Fluttershy woke up with a headache. It always happened like this. Someone would try something and that thing would come out. Then she would always have a hangover after that didn't help at all. At least this time she didn't end up in a pile of rubble. Anything to help brighten her mood would help.
After walking a couple of hours in what looked like a jungle, she eventually found her way to a main road and got a ride from a few friendly ponies heading into town. Of course, not long after getting there, she realized she didn't have any money to do anything with. Any cash she had with her was lost when she turned.
That wasn't the only problem, though. If she couldn't find a way to get rid of this thing inside her, it could hurt a lot more ponies. She needed a way out of this. But she didn't have any options. Every possible solution had already been tested and none of them had worked. She needed a way out of this, but she also couldn't bring her friends into it. Not with the general this close to her. If he thought they knew anything, they would be at risk of being captured and interrogated for weeks before they were thrown into a secret prison where they would never be found.
But maybe there was another way out. Maybe there was someone she could talk to that would know about this and maybe, just maybe, they would be able to help.
Now there was just the problem of getting home.
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After a couple days of begging, some storytelling and animal work, Fluttershy finally earned enough money for a trip back home. Granted, getting past all of the security there wasn't exactly easy, but it could've been a lot worse. And now, she was standing in front of the institution that had grown in her wake. Even after the failed testing, there was still the facility that held all of the research and more. All she had to do was get in and get everything she needed before heading to one of the researcher's houses for help and she could get out of this nightmare once and for all. And hopefully she would be able to keep the general from finding the pony who helped her.
That plan did require breaking into a highly secured lab in the middle of the day without being recognized by anypony she might have worked with.
She looked around and found a delivery pony trotting by with a bag of something that smelled good. Glancing at the shirt he was wearing, she started to get an idea.
A quick change and some theft later, she came right back to the facility in her light disguise and carrying bag with some hot sandwiches. Now she just had to hope they changed the guard since her time working there.
She trotted up to the desk, bringing the attention of the guard up from his magazine. He looked at her and blinked, huge muscles straining under his uniform. "Hello," Fluttershy said quietly.
He grunted and scanned over her with his eyes, his expression never changing from the stoic gaze he held before. "I'll need to run a scan of your face through the system," he replied.
"I'm running late on this delivery," she continued. "Do you think you could just send me up?"
"It's protocol," he said, looking at her blankly. "It'll only take a minute."
Fluttershy sighed, trying to look stressed and ignore the steady pounding in her head. "Look, if my boss hears I made another late delivery, I'll lose my job. I have another meal here I was planning on eating, but you could have it if you let me up."
He looked from her, to the bag, and back to her in a few seconds before grinning slightly. "Sure," he said. "Just don't tell my boss."
She smiled and gave him the extra meal, watching as his grin turned into a full blown smile from the free food before heading up to the research center. Half way up the stairs, she paused and held a hoof to her neck to check her pulse. A little high, but not as bad as it seemed when she was talking to the guard. Now if she could only get over the guilt from tricking him.
Maybe I should go back and apologize, she thought briefly before smashing that thought. She couldn't do that right now. Maybe after this was over she would come back and explain everything, but now was not that time.
Carefully, she made her way into the computer lab, making sure the hat she had taken hid her face from every camera. There weren't many ponies in right now, probably because it was lunch break and most of them were out with friends for their short break. But the couple ponies inside gladly took the rest of the food she had brought with her to not pay attention to what she was doing. It was nice to have techies as easily bribed as the door guard.
She typed in the credentials needed to get into the system and hoped they were still valid. Fortunately, they hadn't changed their password in the three years she had been gone. She quickly went through the files, checking the main drive for any materials from their past. That time ended up wasted, though. None of the research was there, but there was one more thing she could check.
The mainframe should have held everything. It took five years for any project to be destroyed completely, so the information should've still been there. But after a few minutes of searching, she found nothing related to their work. Not even the names of the researchers turned up anything useful.
Fluttershy sighed. This wasn't working. She needed the original research to be able to create a cure for whatever this thing was. She needed something to help get rid of it before the general could find her again, and there was no guarantee that would be too long from now.
She signed out and quickly snuck out the back, hoping the guard would think she passed by him while he was reading his magazine and wouldn't start asking questions. The last thing she needed was more ponies looking for her.
Besides, how was she supposed to break into a former colleague's house to ask them for help from a cell?
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"What was that thing?" the zebra asked, his voice almost eerily calm. "And why didn't you warn us it was there?"
"That isn't important," General Thunderbolt said. "You survived. I'll need you in debriefing in an hour."
"I thought this was debriefing," the zebra replied.
"This was me checking to see how bad you were doing after," Thunderbolt said.
"Well I wouldn't be the only one to check on if you had told us what we were going into," the zebra said. "Who was that anyways? Another little detail you left out? How did they know we were coming?"
"That was her," Thunderbolt said.
He blinked. "Beg pardon?"
"That was Fluttershy," Thunderbolt explained. "It's the reason I wanted her brought in."
"She has all that power?" the zebra asked in amazement. "How?"
"It was an experiment," Thunderbolt continued. "She got away. But now we have you."
The zebra chuckled slightly. "I'm not sure you understand," he said. "I barely survived that. There's no possible way I can take that on in a fight."
"Not yet," Thunderbolt said. "But there is a way you can."