//------------------------------// // Lost and Found // Story: The Outsiders // by Arania //------------------------------// Waking up in a cold, damp cobblestone cell isn’t something anypony can be reasonably expected to get used to, no matter how many times they suffer through it. The smell of damp, mixed with the overwhelming bone-reaching chill, uneven flooring, and occasional abrasive stone shard ensured that even the most hardened of captives would never fully grow tolerant to it. Of course, for some ponies, an extended stint confined within a cramped cell is merely a mild inconvenience, ponies either so hardened or so mischievous that they spend more time in cells than outside them. For those ponies, the Canterlot Royal Dungeons, unpleasant though they were, would still be considered lavish compared to most prisons. This did nothing to stop Walleye from groaning in abject frustration as she took in her surroundings after regaining consciousness. The sharp popping of stiff joints under strain echoed throughout the cell as she stretched herself, wincing slightly at the sensation before surveying the cell further. “Rainboom!” she barked, prodding the sleeping pegasus squarely in the barrel. “Get up!” Rainboom yelped in a very un-Rainboom-like fashion as the hoof connected, rolling away from the offending appendage only to find herself with her face against a wall. “Bwuh?” she blurted, cognitive faculties still returning after being forced abruptly from her sleep. “Rainboom,” Walleye repeated, glaring at the pegasus. “Yes? What?” Rainboom sputtered, jerking her head around. “Walleye? Why did you kick me?” “I need you awake. It’s no time for sleeping.” Rainboom looked around the cell, taking in her CO and the sleeping forms of Lyra and Pinkie, snoring peacefully at the opposite end of the cell. A quartet of glowing crystals inlaid into each wall provided illumination, while a small trapdoor high out of reach on the ceiling appeared to provide access to their windowless oubliette. “We’re in prison,” Rainboom observed. “Why do I need to be awake?” “So we can, y’know, escape?” Walleye hissed, aggravated. “Do tell,” Lyra asked, jerked from her slumber by the dispute. “How exactly are you planning on getting out?” “Break the door?” Walleye offered. “It’s solid iron by the looks of it,” Lyra observed. “If this is Canterlot, then it’s at least one hooflength thick, held in place by tungsten rods and opened magically.” “Fine, then we just need something forceful enough. Rainboom? Think you can handle it?” “Woah, I’m not that strong!” Rainboom protested, waving her hooves. “I don’t want you to wrestle it, featherbrain, I want you to ram it. Live up to your namesake!” “Are you nuts?” Rainboom said, eyebrows raised. “Firstly, no way can I get up to speed that quickly, and even if I could, I’d just pancake against the door. Or failing that, the wall behind it.” “That kind of speed, you’d just punch through it.” “And straight into the solid stone wall behind it. We’re underground, boss.” “How do you know that?” Lyra asked, interested. “Um… Pegasus?” Rainboom remarked snidely, pointing to herself. “I can tell from the air pressure. We’re underground.” “You can sense air pressure?” “All pegasi can,” Rainboom replied. “It’s needed for high-altitude flying and sensing weather fronts. Without that, it’s a bit hard to tell how high you are when you can’t see.” “Huh,” Lyra said, tilting her head. “I didn’t know that, actually.” “I did!” Pinkie exclaimed, popping her head from behind Rainboom. “Gah!” Rainboom yelped, diving away from the wall and into the air. “Where did you come from?” “Over there!” Pinkie happily replied, pointing to where she had been sleeping not a moment before. “You weren’t looking!” “You… that…” Rainboom sputtered, hovering out of reach of the pink mare. “Are all of you this creepy?” “I’m not creepy,” Pinkie pouted. “Dash, while you’re up there, could you…” “Check the door?” Rainboom completed, rolling her eyes at her superior. “Sure, boss.” “I’m telling you, it won’t work,” Lyra said, a look of smug defiance on her face. “Been in a few dungeons, have we?” Walleye snapped, glaring at Lyra. “As a matter of fact, yes, I have,” Lyra replied. “Though not as much as you, I think.” “I’m not a criminal!” “Never said you were. I wouldn’t expect Ops to employ someone with a criminal history. Then again, they did hire me…” “You have a criminal history?” Pinkie asked, intrigued. “I’m from the Ruins, it comes with the territory. Though if anyone asks, the bank robbery one was an accident.” “How do you accidentally rob a bank?” Pinkie demanded. “I didn’t rob it, I just… kinda… fell into their vault. Things… escalated.” “And when you say ‘escalated’,” Rainboom prompted, circling her hoof in a ‘go on’ gesture as she examined the door. “Twenty-three destroyed Guard chariots, eighty-five injured, twelve wrecked shopfronts, and one of the towers of Canterlot Castle destroyed.” Pinkie whistled in awe, a mischievous smile steadily growing. “I’ve learnt to be more cautious now,” Lyra continued. “But sometimes you end up in places you don’t want to be.” “Like bank vaults,” Pinkie observed bemusedly. “Like bank vaults,” Lyra chuckled. “You spend enough time exploring the Ruins, you’re bound to end up in some strange places. Tartarus, my first jaunt through one of those breaches I ended up in Celestia’s bedchambers. Abandoned world, but it was still unnerving.” “Yeah, we get it, you have stories,” Walleye interrupted, irritated. “They’re not helping us escape.” “Speaking of which, we’re not going anywhere anytime soon,” Rainboom said, fluttering back to the floor. “That door’s sealed tight.” “Fantastic,” Walleye grumbled, slumping dejectedly back against the wall. “We’ll be fine. Either we get rescued when Recovery comes looking for us, or one of the guards gets curious and tips off Recovery when they use one of our beacons.” “I don’t want to wait twelve hours,” Walleye complained. “What is your problem?” Lyra demanded. “Seriously. We have to wait, at most, twelve hours for Recovery to get us, and that’s if Twilight doesn’t find us first.” “Oh, we just have to rely on the Insider to come rescue us from other Insiders. Well, then I guess everything is fine.” Lyra groaned, knocking her head against the oubliette wall in frustration. “On second thought, twelve hours in this cell with you, Walleye, is torture. I’ve known you for all of a day now and I’m already sick of you and your Tartarus-spawned rhetoric! What, did an Insider kill your dog or something?” “Daughter.” Lyra went silent, her face twitching as pity and incredulity fought to the death to dictate her next action. “Before or after you escaped?” she asked, carefully. “Before.” “How... cliché.” If looks could kill, the glare Walleye fixed Lyra with would have done so with all the violence and collateral damage of a meteor impact. Ranboom and Pinkie withered in fear, subconsciously retreating to the far corner of the cell in an attempt to flee from the malevolent visage, while Lyra simply glared back, the barest hint of a smirk creeping into the corner of her mouth. “Can we not fight?” Pinkie squeaked, doing her best to become one with the wall as Lyra and Walleye fixed her with equally hostile glares. “Please?” “My daughter’s death is not a cliché.” “It kinda is,” Rainboom said. Walleye turned her head, fixing Rainboom with a glare of pure malevolence. “Just calling it as I see it, boss,” Rainboom offered, hooves raised plaintively. “Think about it. ‘Bad ponies killed my family’ is about as cliché a backstory as it’s possible to have.” Walleye rose to her hooves, advancing threateningly on Rainboom. “I’m just digging myself in deeper here, aren’t I?” “Yes.” “Can we just forget I said anything?” Walleye looked at Lyra, her gaze no less hostile. “I don’t know, can we?” “If it shuts you up, sure,” Lyra replied flippantly. Walleye backed away slowly, her eyes still narrowed with barely-suppressed fury as she retreated to ‘her’ corner of the cell. Rainboom let out a breath she didn’t even realise she had been holding, relief washing over her as her CO released her from her gaze of doom. “So,” Pinkie began, addressing nopony in particular. “I wonder why the guards shot at us the moment we arrived…” “In retrospect, it’s not that surprising,” Walleye replied. “We did make a bit of a mess the last time we were here, what with the exploding bakery and the firefight. My fault there for not anticipating that one…” “Exploding bakery?” “Theta blew up Sugarcube Corner.” “Oh,” Pinkie mumbled. The four sat in silence, Pinkie tapping her hooves to a tune that only she seemed able to hear as her teammates continually rearranged themselves on the perpetually uncomfortable flooring. Rainboom, unable to get enough clearance to do even the most basic of aerobatic exercises, had opted to return to her interrupted sleep, while Lyra and Walleye spent their time pointedly ignoring each other. “I wonder why Twilight didn’t arrive with us…” Lyra mused, fumbling around as she continued to search for an ever-elusive comfortable spot. “Ask the Analysis pony,” Walleye said. “I haven’t the slightest clue how those Gates work. I’m a soldier.” “Analysis is not Engineering,” Pinkie pointed out. “Or are you just assuming that I know because I’ve got a good memory?” “Weren’t you working with Mac before this assignment?” Walleye asked. “Getting blown through a door at speeds that would make Rainboom jealous doesn’t count as ‘working for Engineering.’” “So he lives up to his reputation, then?” Lyra asked, abandoning her attempt at finding a comfortable position and instead rolling over to fix her attention on Pinkie. Pinkie nodded, her eyes filled with dread as she recalled her fateful forty-five minutes as Mac’s erstwhile ‘assistant.’ “He’s crazy.” “Coming from you, Pinks, that’s saying something.” Pinkie nodded slowly, still shaking slightly from the memory. “So where are you from,” Lyra asked, bored. “Originally, I mean. What cell?” “Celestis.” Walleye sat up, immediately paying attention. “Celestis? The Celestis? The core world?” Pinkie nodded. “Not every day you meet someone from Celestis of all places,” Lyra said, impressed. “Especially a copy of an element bearer! Unless…” “Unless what?” Walleye asked. “You’re not Celestis’ actual Pinkie Pie, are you?” “What? No!” Pinkie exclaimed. “No. That Pinkie is an Insider. Though I’m certainly related to her closely enough. She kinda… created me.” “...How?” “Fancy pond-thing in the Everfree. I don’t remember the details, it’s all rather fuzzy.” “Wow.” “What about you?” Lyra asked, turning to face Walleye. “Everypony already knows I’m from the Ruins, so it’s your turn.” “Falls-NV-205,” Walleye answered. “Got collected by Retrieval just before it detached. I’m the last survivor of that cell, as far as I know.” “Is that common?” Lyra asked, somewhat confused by the answer. “I didn’t think Outsiders normally came from the Falls.” “It happens,” Pinkie said. “Not particularly common since the Falls is only a fairly small part of the greater Interior, but it’s not a super-weird occurrence. Pinklestia is from the Falls as well.” “Huh. What about Rainy, then, where’s she from?” “Not a clue,” Walleye replied, glancing at the sleeping pegasus. “She got picked up by Retrieval when she was still a foal, or so she says. I don’t buy it, really.” “And that just leaves our Insider colleague,” Lyra said. “Anypony know where she’s from?” “Here,” Pinkie replied automatically. “Slateform.” “What?” Walleye demanded. “Wait… run that by me again?” Lyra asked, looking back and forth between the two ponies. “Slateform is here,” Walleye replied. “We are in Slateform right now!” “...So we’re on Twilight’s homeworld?” Walleye nodded, anger and frustration creeping back into her features as the news sunk in. “Evidently, the pretty pink princess didn’t think this information relevant. When I get back, I swear…” “Well… that explains why she didn’t arrive with us in Ponyville…” Lyra observed. “Hang on a minute!” Walleye exclaimed, pointing at Pinkie. “You knew!” “I know many things!” Pinkie replied cheerfully. “No… gah! You specifically knew, all this time, that this world was Twilight’s homeworld. You knew it the moment Trixie told us the destination back on the Exterior!” “Yeperooni!” “Princess above! Why in Tartarus did you not mention this before?” “You didn’t ask!” “...Brilliant,” Walleye said, her voice growing louder. “I’m stuck in a cell with idiots and the only pony that could save us has probably run right back to her home and left us in the lurch. Fan-bucking-tastic!” “Boss?” Rainboom groaned, glaring daggers at Walleye. “Hm?” “With all due respect, shut up. I can’t sleep with you shouting.” “...Fine.” Walleye replied. “I’ll stay on watch, see if I can’t grab one of the guards when, or even if they decide to check on us. The rest of you, get some sleep.” Lyra shrugged in resignation, laying herself against the cell wall and resting her head on her hooves. Pinkie followed suit, flopping onto her back and falling asleep almost instantly, filling the room with the sound of light snoring. Walleye edged herself into a corner, keeping her eyes fixed on the cell door as she began to picture the myriad ways she was going to exact vengeance on her treacherous Insider teammate once she was free.