//------------------------------//
// 4) Just because You're a God Doesn't Mean You Don't have Feelings! 
// Story: The Death of Lab 14 
// by SapphireRose87 
//------------------------------//

{Henry}

The memories that I kept having of growing up at Lab 14 were starting to get on my nerves. I'm surprised that I don't have Fear Shock again because of them. 

In this memory, I was on another 'playdate' with Experiment Rose. I didn't want to talk to her at all. For the most of the 'playdate' I wasn't talking until Experiment Rose said something, "You know Head Cora picked me to be your wife once we get older. We should get to know each other."

I rolled my eyes and looked away. "I'm good, I'm not interested in you and you know that, Experiment Rose. There's no way I'm marrying a creepy weirdo like you."

"Creepy weirdo!" Experiment Rose gasped. "I'm not a creepy weirdo and you know it! Since you won't play with me willingly, I'll just have to do this... Tell me you love me!"

I stared in horror as her eyes turned from all white to all purple. The next thing I knew, I woke up tied to a chair and she was sitting on top of me. 

Every 'playdate' Cora forced me to go on with other experiments it ended with me tied to a chair.

After the first time being under Experiment Roses 'Tell-Me-You-Love-Me spell', I was determined to escape. When I ran from Experiment Rose, Cora would do the reprogramming ritual. I resisted the reprogramming ritual because I loved another experiment. Cora would find out who I actually liked and if I didn't do what she wanted the experiment that I loved would wind up killed. 

It does comfort me a little that you can't kill a god but, I still worry about what Cora might do to Derek the next time I see her.


*	*	*


I wound up underneath the bed because of having that memory. 

I looked up to see Derek frowning, "Another memory huh?"

I nodded. "It was one of my 'playdates' with Experiment Rose. I'd rather have a nightmare instead of a memory any day. I'm still worried about you getting killed by Cora when we see her again."

Derek smiled and shook his head. "You know it's not possible to kill a god right?"

When I sat down on the bed I sighed. "I know."

"You know what I can't believe is that everyone that was traveling with us to the Resistance HQ is royalty!" Derek said. "I heard God Divine and God Levi put a leash on Discord. It's about time they did that!"

"I just hope he's not bothering Sarah and the others, because if he bothered Milton, Equestria would probably have a lot of angry moons!"

Derek chuckled. "I can't believe Jane is his daughter, I feel sorry for her."

"Yeah and I'm glad Pestcord's not my godfather." 

"Are you still having memories about that toy Cora had you play with?"  

"It's more like a nightmare than a memory. To tell the truth, nightmares are more pleasant than memories."

"At least I'm not finding you sleeping on top of the red moon at the moment," Derek said. "I'd rather find you sleeping under the bed instead."

"Yeah and I'm glad I can't summon lightning bolts in my sleep." 

"No kidding," agreed Derek, "even if you did, The Grand God Council wouldn't punish you for it."

I gave him a wary look. "I don't know about that. I certainly don't want to be thrown into The Downward because of it."

Derek pulled me into his arms. "It's okay, I already talked to The Grand God Council, they told me that there have been situations where a god can do stuff like that in their sleep. One god did something called a hurricane and flooded an area of a planet in their universe that he ruled over. I told them about your bad memories and dreams. So they told me to monitor you to see if you do that. I've seen you fly in your sleep sometimes. I'm going to take a wild guess and say you're running from something Cora created. When I see that, I just try to make sure you don't crash like you did when your parents yanked you out of the sky. That was scary. Do I do anything in my sleep?"

I shook my head. "Not from what I can tell, from what I've seen your magic comes from your eyes. That rampaging bull attack you do is still a little bit psychotic." 

Derek snorted. "I know." Then he frowned. "Unfortunately it's necessary to do that with those tricky experiments that decide they want to work with Lab 14."

I sighed, "Yeah I know but Lab 14 has to go, that's part of our job."

"What's wrong Henry?" 

"It's just that I don't like the idea of killing someone, that's all."

"I understand. But we have to because we need to make sure that once Cora's dead no one will try to pick up where she left off."

"Hopefully when all of the labs are gone, that'll mean no more children will be stolen from their cribs."

"Mhm. And we should probably go back to it again and alert Leader Felix of the next location we're going to."

I nodded. If it were up to me, I would keep going and literally not rest until the labs were gone. But since Derek's working with me, he makes sure I take a break every once in a while. That's probably a good thing because I'm what one would think is a work alcoholic. 

I can't help it. If someone gives me a job to do, I won't stop until it's done.


*	*	*


After destroying two locations of Lab 14, Derek and I set up camp. I was inside the tent asleep.

I thought for sure I was dreaming. I looked around and wherever I was I saw a yellow light surrounding me and other lights twinkled everywhere I looked. The lights looked amazing to me even though I had no idea what the colors they were. "Where am I?"

When I heard someone giggle I turned to see a young woman, who had blonde hair with red highlights and her eyes were blue.

"Hi there God Henry," The woman giggled. Her giggle made me think she was flirting with me.

"Uh, O...kay?" I wasn't sure if she knew that I wasn't interested in women. 

"I know that look, God Henry," the woman said, "I was informed by The Grand God Council that you're not into women in the slightest. But can you blame me for flirting with you? You are pretty handsome, you know that?"

"Yeah no," I replied, "although my sister Sarah tells me I should admire myself in the mirror more than she does. She's definitely Rainbow Dash's daughter alright."

The woman giggled at me, "You're referring to Princess Sarah right?"

"Yeah?"

"All of us The Higher's and Gods still can't believe that everyone that was in your group is royalty now!" The woman said with joy. "Of course you're a god so you're royalty and then some."

"Okay." At this point, I felt nothing but confusion.

"I understand your confusion, God Henry," said the woman while smiling. "Since you're meeting your The Higher for the first time."

"But I thought The Higher was supposed to be a guy!" I exclaimed.

The woman did a facepalm and groaned. "Seriously? It's the same thing with a god, a god can be either a woman or a man."

I snickered. "Oh yeah, that's right Discord or what I like to call him Pestcord did mention something like that when he was explaining what the In Between is. Come to think of it, Derek and I met the gods of Equestria's universe. There's a female god named God Divine and a male god there named God Levi."

"Yup!" The woman said with a small nod. "Most of the time I just appear as a bright light to you and the other The Higher's do the same thing with their gods. We're not sure why that is. It probably has something to do with The Grand God Council, they control everything the gods in every universe do."

This woman was starting to irritate me. I wanted her to explain to me what this place was. 

"My name is Ashley," the woman said, "and no you don't have to attach the title The Higher when you say my name. The Higher's say the word 'god' attached to your name as a sign of respect. I am your servant and you are my master."

"Can you get to the point already?" I snapped.

"Sorry about that God Henry," said Ashley, "I brought you here because you'll come to this place when you get knocked out of your body. We like to call this place the 'Knocked-Out-of-Your-Body' realm. This place does exactly what it's called. If you ever get knocked out of your body, you come here. For example, let's say if you take a bullet to the chest or something like that. That will knock you out of your body and you will be sent here."

"Are you sure?" I asked with a skeptical look. "It almost seems too good to be true."

"I know," responded Ashley, "it sounds that way for most new gods. You and Derek are new gods."

"So how did I get knocked out of my body?" I said. "The last thing I remember was being asleep."

"You're asleep, I knocked you out of your body so I relay this vision that The Grand God Council saw in regards to the Death of Lab 14!"

Ashley looked overly excited by this. She pointed at the ground. I looked down and vision played as if I were watching a Tv screen. 

Derek and I were at a location that Lab 14 has or at least that's what it looked like. Cora had Derek tied down to one of her torture chairs and a black snake had wrapped itself around Derek's neck. The snake was in the process of strangling him. However, it didn't seem to bother Derek. He had a smug look on his face as the snake taunted him.

"The sooner you pass out," the snake hissed in Derek's ear, "the sooner I can eat you and Experiment Henry will stay at Lab 14 once you're dead!"

What the vision showed next disturbed me. It showed Experiment Ada with her hand inside my chest. She seemed like she was close to killing me. I didn't seem to care about that because I looked more concerned about what was happening to Derek. Experiment Ada threw me into the torture chair next to Derek. Cora stepped in front of Derek and sneered at him. "I know you're with Experiment Henry, I know by the matching engagement rings. But you're not the one we picked to give us children with him, so goodbye!" 

I continued to watch the vision in horror as Cora shot Derek in the head. 

"Why would The Grand God Council pick Derek as a-" I panicked. Ashley put a hand on my shoulder to keep me from panicking further. At this point in the vision, I looked scared and angry. 

Cora smiled wickedly, "Now let's proceed with the data gathering shall we?"

I snarled in response, "No way! You're not doing this again!"

Cora gave me a smug look, "Oh? You should take a look at your boyfriend, he's clearly dead don't you see? I heard you were the one who created the red moon in the sky. I think I'll get some good data from you, don't you think?"

I gulped when I saw Cora take out one of her data-gathering devices. It was a round pointed needle that she had in her hand. When she pushed it into my forehead, my body went limp and it looked like I was dead.

I turned to Ashley and asked, "Okay, if gods can't be killed then why do we look like we're dead?"

Ashley gave an exasperated groan. "Did you not hear what I just said about this place? It's your out-of-body realm. Just keep watching, there's more to it."

I watched the comical scene of Cora and other experiments panicking and I wondered when Derek and I would wake up. We probably had a discussion and decided who would come back from playing dead first because it took us a while to stop playing dead. Derek woke up shortly after I did and pulled the bullet out of his head. After that happened, the vision stopped playing. 

I laughed. To me, the vision looked like a fairytale. It looked too good to be true.

"You don't believe this vision will come true, do you?" Ashley questioned.

"Nope," I shook my head. "Not one little bit."

Ashley nodded. "Oh, it will come true alright. If The Grand God Council has seen it, then it will happen. The Grand God Council did say there's more to it but they told me not to tell you. They only wanted me to relay that part of it. They also told me that there's a happy ending involved though. What it is they didn't tell me."

"Uh-huh, I still don't believe it."

"Well, believe or don't believe," said Ashley, "but either way it's going to happen. Oh and the feelings you experienced watching the vision, horror, anger, sadness, that's going to happen."

"Why would-" I started.

Ashley cut me off. "Just because you're a god doesn't mean you don't have feelings! I mean I have feelings and I'm your The Higher! Duh! I have already shown God Derek the vision and he's just as skeptical as you are. But at the same time, he's more hopeful than you." 

"Well at least someone knows how to think positive." 

Ashley giggled, "Weren't you and Pestcord the ones that told God Derek, what part of the word 'god' don't you understand? It seems you don't know how to take a page from your own book." 

At this point, Ashley's giggling at me was starting to make me uncomfortable.

"Your giggling is starting to creep me out." 

That statement made her giggle some more. "You might want to get used to that. I mean haven't you had women flirt with you before?"

"Yup, usually it's the ones that Cora wants me to marry so I can give her children."

Ashley's jaw dropped. "Wow! That just adds to the list of reasons why Lab 14 needs to go. That also includes Celestial Labs and Star Labs. It's a good thing no God can be killed. It hasn't happened before and I don't think it's going to happen anytime soon."

I gave her a wary look. "If you say so. I guess I'll just have to take your word for it."

"You should probably get back to your body now."

"But how do I-" I started.

Ashley smiled and thumped my forehead with her index finger. I fell backward and it felt like my parents were yanking me out of the sky again. But this time I crashed back into my body. 

When I woke up, I felt like I had the wind knocked out of me.