The Art of Magic II: Secrecy of the Facility

by Rarity Belle

Chapter 1

Dear,

You are invited to the closed casket funeral of Sweetie Belle and Twinkle Sparkle, beloved sisters and daughters who sadly were taken away too soon.

The ice cold, red eyes of the white unicorn mare read that simple line over and over. The mare lost the hold of reality while countless memories of the past returned to her. The knife being raised and pointed against the chest of the little filly while her teary eyes begged for mercy in silence. Yet it was the sound of the knife being driven into her chest, which then went straight into the rapid beating heart that shocked the mare back into the reality. A reality which she had caused to exist.

The unicorn let go a deep sigh before she leaned back in her chair. She allowed the piece of paper to drop itself on the wooden desk. Her eyes closed themselves and her mind brought her back to the day the two young mares found their end once more. Her eyes opened themselves while another deep sigh left through her nose. The eyes then just made their way through the bloodstained office. It almost seemed surreal that six months had passed since she killed her own sister. And for what purpose? The answer could be found in one of the windows of the office, looking into the pipe of a chimney which began to fill itself with some sort of liquid.

“The most powerful thing in Equestria,” she mumbled while many sparks of electricity began to race through the liquid. After a few seconds it shot up and thus toppling the office back into the artificial light of the ceiling lamps. “Where is that cursed stallion anyway..?”

When one speaks of the devil, it is to be believed he appears. In that case it was ever so true. There were a set of knocks that did their turn upon the steel door, not much later. That very door that separated the office from the rest of the building. The mare allowed her horn to charge itself up a little bit in its red coloring. Mere seconds later did the heavy door swung open like it was nothing.

In the opening was it revealed that a dark blue coated, light blue maned, light purple rimmed, unicorn stallion had been knocking. Without words spoken he walked into the office as the door closed itself behind him. “Ya wished to see me, boss?” he asked with care. The stallion ceased any motion before the desk.

“Keeton, you are one of the most valuable ponies in the entire facility, your department is what keeps this thing afloat ever since it detached from the city all those years ago, am I correct?” the mare said to him. Her red eyes pierced at him under a stern look.

“That is correct boss. Department we can’t miss. Without it, the whole place would just crash into the ground,” answered Keeton in a deep voice. He answered the question as honest as he could. It was the only thing that he could do in front of her.

“And it is true the Facility has been floating around only rising and lowering itself to adjust itself to the current state of wind?” the mare asked further to him.

“Yes boss, that is true. But only after the placement of the new chimney yar office as a view on,” the stallion answered. He had to admit that he was nervous, standing in front of her.

“Interesting indeed.”

The stallion began to feel himself even more uncomfortable. He was in the presence of the mad unicorn who softly tabbed her hooves together. It created the sounds like the passing seconds on a clock. A thing that managed to strike yet another nerve. What were the real reasons she called him, up there? “Mind if I ask for the reason ya wished to see me, boss?”

The mare allowed a deep exhale to leave her nostrils before she spoke again to the employee. “The reason, my dear Keeton, is because I want you to fire up the engines again. It is time for us to return to the city, with full speed.”

When Keeton heard the words echoing through his mind, it caused a couple wires in his head too simply snap. A thing which resulted in an eruption of anger. Keeton placed his forelegs on the desk and rose up on them. The action gave him a bit of an intimidating posture over the mare. “With all due respect, boss, but what ya ask here is insane! The engines haven't even be turned on in over five hundred years, when the chimney was installed,” he spoke to her.

“Hold your tone against me! I know bloody well they haven’t turned in that long, but it is time to fire them up again, under my command. Chart a course to Tol Ret Nac and don’t show your face before me again until I either ask for you, or your charted the course, understood?” the mare countered straight away without even lifting an eyebrow.

Keeton lowered himself from the desk before he gave her a look that could kill. Without any further words spoken, he just turned himself around. He let his horn coat in his signature purple aura. Under a screech of the metal hinges did the door open itself and he left the office just like that. But on the hallway, his muttering could be heard. Curses as if there wouldn’t be a tomorrow.

After the door fell back in the lock did the white coated unicorn stood up. She made her way over to a couple dossier cabinets and opened one of the drawers. There she began to gaze upon the many files before she took a nameless one out. The drawer was closed and she went back to the desk.

Though before she dropped her body back down in the chair, it were her eyes that fell upon the window that was leading to the processing department. To be more precise, the very device that made it possible. The machine that extracted the tears and blood out of their prisoners. A device with a name a foal could have imagined it. The dreadful and frightening, Magic Maker.

---

Keeton wandered through the stone cold hallways of the death factory. He allowed the countless, terrified screams and prayers of forgotten hope to reach his ears. Yet he didn't even gave them a look anymore. Years in the facility had made him tough but also left him mentally broken. His mind couldn't handle the stress from the work and therefore was placed in the movement department. One of the most underestimated parts of the entire place.

He reached the staircase and allowed his hooves to go down step by step. He made his way down through the internal spine of the building. A place he had been calling home for ever so long by then. But his true home was located deep within the bowels of the beast, the very bottom floors were his domain. A set of floors where nopony except its employees were allowed to enter it due to its many dangers and strict yet insane order Keeton kept there.

“Not even a bloody elevator in this hole... And now she wants me to fire up the engines after five hundred years? We better be in for a crash,” he muttered to himself while a smirk slowly formed itself below his muzzle. He kept descending even further while the thoughts rolled in. Within his mind he released the horrible thoughts run freely through the eternal plains of gray mass.

The sadistic mind did its turn once more when he reached the lower levels of the Facility, and finally met the end of the staircase. Before him was another door which he opened with the help of his magic and passed through it. The stallion entered the department’s first hallway before the door was closed again. Two stallions who held a little break took note of his entrance but what caught their true attention was the face of Keeton. A look of utter insanity.

“He is having that look again, can’t be good now,” one of them spoke in a whispering tone.

“Aye, this is bad news for us all,” the other said after Keeton had passed the both of them.

---

Keeton on the other end, let them be and turned his pace to a light trot. He left the hallway and found himself in the main engine room. Countless boilers were there to be seen. Boilers that were used to raise and lower the facility within the currents of the wind. He wanted to sit in the comfortable chair in his office, he couldn't help himself to just stop for a little while and gaze around.

Some of the boilers were as high as a house with pipes that left from it in in every single direction. Who in return were leading all the way to the top and bottom of the place. It was the steam that was produced there, that caused the Facility to raise or lower itself in order to move.

Steam would travel through the many pipes and leave the many ports into the wished direction. Keeton could have only grinned further before he made his way over to a door at the end of the boilers having the text keep out on it. “Keep out? Pfft, when has that ever stopped us?” Keeton spoke up before he charged up his horn. The door opened just like that thanks to the magic.

Many employees who were shoving up the coal for the raging fires noticed that the door opened itself by the magical force. But none didn't even dare to question why he would do such a thing. Keeton could be merciless against them, showing them no remorse. Rumors even spoke that the stallion was able to deliver a soul much more pain than the devices upstairs. The very things that created the magic, couldn’t tip to his fury.

Keeton’s horn was still covered in the purple aura and used that as his main source of light in the room he found himself in. A room where nopony had been in for five hundred years. The devices it housed made their faint appearance within his eyes.

But just then he shook his head a couple times as the expression on his face quickly faded. Even though the stallion was insane, he knew how to hide it and keep his sanity when needed. He is one of the Facilities most strange yet curious employees and case. A schizophrenic like no other.

“Now... Let’s see if this thing can be fired up in the first place, given how much dust is in here,” he said while walking a little further up the room. With his hoof he began to swipe away over some of the metal sheets. His eyes fell upon the dust that met his fur, it was thick dust. Dust of five hundred years ago. “Crazy bitch that she is... Hmph, lives will be lost in this operation, a lot of them.”

A deep and annoyed sigh left his mouth while he tried to keep his insanity locked up within his head. The stallion removed himself out of the room and shut the door, but not locking it. He found himself back into the main boiler area. “Corron, Mush, Kooiman!” the stallion shouted into the thin air. But was loud enough that everypony could hear it. And the ears of three ponies perked themselves up as the names were being called. Each of them stuck their shovel into the mountain of coal, before making their way over to Keeton.

“Yes sir?” a green coated, red maned unicorn mare asked when she stood before him.

“Mush, ya and yar, mates, are engineers, right?” Keeton spoke to her.

“Well yes we are, Corron and Kooiman are the best ones I ever worked with, can fix everything around these parts,” spoke Mush with pride while the two stallions behind her stuck their chests forward. Though there wasn’t anything prideful on the matter that came.

“Then I hope ya can keep yarself on that promise, miss Mush, for the boss ordered us to fire up the drivers and chart a course to the city,” revealed Keeton in a countering voice.

The eyes of the mare shrunk in size as she gulped a bit. The stallions dropped their chests a little bit before they stared at one another. “Is, is she mad!?” Mush brought out.

“That is what I said as well, but couldn't change her mind. If any of ya three need me, I will be in the chart room. Probably planning our doom,” said Keeton under another sigh. After that did he began to make his way passed them. Only to disappear into another hallway. In all three their ears was the sound of another metal door falling in its lock.

“Nee nah wordt ie mooi!” spoke Kooiman in his signature Nether-Equestrian accent.

---

The mare first let out a sigh of utter annoyance as a response to his words before she turned herself around and let the light blond coated stallion fall in her eyes. “Normal Equestria, Kooiman, normal! You are not in the Nether Equestrian parts anymore! Corron, what did he say?”

Corron took a step forward and he was to be revealing as a red coated and bald stallion. He opened his mouth in order to reply to the question. “He said, ‘no now it becomes something’, that is what I can make out of his gibberish at least.”

“Hey! Hold your tongue about my gibberish!” replied Kooiman before he lowered a little through his forelegs. He faced Corron in a fighting stance and was more than ready to charge him.

But the other stallion just smirked in response. "Oh look here now, now he can do it, hm?"

“Enough, the both of you! You heard Keeton! We need to fix the bloody thing now, I do not wish to encounter his other side any time soon,” spoke Mush. She turned herself over to the door that lead to the engines. “What do you two know about five hundred year old engines that probably won’t work anymore?”

“Kenne altijd kijke toch?” replied Kooiman as sober as always.

“Kooiman, one more time, and I shove a wrench not only up your arse, but also down your throat, am I understood?” Mush said in anger while she pressed her face against that of the stallion. “Corron, what did he say!?”

“We can always have a look,” the red stallion replied almost automatically. Corron and Kooiman always have been sort of mates together ever since they entered the Facility and the bald stallion often worked as a translator for the light blond one. Though Mush, was another case. She was a mystery to everypony. She had dedicated to her engineering job for sure but her origin was shrouded and the oddest rumors do their turn. One even said that she was a robot or android.

Others spoke that she could be a puppet controlled by their boss in order to spy upon the department as there were no cameras there. With the exception of the separate boiler rooms of course. The room where they burned the bodies. “We always can yes, stronger, we go now. Grab your tools and meet me in there. Work is calling,” said Mush. She removed her face out of Kooiman’s and began to walk over to the door. The stallions gave her a nod and they made their way over to another hallway. They opened yet another steel door and they disappeared inside for a moment as Mush entered the engine room, inspecting the near ancient devices carefully.

“Single piston driver... Exhausts connected to the pipe system, no control board nor fire up button. Perhaps with magic? Nah, that would have cost nearly half of its power to start these up,” the mare mumbled while she made her way passed the engines. But only to release a small sigh afterward. “I think we are in for the impossible... Where are those two idiots anyway?” Her head moved itself over to the door and hoped the two stallions would come any moment.

But what she got, were not the stallions she had hoped for. Instead she got the sound of a heavy smack echoing through the whole Facility. A deafening sound that made her ears ring for a couple seconds. “For Tartarus sake, this place is falling apart!” she screamed while she expected the evacuation alarm to ring loud and clear.

Yet everything kept surprisingly quiet and her head gently peeked out of the doorway as she regained the ability to hear. With her dull eyes did she saw that the workers were just doing their jobs like nothing had happened to any of them.

---

After a tremendous amount of time had the two stallion finally returned. They found Mush inspecting the machines once more. It was when her ears caught their hoofsteps that she turned herself over to them with a grin on her face. “Finally, you two are here!”

“Sorry Mush, had to inspect the piston crash. Rumors say the boss or one of her two mates blast the thing away, for it was the most secure piston in here. Stories do their turn quickly, really. Should have seen the hole that went right through the floor and crushing the poor bastards in the holding cell below, some survived with horrible injuries,” answered Corron to her. He set a hard hat on his head and adjusted his tool belt.

Kooiman tossed over a belt and hat to Mush who caught them with her hooves and hoisted herself in them. “Right, fair enough. Now then, let’s begin on this monstrosity,” she said.

“Right,” respond Corron while he walked up to a separate device. His eyes began to inspect it with care. One mistake, was a mistake too much. “Kooiman?”

“Ja?”

“Look if you can find some blueprints of these machines? These things are tougher to crack than making magic!” Corron said to him.

“Aye, aye chef,” responded Kooiman. He wandered out of the room and left the stallion and mare alone.

When the stallion had left the room, it was Mush who snickered slightly to it as her attention turned over to the other stallion while inspecting. “You know the last chart of the place had been burned after the installation of the chimney right?” she said to him.

“Yeah, but I am a little tired of him now, plus gives him a nice walk, right?” chuckled the stallion before his eyes fell upon something interesting. “Well hello, what do we have here...”

“What’chu got there, Corry?”

“I think I have a break-through.”

Mush made her way over to the stallion with haste. She just stared at a set of gears with a near ancient wrench stuck in it far in the engine. “You think what I think?” she said to him.

“Aye, the Great Magic Depression, unicorns almost without magic for around fifty years... Just in time...” His eyes shrunk when he made the connection in his mind. One of his fore hooves jammed itself into the steel plated cover. “This thing, caused the installation of the chimney, Mush!”

“W-What?” Mush brought out.

“If we remove that thing, it should work again. I mean, look around you, look at the devices. Everything looks untouched. Only having aged through time, nothing is broken, nothing is missing.”

“Well, where are you going for?” replied Mush. “I am not the one for history and you know that. So, get on with it!”

“Fine, just give me a moment,” he said before he charged up his horn. Though the charge only created a couple sparks and an orb or light. “The hay?” he brought out at realizing it.

“What happened to your magic?”

“I don’t know! Let me try again.” And so said, so done. Corron charged up his horn again only to get the same result of nothing but sparks and the orb of light.

“Odd,” said Mush as her eyes began to make their way through the room, taking a deep note to the walls before blinking a couple times. “Magic doesn't reach here...”

“Pardon?”

“The walls, they are too thick for the magic streams to enter. Probably something to do with the noise,” explained Mush in the only manner she could, obvious.

“Great, and just how do we get this out then?” asked Corron with a doubtful look on his face.

“Disassemble, remove, reassemble? You know, do what we do best? Reverse engineering.”

It was after those words that a familiar, Nether accented voice did its turn through the room again. “No luck finding the prints, any news here?” was said through the room.

“Kooiman, we found the origin of the problem, but came across another,” spoke Mush to him. She turned herself to him while Corron kept looking at the stuck wrench.

“And that being?”

“A wrench that is stuck in the gearing system of the engines, but our magic doesn't work in this room for some unknown reason,” Mush added to her words.

Kooiman placed his signature heavy wrench over his shoulder and began to smirk ever so deeply. “Allow me then. Just be ready to push the buttons when I have it removed.”

“She’s all yours buddy,” spoke Corron. He had given up on it. He turned his eyes to the other stallion and made a gesture.

The blond stallion chuckled a bit before he began to remove the protective cover over the gearing system. Mush and Corron went out of his way and Kooiman began to his job under a soft humming. The two others stared at each other for a little bit before they started with the inspection through the room as a whole.

---

Back in the charting room –which doubled as his own, private office– was Keeton breaking his mind over the ancient maps and logs. The data he received in his mind went all the way back to the Facility’s departure from the city. A secret office within the city itself had been sending their coordinates in case the facility would ever return. But over the years had changed the maps and borders by a lot and the gotten messages about the coordinates became less and less frequent.

“Ugh... Chart a course, she said. Like it is that easy with ancient maps!” he spoke up. In a moment of pure rage he slammed his hoof on the desk. The impact made a small deformation in the metal just before he huffed out a cloud of steam.

Though when his mind calmed down again, he began to see something. A pattern the city had been moving itself in. “How could I... From here, to here... to there... meaning they should be... Right around here!” Keeton mumbled in himself while carefully levitating a red marker and circled an area on the map. “Now, we are here...the city will float this way and thus stay there next... Meaning if everything works, we can be there in about two weeks.” A bright smile took place on his face as he began to create the possible routes the place could travel.

---

Deep within the engine room had Kooiman managed to take off the protective cover of the jammed gear system. He slowly reached for the insides with his hoof. He had set his hopes on being able to just grab the wrench. Mush and Corron found themselves standing before another engine while they mumbled lightly to each other.

“I don’t like this Mush... One wrench, causing the engines to fall still for five hundred years, I am not buying it,” said Corron under a soft whisper while he screwed a cover of another device back up. The situation seemed to be strange indeed, one that seemed impossible to have gone that way.

“Much isn't told, or simply left,” replied Mush to him. She was inspected the ignition system of the devices. The very things that would cause the spark, before the boom.

“True that...”

Kooiman was still reaching his hoof inside and could gently touch it. He pushed himself even more into it. Finally was he being able to wrap his hoof around the wrench and began to pull it towards him. “Come on... Kom op!” With a couple powerful yanks from his body was the stallion eventually launched backwards before he landed with the back of his head against the floor with the ancient wrench stuck in his hoof.

“Seems Kooiman did it,” said Mush when her ears perked from the new sound that filled the room. A sound that was followed by the moaning in pain of the stallion.

“So it seems, chef,” replied Corron and he went over to the blond stallion. He offered him a hoof to pull him back up on his hooves.

Kooiman rubbed his head a couple times before he took the hoof and pulled himself up. He then spun the wrench that was stuck around its axle in his hoof. “Heb hem, koste me wat moeite, maar hij is er uit.”

When the words spoken falling into the ears of the green unicorn, she had to do her utmost best in order to keep herself together and not make her promise made to him come true, at least, not yet. “Kooiman, good job, now reassemble it all so we can fire up the engines again.” The blond stallion nodded and tossed the wrench over to Corron. After that he began to do his job again.

Corron on the other end made his way over to Mush. Though he could see the anger dripping off her face. “A promise is a promise chef,” was the only thing he said.

“One I will fulfill, after he is done and the engine is roaring,” answered Mush in a near silent whisper. Madness had come to her once more, and Kooiman wouldn’t be safe anymore, anywhere.

Corron gave her a slight smirk and began to make his way over to the main engine where he wiped his hooves over the keys to undo do them from the dust. “Now... Kooiman!”

The blond stallion peeked up from his work, staring in Corron’s direction. “Wat?”

“Are you finished yet?”

“Nog een moment! Ben hier bijna klaar mee!”

“Alright, just give me a shout when you are.”

---

When the five minute mark had passed and the stallion placed his wrench on the ground before he leaned a little on it while wiping the sweat off of his face. “Ben klaar hier! Zet maar aan die handel!”

As soon as those words entered the ears of Corron, Mush stood next to him and she gave him a nod of confirmation. “Fire up.” With one push of the button did the engines slowly began to hum and covered themselves in a bright red aura. They appeared to be powered by magic itself but the variant they were seeing was a much darker one, a much more raw version of their product.

The humming slowly turned into an enormous roar of pure power for which the three ponies had to cover their ears but it didn't do a thing. The eyes of Mush went fast yet carefully over the control panel and she found the killswitch which she pushed in as if her life depended from it.

Soon enough did the deafening roar turned back to a soft humming before the fields of magic disappeared completely and they uncovered their ears. “Well that was, interesting. I am going to report to Keeton, see you two during the peck,” said Corron before he rubbed his ears a bit and made his departure. But as he left the room, he closed the door behind him, only letting Mush and Kooiman in the room alone. One had a promise to keep to the other.

“Nou, dat ging beter dan gedacht toch Mush?” spoke Kooiman in a chuckling tone.

“You remember what I said, you blond idiot?”

“Wat?”

“I promised you,” she took the ancient wrench in her hoof and made her way over to the stallion. Her eyes were determined while a mad mare grin stood on her face. “I would shove a wrench down your throat if you spoke in the language, one more time?”

“Oh shit... N-No! You can not do that!” plead Kooiman while he took a step backward.

“Oh I can,” replied Mush before she just propelled herself forward. The wrench within her hoof got positioned in such a position that it would be able to deal an insane amount of damage to any target meeting its way. Which was exactly the plan she had for him.

The stallion took more and more steps backward but saw the swinging motion of the foreleg and braced himself for the worst as he closed his eyes. It wasn't much later when the wrench made contact with the stallion’s face. Though Mush indeed kept her promise and the sound of bone and teeth breaking filled the silent engine room. A couple splatters of blood made their way to her face and the cold ground.

“I told you,” she replied stone cold and let go of the wrench after which she made her way out of the door, leaving the bleeding stallion with his broken bones. “Be happy I didn't shove it up your arse.” It was then that she simply disappeared out of his sight and left him, truly alone.

---

It didn't took long before Mush stood before Keeton who looked to her with a stern face and let go a deep exhale. “I hope ya are bringing me good news for once today, Mush,” he growled to her.

“I do, Keeton, the engines are working, but seem to consume magic in order to work, we haven’t gotten the time yet to identify where it comes from though. Whether or not they are a separate tank or just gets taken from the main reserve. Oh and, Kooiman won’t be able to speak for the coming months if not years,” the mare explained to him.

A sly smile appeared on the face of the stallion as he spoke with a unusual joy in his voice. “Corron already brought me that news and we all heard the deafening sounds. I managed to chart a course, ya fixed the engine and made Kooiman shut up, I should give ya a raise if I could, Mush. Now remove yourself out of my presence and keep doing what ya are supposed to do, I shall have let somepony grab Kooiman.”

Mush nodded and she went away in silence. She would have gone back into the warm bowels of the Facility. All in order to keep the ever raging fires running until she was needed for a maintenance job again.

Comments

[The Real Steel]

Well well. Not bad, not bad at all. Quite enjoyable in fact, a little on the dark side but nothing at all wrong with that. I personally suggest a little more time to each scene, as they seem rather rushed through. I understand you might be busy or wish to get each chapter done with speed but you may wish to slow your roll sometimes and observe what the set scene for any particular combination of writing is. On top of which, I would suggest that you might get yourself an editor, somepony to run through your stories and look for grammatical errors here and there that could be fixed while you write the stories out.

You have a mind for writing, this much is obvious and I believe with a slowed down pace and an editor you could be magnificent as a writer. As it stands, you have written more stories than I so my opinion is simply that, an opinion. Not one based on an overwhelming amount of experience either, simply one I feel you might be interested in knowing.

Overall, I enjoyed reading this. It was good, if not my usual cup of tea. I hope my opinion helps you.

[Rarity Belle]

2653438 Steel, you have no idea how much your opinion helps me.