species. However, when possible, it will always seek out a young victim, usually of 9-12 years of age, or the equivalent mental age in species such as dragons or wyverns. When it manages to get a hold of a victim, referred to as 106-1, it severs the tendons or incapacitates them, and drag them into its dimension. After usually 3 hours, 106-1 will be expelled from it. The conditions of 106-1 are not constant: even though they are always biologically dead, there is not a clear pattern: sometimes 106-1 is covered with hundreds of thousand of small cuts, sometimes in a state similar to mummification or carbonization. After finding and killing a victim, 106 enters a docile state where he’s far more easily handled and passive than before. So far any attempt to cause damage phisically on 106 has been proved fruitless; it also seems immune to any known form of magic, enchantments, runes, and even other SCPs. “ The luminous dots dispersed in the air chaotically. “Now, they will form a photo of the fucker, so will you know how it looks like while you run the tartarus away from it. Just hope DEE is around” The dots started to rearrange in a manner similar to a screen, changing colour and luminosity to form shading. It really looked like a corpse: the skin was brown and bald, with no fur, glistening with reflections. It looked like it oozed a shiny substance that enveloped what she could see of its body. The ribs almost punctured through the skin. The muzzle was what unsettled her: it was impossible, just impossible, but it couldn’t be anything: it smiled, the jaw bone almost showing through the thin layer of epidermis, his beady, white eyes tearing a hole through her. “Remember, recruits. If you see it, just run. Run and don’t turn back” “Twilight... Twilight... TWILIGHT!” A voice grabbed her tight and threw her back into the present. The bleak present. A soft tentacle was shaking her lightly but firmly. “What... Have I imagined-” “Twilight, you have not imagined anything. 106 broke containment, and we need to get out of here” He started hovering beside her, letting herself become visible. Panic grabbed her and shooked her hard: she couldn’t allow the Princess to see her. She encased one of his strong tentacle in her magic and tried to keep him over her, but he overwrote her magic, a little neat trick that only wyverns could do. He had lost all his normal, friendly and outgoing behaviour, and the Kalos in front of her was not the normal Kalos she knew. Wyverns are a strange species. Their appearance is strange, how they behave, act and do things, it all seems alien to the other races. They look like a cuttlefish mixed with a jellyfish. It’s always slightly unsettling to talk to them, since they don’t have any eyes, or mouth, or any orifice at all. Ponykind always look at them with a suspicious and maybe hateful eye: they all are adept to magic, albeit a different kind from the ponies: they use their own body-electricity as a mean to discharge energy and manipulate the environment around them. Five hundred and thirty years ago, Equestria was still struggling under its own power, that is, unicorns that couldn’t control their magic. Magicians and magic experts experimented on everything that was not a pony, even other sentient species, without any remorse. They used Griffons, Minotaurs, Selenides, Dragonlings for cruel and wretched researches. It was customary for Ponykind to consider itself the superior race: they controlled the weather, the earth, the sun and the moon. They were the rightful masters of the world, and all the other living and breathing things were there just to serve their purposes. The only race they wouldn’t, or couldn’t touch were the Wyverns, that called themselves Idrionentes, ‘the folks of the water’. They lived far below the surface of the great Western Sea, out of the reach of every earthly creature. Until, one day, unicorns managed to create a self preserving air bubble, that allowed them to explore the obscure reaches of the ocean. They were thrilled at the possibilities: new subjects, more reactions to test on strange creatures. Of course, whether they liked it or not. A small contingent of three hundred unicorns battle mages and ten magic researchers submerged, looking for fresh specimens to take back to the dry ground. They never came back. The Equestrian Kingdom sent a rescue team. They never came back either. The matter was brought to the attention of Princess Celestia herself. She didn’t care what her little ponies did to the inferior races, as long as they didn’t get hurt experimenting with vermins. But a disgusting fish race had the NERVE to detain her precious subjects! She marched on the shore of the Western Ocean personally, with three battalion ready to subdue and teach a lesson of humility to whatever mollusc with legs thought it was a good idea to mess with the masters of nature. Celestia used her magic to make a large patch of water boil and simmer, hoping it would catch their attention. It did. After a while, the strange and frail looking creatures emerged out of the salty water. There were just one hundred of them, against an entire army of the Equestrian Kingdom, thirty thousands well trained soldiers. They just hovered in place, without saying anything. It’s not like they actually had a mouth to use. The soldiers were baffled to say the least: how could these glassy creatures that looked like big inflated jellyfish, capture hundreds of capable battlemages? Celestia took a step forward, and the small cough that she used to clear her voice covered the scream of one of the officers who noticed that fifty meters down the coast the waves had casted on the sand pearly white bones of equine craniums. She did notice, though, that she couldn’t speak. She tried to articulate the words, but nothing would come out. She also realized that she couldn’t move either. Her whole body was just paralyzed. The strange creatures got closer, and closer, their silence mixed with the sound of waves behind them. No one knows what happened after that. Only Celestia came back, and adamantly refused to tell her advisors where were the thousands of soldiers she went off with. She declared magic experimenting on living beings of any kind illegal and punishable by banishment, and reformed the school system, completely removing any kind of subject that talked about anything other than ponies. As time passed, the thought that other races were inferior, or the thought of other races itself faded out of the minds of ponykind. Only a slight, impolite curiosity remained, the kind of selfishness that makes you gaze at the next strange feathered thing you cross down the street, only to make you forget it as not important, or make you snicker with your friends about how different they were, how strange and pathetic they looked without tattoos on their asses to tell them what they were good at. Bio-electricity. Nerves and electrical impulses. That’s how you move, how you think, how you do what you do everyday. That’s what Wyverns were good at. Everything around them was dark, really dark. The emergency lights moved through the hall likes waves, illuminating with a small, flickering red light before fading into darkness. She looked down, where Princess Luna was supposed to be. She wasn’t there. Actually, pretty much half of the hall was empty, and those who had remained inside scampered about, trampled and pushed each other to get away, to run and never come back like they were always told. She and Kalos moved down the central row, running, hovering, to get to the big life-sign that glimmered in the darkness. Under the stage, big green letters formed the world “EXIT”. That word already meant everything to her and everybody else in the hall. Everything would be alright once they reached it. Twilight dove through the panic door, almost divelting it in the process: in front of them, there was a dark corridor, not illuminated. They runned through it. Twilight was panting, and sweating. It never seemed to end. There was always another path, another turn to take. Kalos was in front of her, partially blocking her already impeded view of her surrounding. Behind her, she could hear the grunts of her colleagues, but it seemed like they were just gasping from the fatigue, and not from fear. After what seemed an eternity, they reached the end of the corridor: in front of them a big room, with floodlights illuminating everything. There were hundreds of creatures forming quehe, and steadily passing through what looked like a gigantic steel lined door. She was exhausted. She felt she had run for dozens of miles through a desert. Kalos was hovering beside her, and asked, confused: “Twilight? You alright? We have to get in line to get out of here.” She dismissivly waved a hoof at him. “It’s ok, I just need a *pant* moment. You know, being stuck in a library *pant* all your life” She lowered her head and kept panting and gasping for air. He asked hesitantly “Are you sure?” “Yeah, just go. I’ll reach you in a moment.” He started slowly moving towards the line, while still ‘looking’ at Twilight, waiting for her. She felt dizzy. Her head was thumping and pulsating. This wasn’t normal. Back in her librarian days, she wasn’t exactly in top shape, but now, she was at the peak of a unicorn athletic possibility. She could Rainbow Dash and Applejack a run for their money. Then why she felt so tired? Why her limbs weighted on her like lead? Why every breath burned her lungs? Why she couldn’t even lift her head? Why she felt like going back down the corridor? Two griffins came through the tunnel and settled beside her. They were just as tired as the lavender unicorn was. She didn’t need to take a good look at them to recognize them: they were Dan and Gil, the two janitors who enjoyed teasing her back at the conference. The uninjured one, Dan, lifted his head and immediately recognized her. Anger flared through his face: he got up and started walking towards her, leaving his mate at the end of the line. Twilight was not even looking at him. The corridor was a much safer place. 106 could swoop down at any time and kill everyone. They were huddled together so tight they would stampede each other to death to get away. She wouldn’t die like that. She was going to survive, she had to. She wasn’t going to let her down. She really needed a party. Kalos was turned, talking to one of the guards, that kept the line in an orderly fashion. “It’s going to take a bit, but we’ll get you out of here, Agent, don’t you worry. Now, you’d better talk to your friend, we’re almost done here, and we’re going to seal this door.” The wyvern turned around, scanning the room to find the mare. She wasn’t where she left her. She was going back into the corridor, and a griffin was going after her. He managed to see the unicorn turning right and the griffin grabbing her shoulder before the corridor collapsed. When the rocks came down behind her, the tiredness disappeared from her body. The collapsing concrete boulders filled her ears. She could hear faintly, on the background, a male voice, scared, angry, desperate. She could feel scaly claws grabbing and shaking her for a bit. She felt something tumbling down on the floor. Then she heard sobbing. Everything looked so clouded. She shook her head, and slowly, regained control of her senses. She was standing in the same corridor she came through earlier, but the way to the exit room was blocked by a wall made of collapsed rocks. If someone was digging through it, she couldn’t hear it. It took a moment for the realization to sink in. I’m trapped. I’m trapped with 106 and Goddess knows how many more escaped SCPs. The panic invaded her, shaking the very foundations of her mind. She was going to die. She was going to die for sure. She was going to die, and that would be it. Die, tortured by that thing, screaming and kicking while being dragged into whatever hell 106 called home. No one will remember her. A statistic in the Foundation registry. A milestone never repeated. Her true identity, her true call lost in some dusty archive, while Celestia has her way with another young, malleable mind. Soon her friends will forget about her. She will be a mild nuisance, a small stain in one’s memory, something that makes your eyes water just because they have to. Her brother will steal the spotlight. He will be remembered as a hero. He will become royalty, marrying a princess. Her friends will go on with their lives, frolicking in boring appearances of meaningful lives, while she will die screaming and yelling, mourned only by a nerdy folklore expert, a wobbly jellyfish and an oversized lizard. The voices told her to cry, to kill herself now to spare the pain, to sit in a corner and wait for it, to just bang her head against the wall until the gray matter comes ou- Survive What? SURVIVE She won’t cry. She won’t sit in a corner waiting to die. She will claw, rip, bite, kill her way out of here, even if it means having to face 106 and chew his rotting mutt head off. She got up, and looked around: the corridor was encased in darkness, but she could muttering and cursing near her. A male voice. She fired up a light spell, and an orb of pure white light hovered over her head. In front of her, there was a griffin, one of the two that picked on her before. His eyes were filled with hate and tears and locked on her, and he kept sobbing and cursing her. “Fuckin bitch this is all your fault, why the fuck it’s not fair I’m gonna kill you cunt fuck fuck I’m gonna di-” “You, your name was Dan, right?” She asked with an emotionless voice. He kept silent, his gaze exploding with resentment. “I don’t care if you hate me, but we both need to get out of here. You know this place, I have the magic. Take me to another exit point, and I’ll watch your back.” He didn’t say anything, but Twilight see he was conflicted: he stopped sobbing and muttering. After a while, he wiped the tears off his face and offered his claw, his eyes brimming less and less with loathe: “You have a deal” He spent 5 minutes drawing a crude map of the facility on the wall with some chalk the mare conjured for him. After that. he started explaining his plan to get out. “Ok, it goes like this. We’re on the level that’s nearer to the surface. You arrived with the teleport thingy, right?” He turned around to ask. “Yes” Twilight nodded in response. “Then, the only exit on this level is behind this 10 meters of rubble and concrete. We have to go down, to the ‘ArCo’” And he drew a small line going down through some walls. “ArCo?” She asked. “Artifact Containment. That’s where they keep the things that are not animate. At least, the things that won’t move. We get back to the hall, go to the teleport, turn right instead of left like you did, and we’ll take the stairs down. We’ll end up in a a series of corridors, and doors. Some may seem strange. Some might be open. Don’t touch them. Don’t go inside. Don’t take a peek. Just follow me, without looking back. 106’s cell was down at the level 4, the most secure. It’s like, almost a kilometer down from here.He’s gonna take a while for him to bypass all the security measures. So, if we’re quick, and if something else hasn’t broke out of containment, we will make it. It’s not much, I know.” He squeezed the chalk in his claw, and it crumbled, leaving a pile of white dust on the floor. He couldn’t manage to look at Twilight anymore. A whiny young mare mustered enough courage to don’t give up yet, while he sat whimpering in a corner. She trotted past him and looked intensely at the simple map. She turned around and looked at him straight in the eyes. “No, it’s the best chance we’ve got. Let’s go” They looked at the mass of rocks blocking the way behind them, before walking in the pitch black darkness. They passed through the corridor with relative ease; the light spell conjured by Twilight helped them to not lose time walking slowly for fear or planting their heads into the hard concrete wall. They emerged into the base of stage of the hall, the red emergency light still sweeping the gigantic room. They walked up, through the rows, careful not to make any noise and keeping as silent as possible. Everything was deserted. Twilight knew that in the event of a Keter breach, all the facility is completely evacuated, and containment squad are sent in to deal with whatever has breached. Dan told her that there were magical observer all over the facilities. They were the size of a grain of sand, but they managed to cover a wide area, much like a normal eye, so the Foundation always knew what team to send in, to reduce casualties. Not that they cared much about the well being of their personnel, it’s just that highly trained containment teams or agents like Twilight were very expensive to create, so, if they lost a lot, there would a considerable security problem. However, no 05 would risk help teams for a lone agent and a janitor. The silence was starting to get unbearable. It resonated in her ears, filling them and distracting her. “What’s the exit like?” She whispered to the griffin “A tunnel. You just need to go through it, and you’re on the surface. I never used the thing, though. I know it because of security drills” He answered. They reached the teleporting pool room. For a moment Twilight thought of why she didn’t thought about using it. Entering the room, she remembered why. In case of a breach, the SCP was lowered into a panic room 3 kilometers underground below with magical charges. The risk of a sentient SCP using the thing to enter another Foundation base could just not be taken, even if it meant losing something so useful. Also, with the lights out, she couldn’t know where it was set this particular instance of the pool. She could end up in the cold space. “We’re lucky, you know.” The griffin whispered to her. “Why?” She asked, thinking how anything concerning this situation was considered lucky. “We haven’t met a containment team yet. That means that only 106 has escaped.” He answered in slightly chirpy voice. Twilight said nothing. But she realized he was right. Only 106 breached containment. She didn’t count her lucky stars. She knew how the gears of her bosses turned, unlike Dan. He didn’t stop to think why while, yes, they didn’t meet any containment team and that meant that only 106 was going about free, that didn’t explain why they were waiting so long to send DEE in. Actually Twilight knew while they waited so long. After killing someone, 106 was calmer and easier to handle. They were waiting. And observing. They’re waiting for it to kill us. They turned left, and went through a series of corridors and rooms, until they reached the stairs. Here, there was no emergency light. Everything was dark, apart from Twilight spell. She hovered it over the staircase, to see if there was anything blocking it, and it was completely clear. They looked each other, nodded, and proceeded to walk down the stairs. It was excruciating to say the least: they couldn’t see anything other than the next ramp, and they always thought that 106 would be on them any minute now. But in the end, they reached the end of the stairs: in front of them, there was a gigantic maze of corridors and door. She was really grateful to have someone who knew his way around here. He observed the labyrinth for a minute, then he whispered: “Follow me”. She stayed close to him, hovering the orb slightly in front of them. Again, there was complete silence. They passed a never ending stream of doors. Some looked really strange: one was made out of simple wood, another looked like it was made of glass, and another one was so sturdy and big Twilight wondered how it couldn’t fall on its own weight. They twisted and turned many times, until they reached a corridor with another source of light apart from her orb. There was a monitor, standing in the middle of it. It was lit up, but it faced away from them, so they couldn’t see what was on it. They approached it, carefully. As they got nearer, Twilight saw something at the end of corridor, a big, rectangular shape. She sent the orb a little further, and she saw that the shape was a... black coffin? SHIT She grabbed Dan with a hoof and shoved him back. He was almost crossing over the monitor, looking to what was on it. He whispered angrily “What the hell is your problem?” She pointed the coffin at the end of the corridor. He visibly winced. “What is that?” He asked trembling a little. “895. Don’t. Look. At. The. Monitor. No matter what you hear, what you may think to see, or feel. Don’t turn to back to look at it. If you do it, we’re as good as dead.” “Wh-what about the coffin?” He pointed at the gigantic hunk of black wood standing 7 meters from them. “It’s harmless. Just don’t look at the screen, ok? Don’t look at the screen and we’ll be fine, ok?” They neared the monitor. Even if it was one, and there was something so bright to cast a big cone of light, they couldn’t hear any noise. They slowly crossed it over, careful to look in front of them. That’s when it began. At first, it was just a mumbling. They heard it, but they kept walking slowly away from the monitor. Then, it became a whisper. It slowly build up, with a sound ruined by constant white noise. They couldn’t understand whether it was a female or male voice. But it kept whispering louder, louder “Get out”, the more they distanced themselves from the screen. The whispering abruptly became a scream. It kept screaming the same thing, over and over. You could hear retching and other screams in the background, screams of pain, yelling, gargling. Louder, louder, then Dan yelled “Fuck, that thing is moving!”. Twilight, that had looked at the floor all the time, turned her head up: the coffin was jerking violently, and there was a scratching sound and loud thumps coming out of it. The monitor kept screaming, louder, and louder, and the coffin was moving more, and more violently. Dan yelled at Twilight to turn right, but they were both frozen in fear. The coffin kept jerking, and was starting to crack. Twilight screamed “Bite my tail and close your eyes!” get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out get out GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUTGET OUT She closed her eyes and ran as fast she could, ignoring that the coffin grazed her flank, bruising her. She kept running, and running, until she couldn’t hear that voice anymore. She stopped, her heart practically leaping out her chest. She was afraid of opening her eyes. Her eyelids were glued. Open them, Twilight. OPEN THEM Her eyes shot open. They were in dark corridor, of course. She conjured the spell once more. It looked just like the dozen they went through earlier. Dan was sobbing quietly. Twilight got close to him and caressed him with her hoof. “Hey, hey, it’s over. Come on. We’re almost there, right?” He nodded, and got up. He wiped the tears, and started looking around for a clue on where they might have ended up. As soon as he saw a small silver plaque on the wall that said “For EX-23 down the corridor”, he smiled. He turned around and whispered: “We’re here. It’s just at the end of the corridor!” Twilight managed not to leap up in air for the joy. They walked for another minute before reaching a steel door with a bright red lettered “EXIT” sign. They slowly opened it: there was a catwalk, dangling over what seemed a bottomless pit. Rock walls surrounded it. At the end of the catwalk, there was a blastproof door, painted in bright yellow and black. They entered the room, and closed the door behind them. Just like the hall, there was a rotating emergency red light illuminating the space. They got close to the door. There was no visible codepad. There was just a small cavity at the right side of the door, enscribed with something that looked like a stretched out rune. Dan got closer and asked: “What’s that?” Twilight inspected it for a moment, then answered. “It’s a magic lock. It will open only with enough raw magical energy. The rune here needs like.... 30 kiloSwirl of magical energy. That’s not much, but I’ll need more or less five minutes to get it” She immediately started focusing her magic in her horn, while Dan sat beside her, waiting to get out. A minute passed. Another minute passed. After the second minute, Dan could swear he heard something dripping. Where was it? The dripping was getting louder, like something was getting melt- His eyes travelled to the smaller door they came through. There was a dark patch forming on it, and it only got bigger, and bigger. Molten metal started flowing down it, and going through the grate of the gatewalk, down in the abyss. Then, something came slowly out of it. It was a lucid, rotten paw. He yelled. “TWILIGHT HE’S HERE” She turned around, her horn blazing with raw magic, and she saw the a badly rotten Diamond Dog corpse halfway through a door. Its two arms and the torso were already in, and she could start to see the beginning of the right leg. The head was bloated, and the skin was leathery and glistening. It was smiling. “HURRY TWILIGHT” “I CAN’T DO IT, I NEED MORE TIME” He was already with one leg on the catwalk, and the other was passing through. She didn’t have enough time, she needed another 3 or 4 minutes. But 10 seconds passed and the thing was already making its way to them. Its walk was uncoordinated and sickly to see, but it was coming. Dan couldn’t fly, the ceiling was too low. “OH PLEASE NO PLEASE PLEASE” It was walking through the catwalk, just 5 or 6 meters from them. Dan was beating at the door, trying to open it, but it was futile. It was coming, it was coming for them. Twilight couldn’t get his eyes off it as he made its way to them. She started to cry, to cry like she never cried in her entire life. Dan kept banging the door. Spike. The first spell you’ve ever used. Remember how big you made him? You have enough magic. You need to survive. I need to survive. She directed her horn to Dan, and fired up the opposite of a spell she had used a long time ago. A spell that made her life change for the better, in many ways. She did remember how big Spike got, from a dragon egg to a gigantic full blown adult dragon. 106 was only two meters from them. A light encased the griffin. It dissipated immediately after. Beside her, there was not an adult griffin anymore. A small griffin kid sat in his place. He was evidently confused. He scampered on his claws and tried to reach for Twilight, but a slimy, cold paw grabbed him by the beak and dangled him on the catwalk. Twilight sat there, waiting calmly for it to disappear. It did have what it wanted, right. You did good. The small griffin was crying his eyes out, trying to reach for the mare with his little feathered arms. But she didn’t even look at him. She was looking at the thing in front of her. The thing that started laughing. Laughing like a maniac. It was a gargling, disgusting noise, but she could not be mistaken. It was laughing. She uttered: “This doesn’t make any sense.” It stopped laughing, resumed its smiling, and answered in a scratchy, bubbling, sickly, joyful voice: “What fun is there in making sense?” Then, he turned around, and reality folded on itself, like a blanket. It stretched in and out, and after it came back to shape, it was gone. ______________________________________________________________________________ The tunnel was long, and cold, and dark. It never ended. She kept walking, and walking, and walking. And it never ended. Maybe that’s what she deserved. The punishment. She was suddenly blinded by a big white light. A powerful male voice, enhanced by magic, boomed in her ears: “Identify yourself” “Field Agent Twilight Sparkle” She managed to say. “Where is Hygiene Agent Dan Oski?” She started laughing. She couldn’t stop, she couldn’t breath. It was hilarious, though. That’s why she couldn’t stop laughing. She didn’t have a good laugh in a while. Actually, that was the best laugh she ever had, even better then when Pinkie was around. She started hyperventilating. But she just couldn’t stop. Before collapsing unconscious to the ground, she managed to yell: “MISSED IN ACTION” ______________________________________________________________________________ The cell was damp. But it was clean. Bright Light sat in the middle, waiting for someone to arrive. Why he was in a Canterlot dungeon? He didn’t know. He just listened to his superiors. They told him Princess Celestia demanded him. She was quick, he thought. But not as I much as I expected. The wood door opened with a creak. A unicorn in uniform entered. He closed the door behind him. Bright Light recognized him: Shining Armour, Twilight’s brother. Captain of the Royal Guard. Hero of Canterlot. Vanquisher of Chrysalis. A great reputation. So, he was surprised when a hoof hit him right in the jaw. He staggered a bit, but managed to keep standing. Shining Armour took a step a back and started talking in a no-joke tone: “I know you, Dr. Light. I know who you work for. You don’t want to see the bad side of Equestria. Tell me why a member of the Foundation was in Ponyville the night my sister died” “I-I do-don’t what you’re talking about, I’m just a consulent, a folklor-” Another punch, still in the jaw. This time, he got on his knees. “Don’t take me for a fool, Light. Her Majesty told me what you are, and how you get your sick kicks. How you change persona every two or so years because you get bored.” Bright Light got up, giggled a bit, and managed to conjure a small smile on his face. “Then I guess it’s no use pretending, right?” “Tell me what you were doing in Ponyville the night my sister was found dead in her bed.” “Well, I guess I was in Ponyville, that night. We just had a breach. A very nasty case of 173-itis. I was just making sure everyone had been properly amnesiaced. I didn’t even go near your sister though, if that’s what you’re asking” “Don’t lie to me! Her Majesty told me you expressed an interest in her!” He yelled at him. “Yeah, but she said the cutie pie was a no-fly zone, if you know what I mean...” Another punch, this time somewhere around the left eye. He touched it with a hoof. It was already starting to swell. “You disgust me Light. You’re a sick thing that pretends to be a pony. I don’t know why the Foundation keeps you around.” Bright Light took a step back with a mocking hurt look on his muzzle. “I don’t pretend to be a pony. I am a pony. At least in the spirit, and that’s what counts. Anyway, I didn’t even touch your sister. We can sit here all day, but we both know you don’t have any proof I’m involved in the matter.” He ended the sentence with a small, sardonic smile. “We’ll see about that, Light.” He looked at him, his eyes filled with disgust. He turned around and exited the room. Bright Light waited for some minutes, also making sure no one was listening to him. He fired up a COMM spell. He didn’t even wait to get an answer, he just said: “I don’t care what game you’re playing, or what do you think you’re doing. If you try to kill Twilight Sparkle again, I’ll tell them everything.”