MLP Laboratories- The Outbreak

by NeuPferdfurt

The other side

Twilight Sparkle was already wide awake when Spike flipped the light switch. She didn't sleep very well these nights.
It was not so much the fear of the nightmares as the fear of waking up, and realizing that the nightmares had followed her into her life.

"Spike..? What's going on?"

"...We need to talk."

He sat down at her bedside.

He looked troubled. Scared, even. He tried to look into her face, but flinched away the second their eyes met.
In a way, this didn't surprise her. She could see her own reflection in his eyes- pale, trembling, a mere shadow of her former self.

"Okay. I can tell you're worried about something. Why don't you just...?"

"I don't know where to start. This is important, Twilight."

-

He gathered all the courage he had.
Oh, she was going to hate him, he thought, and rightfully so. Or worse still, she would not even want to listen to him at all, even though her very life depended on it.

So what? This was the moment of truth.

"Twilight, you were having a lot of nightmares recently, weren't you?"

"I don't know what you..."

"Of course I'm talking about those nights where you were sleeping at all."

"Spike, I..."

"This is very hard for me. But I made a decision.
I am going to tell you why you're feeling the way you do. I'm going to tell you what I think is really going on here. I want you to brace yourself. This is going to be a shock for you, so I'll try to go slowly..."

He took her hoof into his little hands, an awkward gesture she had never observed on him until... well, until this strange day where she had gone to the dentist.
The day the darkness had come into her life.
The unicorn pony pulled her hoof away. Spike sniffed.

"We don't have much time. I have turned down the cameras in this room, but..."

"Cameras...?"

Twilight didn't like this at all. She felt the sudden urge to hide under her blanket. She didn't resist that urge- it was just that she was unable to move. It was hard for her to do even as much as breathing.

She didn't know what Spike was going to tell her, but her heart was filled with a terrible certitude: that she would not like what her little assistant had to say. The dentist, the nightmares, this very moment of terror- it was all connected.

Twilight felt as if she was balancing at the edge of a cliff. Any second now, Spike was going to push her.

"Breathe, Twilight! Breathe for Pete's sake! Look, forget what I said, relax, maybe we can just..."

"PUSH ME ALREADY!"

"...What?"

"I mean, SAY IT. I am TIRED of this. Spike, I am scared. I am SO scared. I can't go on like this. Please, Spike... Make it stop. GET ME OUT OF HERE!"

"I..."

"SPIKE!"

"It's all a lie, and They're going to kill you!"

He tried to catch his breath again.

"Twilight, this place is not what it seems..."

-

At first Twilight's brain wasn't able to process any of this. She just heard Spike shouting and making little scary noises.

But then she looked at him, saw the fear in his eyes, the urgency... And something else.
Spike had come to warn her.
Because he was worried about her.

Much to the little dragon's surprise, Twilight started to smile.
It was the sort of smile that could erupt into a nervous breakdown any second.

Maybe, Spike thought, she is running amok right here and now. Maybe she'll kill me on the spot. Odd knows I'd deserve it.

Instead, Twilight spoke softly to him.

"You're quite upset Spike, aren't you? No worries, we'll figure something out."

"But Twilight, this isn't just any problem, this is..."

"Is it real?"

"...What?

"Is it real? Is it a bad thing? A real, bad thing?"

"Well, NO, it's EVERYTHING, actually, and..."

"Everything is still just a thing."

-

Twilight contemplated the device Spike had just put in front of her.

Her mind was trying to drift away, but she forced herself to concentrate on this horrible, alien instrument right in front of her eyes.

Spike started to explain it to her, slowly, but at least now his voice was steady.

"This is a syringe, Twilight. It contains mutagen cells.
This syringe was given to me a few days ago. I was supposed to use it on you- that's right, to sting that needle -notice the length- right into your very brain. And to fill your skull with these plasmids that would change the very structure of your cerebrum, the very way you think and act- turning you into a different pony.
Any questions so far?"

He nodded at the blank expression in her face.

"That's what I thought. We are going to do this step by step. I need you to look at everything you know- I mean, pretty much everything - in a different way.

Ponyville, for instance. Me. Yourself. Ponies. Magic, even!
I am sure you have noticed a lot of strange things. I am now going to give these things names, and I'll try to put them into context..."

-

Once Spike got started, he went on for hours. He had always wanted to do this. It was a confession he needed quite badly.

"... And thus everything is starting to fall apart. Once They get the impression that They are losing control, They will try to eliminate us and everyone we know. I'm afraid we don't have much time.
So in summary... THIS is the problem."

Twilight was slowly shaking her head. She was feeling dizzy.

"It's alright.
You have to think I'm out of my mind.
Well, I most certainly am.
Because I was playing by their rules, and because I am now breaking these same rules.
I couldn't keep lying to you any longer. I allowed so many bad things to happen. I tried to tell myself that They were harmless- righteous, even! Even though I saw what They're doing to you. You have a right to know. You have a right to chose. I should have realized that much sooner..."

Twilight was trembling more than ever.

"It's alright. Your mind is fighting the drugs and the hallucinations- now that it knows what to look for. Remember this: No matter what happens next, I will be by your side..."

-

Ever since Spike had started talking, the world had been losing its colors. Friendly, round shapes had turned into rectangles. Wood was turning into plastic and metal.

Twilight started noticing objects which she had ignored before, and familiar things were turning into something else.

This painting, for instance. Twilight had never paid any attention to it, it had just been part of the decor. Now that she looked at it, it didn't seem to be a painting at all. More like a plate of glass with buttons and switches all around the frame.

And the books, the scrolls, they were just... discs, of some sort.

And then Twilight looked at her own reflection on a polished piece of metal.
She started to notice the pores, the little drops of sweat, even the tiny hairs growing inside her nose.

And when she looked up again, everything, absolutely everything she knew was gone. Gone for good.

She would never see Equestria again.
She was seized by a terrible feeling of loss and despair.

Twilight Sparkle started to cry, and Spike was holding her.

-

She and Spike went for a little walk.

Just as Spike had told her, instead of a sky, there was a ceiling with great domes in it. It was there where the weather was generated- the pegasus ponies would pull it right out of the domes according to Ponyville's needs. It was like providing a hamster with building material for its nest.
The buildings were really stables made from the same glass and metal as the surrounding area.

All the ornaments and details Twilight had previously seen had merely been products of her drug-enhanced imagination. If the ponies had ever bothered to compare their different visions of ponyville, the scheme might have fallen apart a lot sooner. But who in their right mind would ever talk about wood carvings?

What appeared to the town's inhabitants as their daily routine, their jobs, businesses and other activities consisted mostly of going to certain extraction points where long tubes with needles on them would suck out their blood or other bodily fluids. If they were not removing entire organs.

Some ponies would run in what appeared to be giant hamster wheels to provide an additional energy supply for the very facility that was enslaving them.

There were also those ponies who spent their day within certain testing areas. It were mostly the unicorns, who would manipulate objects and solve puzzles using the nano-implant on their forehead, under the scrutiny of the omnipresent cameras and sensors.

It is one thing, Twilight thought, that They- whoever They were - had been lying to the ponies about everything. That they were harvesting their very life force without their consent. But there was something even more disturbing than that: The utter and blatant disdain they displayed for their little lives, their hopes and fears.

For Them, the ponies were mere things. You pressed one button to make them cry, and another one to make them laugh. If they were broken, you threw them out and made new ones.

Although Twilight Sparkle couldn't be sure about it, she thought that she had also learned something else about her oppressors: They were not invincible.

It was more of a feeling than a rational conclusion. And sure, maybe she would not be able to find a way out. But the important part was: She was not dealing with almighty, supernatural entities.

However powerful these creeps were, they were driven by greed and other lowly instincts. So they also had weaknesses. Necessarily.

They were not the central force of the cosmos, but merely a bunch of petty slave-owners.

So there was probably room for some... aggressive negotiation.

Comments

[canonkiller]

Dun dun dunnnnn~
Keep it up!

[Chill]

This is extremely confusing.
Ima track it anyways

[solareclipse]

hm if everythin's a lie i wonder whats w/

[Darian Stephens]