“I don’t like this….” you mutter, still looking at the cage. “Why is the light hurting it?”
Wisp squeaks in agreement. Maybe, or maybe not. She taps your leg to get your attention, and the dull clicking drags your gaze to her.
“I can’t do this, it feels wrong. But so does not doing anything,” you mutter, looking over at Wisp. “What?”
She cheeps and points to the cage, then to you, then mimics hitting it.
“But, Wisp, can you tell me why it’s in the cage?” you ask her.
She squeaks again and motions to the cage more insistently.
“Please, help me…” whimpers the foal from inside the cage. The golden eyes reappear, shaking in fear as the next charge comes closer and closer to its peak.
“Why are you in there?” you ask, lifting you hoof and running it over the side of the cage.
“Please help me. It hurts…” it whines, scrabbling against the inside of the cage.
Squeaking insistently, Wisp stands on her hind legs and taps the bottom of the cage with her hoof.
“Just tell me why you are in the cage, and I’ll get you out,” you ask.
“Help. Please help me,” it asks.
“I’m sorry, but I can’t take that risk,” you tell it reluctantly; you look away as a despairing murmur comes from the foal
“Please…”
Wisp chirps and hits the cage as hard as she can from the awkward angle, making a pathetic tap.
“...I’m sorry, but Wisp comes first. Come on, Wisp, we’re leaving.” Picking up Wisp in your foreleg, you start limping out of the room on three legs, head lowered.
Quickly looking down at Wisp, she cheeps and hits your foreleg, pointing at the foal repeatedly.
“No… please… don’t leave me…” it whimpers; its voice drives a knife of guilt into your chest, but something is telling you that the foal is bad news. “Please... No… No. No! Mommy! Hel—”
The flash finishes building, and you hear the foal let out a long wail. An even longer silence follows as you continue your way out of the room.
You glance down at Wisp to see her looking up at you. Tears matting her face, she gives you a look that can only mean one thing: “Why?”
“I’m sorry, Wisp, but something seemed off about that foal” Sitting down, you hold Wisp in front of you and stare into her eyes.
The tears come faster and faster, and her questions don’t stop. “Why?” she asks with her milky blue eyes. “Why. Why. Why. Why. I trust you. How could you do that? Are you any better than what we’re running from? Why?” Every question echos around inside your head, but still she asks. Tears flowing freely, Wisp openly sobs, whimpering and hiccuping repeatedly, but her eyes never leave yours. “Why? Why. How could you. Why. Why. Why. Why. You killed him. Why. He didn’t do anything to deserve that. Why. What if I was in a cage? Why? Would you have killed me too? Why? Why. Why. Why… Why...”
“Wisp…” you start, shaking your head slightly.
“Why...”
“I need you to trust me.”
“Why...”
“Everything that I’m doing, I’m doing to protect you. I will always air on the side of cauti—”
[Why.]
“Because I want to get out of here, and I want you to come with me. Nopony belongs here,” you answer. “Not you, not me, nopony. I just want to get out of here, and I don’t want to do anything to jeopardize that. I’m going to get us out of here safely. No matter what it takes. I promise, Wisp.” You slowly pull her into a hug; she doesn’t resist. And after a long moment, she hesitantly returns it, but her tears still pour down her face.
“For-foreign contaminants de-de-detected. Emergency proto-protocol Alpha Num-ara-ara Delta Omega-ga activ-ate-ate-dated-ated,” stutters a pleasant voice. “Biological flush-sh imm-imminent.”
Quickly looking up, you see a thick steel door slide closed over each of the research rooms, and you hear one more lock into place in front of you, effectively sealing you in the perfectly square room.
A creaking, groaning, moaning, sound comes from the floor as you wait for something to happen; it sounds like something heavy and metal is moving around in the floor. The sound is echoed from the ceiling, but different, more menacing.
“All person-al-al-al and patien-ts-ts in this Tes-testing A-a-area have been deem-eemed hazar-d-dous to the rest-st of-of the Facility. Please-please-please-please-pleas... e-e-e-e ...tand by for gen-genetic recycl-ing-ing and re-re-purposing. We apol-apologize for the incon...venie...n….” The voice drifts off into silence.
“What?” you ask.
A screech comes from the center of the room, and a huge hole opens up in the floor, swallowing the desk that was sitting there. It thunks dully as it disappears into the darkness below. Repeated explosion-like sounds come from the hole seconds later.
A panel above your head slides open, prompting you to look up. A huge claw, big enough to pick you up with ease, emerges out of the hole. Merely bits of bloodstained metal held together with red magic, it slowly reaches toward you, tri-fingers extended.
Right before it grabs you, you leap out of the way, still holding Wisp to your neck with your left foreleg. You hear Wisp let out a scream; you leap forward just as a claw grabs at the air where you were standing.
Holding your breath and staring up at the ceiling, you see a total of ten claws, wiggling and squirming as they systematically scour the room you and other organic material.
Wisp sniffs quietly; you wince.
Immediately, each claw focuses directly on you.
Before you have time to react, the closest claw shoots forward and roughly grabs you; you feel the fingers of the claw through your unfeeling ribcage, a testament to the claw’s strength.
The claw levitates you to over the pit. Suspended over the darkness, you can’t help looking down. You see a warm light at the bottom: a warm fiery red color. “Keep your eyes closed Wisp,” you tell her. Tucking your chin to your chest, you hold her snugly against your stomach and wrap all four of your legs around her, making an improvised cage that will hopefully protect her.
“Fffffffor-foreign bodies-ies-ies rrrrrrre—ved... comm...encing acid-acid-acid-acid-acid s...eri-lization-ti...” stutters the pleasant voice, as the other nine claws begin spraying a green mist over the entire room.
For an impossibly long second, you hang in the claw's grip.
Without warning, it lets go.
You are weightless for a split-second.
Gravity catches up with you, and you begin plummeting downwards.
Down you fall into the pit, spinning out of control. When you reach what seems like the halfway mark, you feel an immediate, unbelievable shock of pain explode from your back, and something metal-sounding shatters.
Your falling speed considerably slower, you look upwards to see what looks like a giant, slow-spinning fan that is picking up speed with every turn, except one of the blades is missing; bits of metal twinkle around you in the warm glow.
Grunting loudly, you land on your back with a agonizing thud, sending more pain through your spine. Relaxing your legs, you look down to see Wisp. “Are you all right, Wisp?” you ask, gently patting various places along her sides.
She slowly wiggles around on your chest, then nods quickly.
“That’s good to hear,” you answer, offering a smile.
She smiles—hesitantly, reluctantly, slowly, and slightly—but nonetheless returns your smile; her smile is a fragile thing that could shatter at any moment. You pull her into another hug.
“I’m glad you’re safe,” you tell her.
She hums quietly and returns the hug.
Releasing her, you look around the room from your position on the floor; you can see dozens of dead, rotting bodies piled in various places. After Wisp dizzily steps off of you, you roll to your hooves, grunting in pain as you twist your back. Standing up, you crunch small, broken pieces of metal that had once been the desk and the blade.
You look over your shoulder to see nothing but a sheet of sticky red blood with shards of metal stuck in it. From this position, you can’t tell the extent of the damage to your back, but it doesn’t look good. The whizzing fan blade and jarring landing would have killed a normal pony, but apparently the Mixture has altered you beyond that. What exactly are you? What is your purpose? You’re strong, stronger than any pony has a right to be; but even though you’re strong, you aren’t invincible, as proved by the pain coursing through you.
The room is a huge square with blacked concrete walls and a thick, grated iron floor. The red glow you had seen earlier is coming from below your hooves.
Eying the bloody rotting remains of meat warily, you take a few steps forward. “Wisp?” you call over your shoulder.
She slowly walks over to you and stops by your hoof; she squeaks softly.
“Stay close to me, okay? Let’s try and find a way out of the room.”
You walk toward the closest of the walls, stepping around piles of rotting flesh; Wisp stays close to your side, almost brushing your foreleg as you walk.
Coming around one more pile of diseased flesh, you stop and shrink back; you hold Wisp from venturing out into the open and observe your surroundings
There is an open, vaguely oval door in the wall; it is opened towards you, so you can see that it is made out of absurdly thick metal—it appears to be at least a foot and a half thick. But that’s not why you paused.
There is something standing by the door.
It’s massive.
If you were to stand next to it, you would only come up to its shoulder, and it has metal knitted into its flesh at different intervals and varying amounts. You can still see the dried blood where they tore into the pony to give him the modifications. The metal gives him a patchwork-like appearance, with his skin showing through the metal in many places; he almost has as much metal as skin.
His head turns side to side, methodically, mechanically, jerkily, endlessly.
His eyes are soulless black holes in his face.
A Guard is guarding the way out.
>Run past the Guard
>Attack the Guard
>Look for another exit
>Talk to the Guard
Chapter locked.