(Aegis Strap POV)
Present Day, Four years later
Half a minute ago, I realized that I murdered two ponies. I keep telling myself that it was only for self defense, but another part of me tells me that it didn't matter whether is protecting myself from getting myself in a position where I couldn't do anything, I still killed them. No. It was just self-defense. There. It's justified. No harm done to anypony.
Well...
"What do I do now?" I ask myself outloud.
Perhaps I could look around this place to try and find an explanation. What happened to me? What happened to this place? Where did this "power" come from? Who were those two that I killed? Why were they wearing gas masks? How long has it really been?
"There's got to be something around here that explains what happened."
I looked around, leaving no stone unturned. There turned out to be more than I expected.
There wasn't anything of importance that I could find. With all of the papers around, there would have been a damage report, or some convenient newspaper lying on the ground somewhere. But I found nothing of the sort.
That was until I saw a file lying on the ground, either hiding in plain sight, or not hiding at all.
The file looks rather large. There seemed to be at least fifty pages in there. There couldn't have been that many test subjects.
Picking it up, I open it up to the first page. It showed a picture of a tall, older looking gentlecolt, frowning at the camera. There was nothing else written down. I turned to the next page.
It contained basic information of the test subject who was depicted on the last page. His name was Percival. Wasn't that the pony who was dragged in? I kept reading on.
Lulamoon, Percival
Test Subject
Age: [NOT GIVEN]
Status: Crazed
After that, there was a file of his life from beginning to current day. I didn't feel like reading all that, so I decided to skim through the thing.
I turn the page and see a much younger stallion. I turned the page again.
Blaze
Test Subject
Age: Twenty
Status: Alive
I've got to go faster.
Coy, Thunder, eighteen to nineteen years of age, status: Alive. Darkness, Deep, age: twenty-seven, pegasus, status: unknown. Drop, Lemon/Elictricka, unicorn, status: captivity. Glory, Morning, status: alive, Kainsman,Itake, status: In captivity. Latet, Ferrum, status: In captivity, Sprinkles, Sugar, status: alive. St-
I stop when I see my name.
'Strap, Aegis, twenty-nine years of age, status: deceased.' my eyes grow wide, and I begin to feel sick. I dropped the folder, scared for my life. 'What the hay happened?'
-------------------------------------------------------
For the past couple of hours, I've been wandering around this place. I have no particular reason, I just... wander. Each room I pass has a little something interesting about it. Like photos of other ponies, writings on the wall, blood splattered on the walls, corpses laying in the beds, and broken glass strewn across the ground.
One particular room had the words, "HE LIVES" scrawled on every single wall, several times over. Is it talking about me?
When I entered another room, I had the need to fall asleep in one of those blood stained beds, but I also had the need to look around some more. I'm really tired, but I've had enough time to sleep. I've been dead after all.
"They couldn't have gone far. Maybe they're still here." came a male voice.
I jumped.
"You better be right. I'm really worried about 'em." came a female voice.
Could they be talking about the mother and daughter from earlier? Perhaps I should make myself scarce. They could discover their bodies. Maybe I'll make up some kind of a story. Yeah, I could say that I woke up and found them like that. O-
Before I could finish my thought, I was suddenly struck in the face, which made me fall to the ground.
Whoever hit me looked like he just met somepony famous. "H-h-hey, I found somebody!" he called out.
"You found what?” came another voice. This one was female.
“I found a living, breathing pony.” a smile grew wide on his face.
How dare this peasant attack me! I have the powers of a God, and he dares lay a single hoof on me?! He must pay!
Where did that come from?
I through an uppercut, which made painful contact with his chin. He staggered backwards as a result. I got up quickly and ran to attack him, but he pulled out a knife. I slowed down and began backing away as he started to charge me. He back me into a room and began to slash at me. I managed to dodge each one, but was unprepared when he managed to stab one of my hooves. He bucked me in the face, and I fell to the ground in the fetal position.
The stallion was breathing heavily as his partner stepped into the room. She had a dirty face, much like her partners. "The hay did you do that for?"
"He attacked me, and I defended myself."
As they bickered, I looked around for some kind of weapon. I saw a shard of glass, tons of them in fact. I went to pick it up, but something stopped me. From the back of my mind, there was a word. Yes. I thought. Now is the perfect-
D...D...D...
What? "Come on. Reset. Reset. Reset." I said quietly.
"Well what should we do with him?" the woman demanded.
"... We could take him back to the camp?"
"How about we just leave him here and let him die?"
"No, we can't do that. Look at him."
"If he tried to attack you, then that must mean he's a subject. We already know how much of a success it was when we caught Percival."
"Yes, but-"
"Enough. Let's just go."
"Re*cough*set. Reset. Res*cough*et." I said, getting louder and louder with each word, coughing as I did.
"What's he doing?"
"Reset Reset Reset RESET!" I spat the word with enough venom to make the both of them step back a bit.
Neither of them said a word. I turned to them, continuing to chant the word. "Reset, Reset, Reset, Reset, Re-"
"That's... that's not possible, that's not supposed to be possible." the man said.
"We have to kill him right now."
"You DARE touch me-" before any of us could react, there was a sudden loud bang that came out of nowhere.
The room shook violently, making us hold onto anything we could for dear life. As the room shook, something rolled inside, eventually rolling into one of the walls. It's contents sprayed out. All of us covered our mouths. Amidst the gas, a tall, dark figure stepped inside the room, slamming the door behind him.
The only that could be said about him was that he was tall. Really tall.
He used his magic to grab the stallion and mare. Their struggles to become free themselves from his grasp were pointless. He bang their heads together, letting their bodies fall to the ground. He kicked them off to the side of the room. As he stepped closer and closer to me, I backed away. Reset, come on, reset reset re-
I tripped over something, and I fell to the ground. My legs started to become weaker and weaker, so I couldn't stand up. I scooted back towards another wall, knowing all too well that I wasn't going to escape him. He stepped behind me and shoved his hoof in my mouth.
I tried to pull it out, but he was to strong for me. He brought me up to all fours and started to drag me to the door, keeping his hoof in my mouth. He jiggled the knob, but the door wouldn't budge. He slammed his body against it.
I wanted to try it one last time. "Reset, *cough* reset, re-"
"That's not gonna do you much good. If it didn't work earlier, it ain't gonna work now!" he scolded. His voice was raspy and high. Higher than I expected it to be.
"What-" I coughed again, much more violently than the last few times. Despite this, he kept his firm grasp as I persisted my fight against him. I knew that he was stronger than me in several different ways. But that didn't stop me.
He slammed into the door again, managing to bust the door wide open.
My vision began to get blurry. "Who..." I coughed again.
"If you value your own life, you keep your trap shut. You need those last few breaths."
A numb feeling washed over both of my legs. I couldn't use them to walk, and this "tall man" I've temporarily named him that, took notice. "You can't die on me right now, you're too important!"
I stopped fighting him. My body went limp, and I let it drop. It was becoming a great struggle to breathe. "No no no no, I promised I'd bring you back alive!"
He let me go, and fell like a rag doll. "Not now!"
I took my final breath of air. My vision began to blur, and the tall stallion's voice was starting to disappear, as well as everything else. Before the darkness took my vision, the tall stallion began to shout. I could barely hear it.
In the back of my mind, I heard a voice. Not the tall stallion's, but a more... non-existent voice. This wasn't like the other voice. The other voice made itself known to me, like it wanted to be heard. This one called out to me softly, like it was afraid to talk out loud.
"Re-"