//------------------------------// // The King has come, with justice till the End! // Story: Secure, Contain, Protect // by Teh_Zodiac //------------------------------// Luna stomped her hoof down, enraged at her sister. The marble floor of Celestia’s room cracked under the sheer force of the Lunar Princess. The Solar Princess staggered a bit, surprised by the anger of her little sister. “We know what We have heard, sister!” She yelled at her, although not in the Royal Canterlot Voice. “Why thou dost not believe Us?” “Am I supposed to believe that you heard a Wyvern shouting ‘Twilight’ and saw a mare running back in the facility? Luna, I told you not to go there. It’s... Luna, you know you can’t trust the Foundation, you know that. I gave you to them because they said they would be able to purge you from the Nightmare, but they kept you away from me for a thousand years, ran experiments on you, fabricated all of those lies about the Elements, brainwashed you...” Her eyes started to water” I was afraid they’d take you away from me again.” Luna regretted her outburst. She herself didn’t understand why she accepted the invitation to the conference. She used to be one of those SCP, and seeing them talking about them, it made her sick to the heart. Did they talked about her like that too? Was she just a number and a dossier to them? What were her ‘special containment procedures’? She couldn’t remember. Was she Safe? Zaqar? Keter? Were they planning to detain her again? Celestia was right. Who knew what they had in store for her, weren’t for that breach. Maybe they drugged her. She hallucinated! The delusion was about Twilight Sparkle. She was dead. She saw her body. She saw her friends cry their eyes out. She was under 2 meters of warm, friendly Ponyville soil. She missed her too. The first pony who opened her heart to her. Her first friend in a long, long time. She approached her big sister and nuzzled her. “You’re right, dearest sister. I can’t trust them. I must’ve imagined it, and-” A knock and a door opening interrupted her. Both princesses turned around and they were met with the sight of an rather annoyed looking Captain of the Royal Guard. “I’m sorry if I interrupted you, your majesties, but the prisoner asked to speak to you personally, Princess Celestia.” He bowed and stood still, waiting for an answer. Celestia escaped sorrily her sister’s embrace and answered: “Now he’s making personal requests? Fine, I’ll humor him. He’ll hope not to waste my time.” Shining Armour gestured her to follow him, but the Solar Princess felt a hoof on her shoulder. Luna spoke softly: “Sister, I want to be present. I want to meet this prisoner and ask him a few things.” “Luna, I’m not sure if....” “Please, Celly.” She only used that nickname when she wanted something really bad. Fond memories of a filly Luna asking for a candy or a new toy... She smiled. “Fine. Captain, please”. She gestured him to make the way. “Of course, Princess” He opened the door with his magic, and started walking down the corridor, making sure the Princesses were following him. Shining Armour wasn’t happy. He wasn’t happy at all. A year, maybe more, since her sister quietly passed away in her sleep. Twily... It wrecked him. It didn’t help that Cadence had a strong bond with her too. That only made things worse. If she didn’t know her enough, she could’ve helped her husband overcome it. Instead, she was just as depressed as he was. For three months, their marriage had been in dire waters: sometimes days passed without either of them uttering a single word to each other. But, they managed to get through it. At least that’s what he thought. But this... thing (he couldn’t find a better term for him, when the princess explained to him what exactly he was) and fact that maybe he was tied to her sister, that only made everything resurface. Him, and her friends. He received a letter the other day. Written by one of her friends, Rarity. It said that they were planning to have a ceremony to remember Twilight and what she had done for Ponyville and Equestria. He didn’t ever bother to answer. She just wanted to forget it. Everything. The more he remembered, the more sharp the pain would be. They went through the majestic halls with the stained glass, the throne room, the main entrance. They got outside, through the garden, to the barracks. They circled around them, and arrived to the dungeons. Down the steps. In the dark, damp corridor, illuminated by flickering torches. The last door. Shining Armour raised an hoof to open it, but Luna talked: “Wait.” She turned to Celestia “Who is this prisoner, actually?” “He’s a researcher, he has worked with the Foundation for a long time. His name is Bright Light” Bright Light... The name almost rang a bell. It did feel familiar, but she couldn’t put her hoof on it. Maybe it was one of the doctors who were supposed to talk at the conference. It didn’t really matter. She was going to get some answers. They entered the room. A grey stallion was sitting in a corner, looking at them with an emotionless face. She saw the blue alicorn, for an instant a look of sincere surprise was plastered on his face. Then, it gave space to a small, confident grin. If Luna met him, she didn’t recognize him. He didn’t look familiar at all. She whispered to her sister: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen this pony before. Are you sure he’s working for the Foundation?” She whispered back: “I’m positive. Trust me.” She turned around to face the prisoner and talked with an authoritative, stern voice: “You asked for me, Light. This better not be a waste of time. I may not be able to keep you in here forever, since your superiors evidently value you quite a lot, but I’ll make sure your stay is not exactly pleasant” He got up, and tried to walk in front of them, but he tripped a bit when the chain that bounded his left ankle blocked him. He snorted a bit and answered in a plain tone: “Of course, Princess. I promise you I won’t waste your time. By the way, I’m delighted you decided to bring Lulu to this little get-together” Celestia recoiled a bit, surprised. That nickname... She only used it when she and Luna were alone. Anger flared through her as she thought of the gross lack of respect. How he dared? “Who do you think you are, referring to a royal princess like that? You’re luck you’re already in the dungeon, otherw-” She and Shining Armour noticed the sobs and whimpering behind them. They turned to see Luna, on the floor, her eyes shot open and flowing with tears, and a terrorized look on her face. She kept whispering something. They both rushed to see what was going on with her: Celestia grabbed her shoulder and asked with a sweet voice: “Luna, Luna what’s wrong?” “Princess, is everything alright?” “Don’t...leave me....please....I’ll be good....I’ll do it...just...don’t...it hurts...” She started thrashing her legs around, trying to escape her sister grab, all while staring Bright Light “Luna, calm down, what is it?” “I don’t want to...leave me alone....I did it.... so please....don’t....don’t....DON’T...” She started screaming and jerking violently. “I DON’T WANT TO SEE HIM I DON’T WANT I’LL BE GOOD I PROMISE DON’T BRING HIM HERE” She was going completely mad. Celestia had to do something. She gestured to Shining Armour to keep her still, while she performed a knockout spell. Luna, unconscious, fell limply on the ground. “Shining Armour, please take my sister to the Royal Physician.” He fired up his horn and levitated the blue alicorn in a bubble. “Of course Princess.” And he teleported out of the room with the Princess of the Night. She turned around, eyes enflamed with rage. She telekinetically grabbed the smiling stallion by the horn and dangled him over her face. “WHAT DID YOU TO MY SISTER?” She shook him with her magic He snickered a bit, then answered with that mocking smile still on his face: “I didn’t do anything at all. But, if I were you, I’d hire a Royal Psychologist” She freed him and, still enraged, left the room without saying a word. Celestia knew how to wait. She was old. Very old. A part of being old is knowing how to wait. So, she waited, by the bed, that her sister got better. Days passed. She had a nervous breakdown, they said. A trauma that re-appeared. She wouldn’t talk to her. She just stared at ceiling. But she didn’t mind. But even after she recovered, she started talking again, after she resumed her normal duties and her Night Court, she remained silent everytime Celestia enquired about her connection with the stallion. One day, they were stargazing together, when Luna spoke: “He was the Head Researcher, back when they detained me. He was the one who ran the experiments. I must have removed it” She said in an emotionless tone, her gaze fixed on the stars. She felt the pristine wing of her big sister embracing her and her voice saying, sweetly: “I’m so sorry, Luna”. Some tears found their way on the Lunar Princess’s muzzle, but she managed not to break in a cry and returned the comforting hug of her sister. Twilight Sparkle was running through the pitch black darkness. She cursed under her breath, she cursed the stupid therapy she had to go through, the stupid mission she had been assigned, the stupid SCP that was now trying to kill her, the stupid decision to change life, the stupid decision to ask someone to fake her death, the stupid decision to go to Sugarcube Corner looking for a small amount of relief from the scorching heat. She turned left in a back alley. The Trottingham night was doing a good job covering her from prying eyes. It was also fantastic that the thing trashing around and following her, moving at impossible angles was of a relatively small size. Still she hadn’t the slightest clue about what to do. Stopping was out of the picture. She was out of magic, and she didn’t exactly have much fight left in her. Eureka! She knew what to do. She just needed to- THUMP She just bumped somepony! She looked behind her. The thing was closing the distance, fast. She needed to do it quick: just launch the rune, and do a quick amnesiac sweep of the witness. That’s when she felt something touch her shoulder. It was a claw. And it was burning hot. She turned around so fast she almost broke her neck. In front of her, there wasn’t a pony. There was a charred mass of meat, and feathers, something that looked like a burned corpse. It had a beak. And eyes. Black, lidless, irisless eyes that went through her. The corpse spoke to her. And it was the most clear and toneless voice she ever heard. A voice that spoke from far away. “I’ll always be with you.” She started to scream. Her body stopped responding, she started to fall on the cold street. “Always” She hit the floor of her room, nose first. The pain shot through her like a needle. Nothing broken, but the pain remained. She sat down on the floor. The moquette was a little sticky, since she didn’t even use this excuse of apartment often. Foundation-issued first grade personal barrack. A bed, 40 square metres of free space, a bathroom and a small magic tether link to the Overwatch. Of course, underground. If there was something she missed, it was windows. Windows and what came with them. After they found her, they just took her to her room and left her there. They didn’t check up on her. They didn’t ask her anything about what happened to her, and what happened to him. They didn’t assign her to therapy, like usual. They didn’t give her any new assignment. No one ever came to visit her, not that she had many friends in the Foundation. Bright Light, they didn’t tell her where he was and when he would come back. Kalos never knocked on her door. Every day was the same: she got up from bed, took a shower, stared at the ceiling waiting for lunch, she went to the dining hall, she came back to her room, stared at the ceiling some more, went out for dinner, and came back to sleep. She liked it like that. Everything was numb, and foggy. The days and the creatures passed beside her, accelerating every day more and more, until everything became a blur and time stopped having importance. She liked it like that. She didn’t have to think of anything. She knew her day was laid out, in front of her, like a gray, dry fruit that just waited to be tasted and discovered to be tasteless. The only downside were the dreams. In the day her mind was more peaceful and sedated that when she slept. But every dream was trying to make her remember. She didn’t want to remember. One day, while she was eating lunch by herself, she heard young recruits talking about something they heard from a senior agent, something called the Choice. He told them that in every agent’s life there was a pivotal point, a crucial moment when they had to make a choice. That choice changed everytime, and every occasion was different. But it always there, looming over them. And the options were always just two: Live, or die. He said that they were the lambs, sacrificed on the altar of normality. The Choice was the High Priest, cutting your throat, ripping out your heart and showing it to the cheering crowd. If somebody defeated the Choice, they died. But few could defeat the Choice, and Twilight was not one of them. She, like every senior agent, gave in and survived. They gave in to the millions of silenced voices that came before them, voices of bacteria, fishes, mollusk, things that crawled from the sea to the beach, things with teeth, claws, scales, and feathers, and fur, and hooves. The voices that said: Survive She got up and climbed back to her bed. The same question had been bouncing inside her head for some time now. Before 106, before Canterlot, before the Training. Why? Why she said yes? Why she didn’t stay? Why she didn’t keep her life on rails? Why she faked her death? Why she chose to throw her family and friends in despair? Why she joined this monstrous organization? Why she killed? The old world. Her old world. Every day, there would a problem, a triviality. Laughter, joy, happiness. Her friends, helping her at every chance they had. Working together to defeat whatever there may...be.... She thought that maybe, after one year of getting almost killed, of facing lethal dangers, of doing things she never even imagined she could do, she came to a stunning realization: Ignorance is bliss. Was it? She didn’t want to forget Pinkie Pie. Why she had to? That wouldn’t have happened if her work, the Foundation’s work were public. Ponies could have helped. Resources could have been used. Lives could have been spared. But Equestria needed to be kept under a glass dome. She won’t give up. She won’t sit in her room, wasting her life away. That’s what Celestia would have expected of her, if she knew her faithful student was still alive. Pinkie died because of her. She became a murderer because of her. “EVERYTHING IS HER FAULT” She conjured up a lightning bolt that struck one of the walls of her room, leaving a big black mark. She wasn’t going to give up. Far from it. It doesn’t matter if she’ll have to claw, and tear her way out of everything. She will find these things. She will contain them. She will study them. She will understand them. She will use that knowledge to change Equestria, for the better. No more lies, no more cover-ups. She will not allow Celestia to sedate ponykind and sugar coat their world. A knock interrupted her line of thought. She opened the door, and in front of her stood M’bura, the same deadpan face he carried around every time, with a file in his teeth. He dropped it on the floor and tonelessly said: “Read it and prepare yourself, Miss Sparkle. You’re going to Phillydelphia.” There have been several accounts of disappearances in Phillydelphia for the last two months. The local police department at first thought of it just as a statiscal spike, but shortly realized that was not the case. There is not a discernible pattern for the victims, but they were all last seen in the same zone: a small residential zone inside downtown. The Foundation already sent some technicians on the ground, but they couldn’t find any magical disturbance in the area. The zone of interest has been restricted to an alley that joins two parallel roads: reports and testimonies shows that all the victims were in the vicinity of it when they disappeared. Our agents inside the Police Department convinced the Head of Department to fence the area and fend off any onlooker or curios pony that might want to enter. Your assignment is to investigate the area throughly and report back to the Foundation. Your alias for this mission is Star Blur, detective of Equestrian Administrative Bureau. You will find the ID and credentials in the envelope. Good luck, Agent. She had read the short briefing file once again. She was supposed to burn it after reading it only once, so looking at it on a train filled with ponies, going to Phillydelphia, was against a lot of security regulations. But every document used by the Foundation had a hex-based encryption: if the document managed to fall in the claws, hooves or tentacles of someone that wasn’t part of the Foundation, every page would look like a menu for an ethnic-fusion griffin restaurant based in Trottingham. She didn’t like the transformation she had to undergo this time: a jet black coat and an orange mane, the two colours she disliked the most. The countryside was blurring and merging with the outskirts of one of the biggest cities in Equestria. She had never seen Phillydelphia, and she didn’t know the feel of a modern metropolis, compared to the refinement of the Equestrian capitol. And she didn’t care much, actually. This case looked like what the F.A. usually called “green robin”, something that screamed ‘unusual’ and ‘paranormal’, but was actually just a bird dipped in green paint. She sighed. How long did she have to wait for the big chance? She wanted to climb the ranks of the Foundation. She wanted to stay at the top. But how long would that take? She found ironic that even in a world filled to the brim with monsters, horrible and unexplainable creatures and phenomena, she could differentiate between ‘regular, boring’ monsters and ‘lifechanging’ monsters. And she was sure she wasn’t getting any of latter today. The train screeched and stopped. She had arrived. Twilight stepped out of train, got out of the Central Station, and waited for a chariot to come back. When she saw one, she gestured to it. She showed the address to the ‘driver’, a brawny-looking pegasus stallion, and asked him to leave her a block back. While she flew over the city, she looked at the squirmy mass of lives and lights beneath her: could she really be hoping for someone so terrible that could catch the attention of everypony, not only the Foundation? Ignorance WAS a bliss. She realized the simplest and most veritable of all principles too late. Now she was stuck with a truth that she just didn’t want anymore. All the truth does, is make your heart ache. Sometimes a lie, it’s easier to take. She payed the driver and got out of the chariot. It was freshly dark, and Twilight breathed in the fresh air of the night. She walked for a minute, before reaching the alley. She showed the badge to the patrolling officer and asked if she could take a look. The policepony moved the fences to let her pass. It really was a ‘red robin’. Back before the Foundation, she would’ve found this back alley a little creepy, since it wasn’t illuminated, but now... She lit up her horn, looking for something, a magical disturbance, an abnormal spike of magical activity... Nothing. This was the most mundane alley she had ever seen. It was really short, too: 10 meters straight, a turn left, 4 meters straight, a turn right and you had the parallel road. She walked slowly, trying to waste as much time as possible. She wanted to milk this assignment as much she could, before going back to that dreadful apartment and every memory that came with it. She turned around until she saw the other road. Nothing. The alley was just comprised of some doors and a trash canister. She turned back. After the first turn, she noticed that the alley was longer that she had first thought. But at the second turn, there wasn’t the sight of a fence and policepony waiting for her. There was just another turn. She couldn’t get lost in such a small space. What was going on? She ran back: the other road was gone, there was another turn here too. Moments like this made her feel the absence of Bright Light, or at least a partner. Maybe this alley wasn’t as trivial as she first thought. Twilight went through the maze, trying to find a way out. But every turn and twist looked the same to her. What was supposed to be a small backwater alley had turned into a gigantic labyrinth. She was starting to panic: what if there wasn’t a way out? What if she was condemned to stay here, until she died of thirst and hunger? Everything looked the same, every path, every door, every nook and cranny at every turn. The mare started running around feverishly, trying to find something that could help her orientating. That’s when she stepped on something. Twilight recoiled after she heard a loud crack, and looked to see a broken, pearly bone. It looked like a dragon claw, only much smaller and thinner. It grasped something: the mare kicked the bones out of the way with her hoof, to discover a small envelope, much similar to the one she had been given before. She picked it up and opened it. There were some pages, written in a strange alphabet she didn’t recognize. She didn’t have to time to decipher it now, she needed to get out. When a sudden realization struck her, she cursed loudly for not having realized it in the first place. She. Could. Teleport. She concentrated on the fence outside the alley and hoped it would work. The world stretched in and out, and with a flash, she was in front of the now astonished policepony that let her in. She didn’t even stop to say anything: she started running back to the station, the lights of cities blurring and blinding her. She had something to report, and something to analyze. Twilight Sparkle stormed through the corridors, painting and huffing. She stopped at the black steel door that bore the plaque “CRYPTOLOGY AND LINGUISTIC” and entered without knocking. Inside, a gigantic warehouse, full of books, that probably kept going for miles, and two small metal tables. She was looking for a small dragonling, Feretrax, one of the most promising translators of the Foundation. She recognized the small, scrawny form of the researcher. He was thin even by pony standard, and his green and white scales glistened under the neon lights. On the table, by his side, there was something that Twilight had wanted for a long, long time, back when she was a scholar, a small black box with a crude monitor attached to it: a Macom, a magical contraption that could use special, enchanted crystals to execute specific commands. The dragonling lifted his head from some papers, and saw her. The mare waved at him, and he gestured her to come closer. “Hi, Feretrax” She trotted and sat down beside him. “Good day to you, pony.”He answered with a deep, gravely voice. A penchant of dragon related species was to disregard the names of their interlocutors. It wasn’t purposefully offensive, and Twilight got used to it pretty quickly.”And yes, I believe I found something. This paper you gave me” and he grabbed the thing Twilight found in the alley “believe it or not, it’s written in Equestrian” “What?” Twilight said, surprised. “It is Equestrian, yes. But the alphabet, as you can see, it’s completely different. It’s phonetic, every letter corresponds to a single phoneme, a single sound. The normal Equestrian alphabet, instead, it’s syllabic. I think I’ve nailed down pretty much every letter, but to convert this to something readable, would take quite the time. Luckily, thanks to the Macom here” and he patted gently the machine in front of him” we will be able to convert this almost instantly. Anyway, how is it going with the mazy alley?” “Oh, after I reported, they prepared a covert expedition team. They also ran some test. It looks like the alley behaves strangely only 30, maybe 40% of the time.” She answered “Mhhh... You’re pretty good, you know that? Two cases and two SCP discovered” He smiled at her. She tried not to appear too proud “Oh, it’s just luck. Fire this thing up, I want to see what’s on this paper” He inserted the page in a small slit of the Macom. It got sucked inside immediately, and after a few seconds of peculiar noises, and some tinkering on Feletrax’s side, the monitor started spewing the translation. As the words and the sentences formed, both Twilight and Feletrax couldn’t believe their eyes: Item #: SCP-1165 Object Class: Euclid Special Containment Procedures: SCP-1165 is to remain permanently closed to civilian traffic. Both entrances to SCP-1165 are to be fenced and marked with quarantine signs, in English and Spanish, warning of high concentrations of toxic contaminants. Plainclothes security personnel are to monitor entrances and act as necessary to discourage unauthorized entrance. Description: SCP-1165 consists of an alley located in ███████, ██ and an anomalous urban area connecting to it. The alley runs east to west for approximately 0.3 km in downtown ███████, bisecting the city block created by ████ St. and █████████ St. on the east and west, and by ████ St. and ███ Ave. on the north and south. City records indicate that the alley was laid out when the streets of ███████ were first paved in the early 20th century. Aside from construction and renovation of abutting structures, utility work, and a repaving in 19██, it has undergone no siginificant changes since then. The alley exhibits no anomalous effects to traffic entering from the west or exiting from the east. When a traveler enters the alley's eastern exit and proceeds westward, however, there is a 36% probability that the alley will not exit onto █████████ St., but onto a street not accessible by other means. This street connects to a network of other streets that extend outwards in no particular pattern, none of which can be accessed by any means other than the alley. These streets, while almost always meeting at four-way grid intersections, are highly irregular in layout and begin and end abruptly. Traffic lights, lampposts, and other electronics are present within SCP-1165, have power received from an as-yet unidentified source, and function reliably without any sign of human intervention. “We don’t have a 1165, do we?” Feletrax asked hesitantly “No, we... we just reach up to 800” Twilight answered, dumbfounded “What is ‘English’? And ‘Spanish’? And why there’s written ‘human intervention?’ Wait, there’s something more.” Addendum 64-45 (refer to Ex-log): 05 Council unanimously decided to re-allow manned expeditions inside 1165. Expedition number 12-A (at current resolution on date 14/2/2014) will take place at 12/8/2015. For more informations, refer to the Senior Expedition Commanding Officer, Dr. Alto Clef.