• Published 22nd Jan 2013
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Re:Harmony - starcross7



A thousand years ago, the three pony tribes failed to form a unified nation, and war doomed the unicorns to near-extinction. Twilight and Applejack now seek the Elements in the hopes of ending the long conflict between pegasi and earth ponies.

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22 - Re:Union

Chapter 22 - Re:Union

"I told you before," groaned Teddy as he trotted down the hallway with his fellow President-Adviser, "the Incarceration Committee will not allow you to pardon one or two mares for your stupid whims."

"But did you see what that boorish mare did to that cutie?" Ace asked.

"I saw it, and it's none of our concern. This is a prison, not a dating service."

"Still, I don't see why you have to drag me towards the stallion side. Unless the rumors are true that you're a--"

"That's going to be your job. I need to see the Warden."

"Maybe it isn't true."

"It's not like that."

"You sure you don't want me to play wingpony?"

Teddy grumbled. He tried to leave Ace outside as he entered the warden's office, but the blonde stallion decided to rush in and chat it up with a cute secretary. The blue and Mohawk stallion left his compatriot and stepped into Warden Bon Bon’s office. It wasn't sparse and bare like several police precincts he had visited. It was small, and it had a classic feel of green walls, wood panels, and woven chairs that many pony would not mind living in as part of their day job. Several pictures hung on the wall on the left, most notably of the watchful glare of Posey on the largest if not the only painting in the room. He never seen it before, and he could only assume it was either a forgery or a custom. Still, the representation was uncanny, and he could feel the Chancellor's presence overwhelming what should be a cozy office.

His attention then turned to the noisy sound of a plastic wrap crunching beneath the force of two hooves. Here, Bon Bon took her sweet time to unfurling one candy from its container. Ponies ordinarily would suck the whole thing and spit out the plastic wrapper into the nearest trash. This warden, unlike all others, skillfully unfurled it with the tips of her two front hooves. Twenty wrappers littered her desk, and after putting the latest hard candy into her mouth, she added the twenty-first.

"President-Adviser Teddy," said Bon Bon. "I apologize for the scene out in the courtyard. I made sure I gave Lieutenant Warden Quake a stern warning over her behavior."

"It's not that," said Teddy. "There is a pony I would like to see, a mare by the name of Photo Finish."

Bon Bon looked up and then looked away. Teddy could see her cold sweat roll down her brow, and the hard candy rattled more than necessary between her teeth.

"You do realize that she is the head of the Twilight Cult," said Bon Bon.

"I checked with your staff and all the prison rosters, and nopony had seen her return to her cell since last night. Where have you taken her?"

"Is there a reason why you must see her? She rambles on about this 'Twilight Messiah' who's going to destroy the world. About a day ago, Photo Finish and her cronies nearly murdered Rebel Mare Applejack."

"Are you going to take me to see her or not?"

The cream-colored mare bit her lip as the hard candy rattled onto her teeth once more. Hesitantly, she rose up from her chair and walked out of the office, motioning for Teddy to follow her. Ace caught sight of her, and he attempted another one of his tiresome pickup lines. Yet he stopped upon getting a better look at her.

"Now that I think about it," said Ace. "Haven't I seen you before?"

"Ace, go inspect the stallions' wing," Teddy ordered. He ignored Ace's grumbling as he boarded the staff elevator with Bon Bon, who then used her keycard to access the levels far below the ground level.

They emerged into what looked like another prison wing, which appeared more medieval than modern. According to Teddy's recollection, this was where they kept the vilest or most troublesome criminals that they wanted to disappear. Then, if at all possible, they would punish them until their deaths. Distant screams of agony periodically echoed throughout the dimly lit stone halls. He had an idea what was going on behind these doors, but he would not be there to confirm it. He had ponies doing that for him.

Bon Bon and Teddy arrived at a guarded door not too far from where they arrived. Before any of them could enter, the guard-stallion went in to secure the occupant. Two knocks from the inside meant that it was safe, and both Bon Bon and Teddy were let in.

Sitting calmly on her haunches was Photo Finish, and a smile drew across Teddy's face.

"Guten tag," said Photo Finish. "Are you my lawyer?"

Something was wrong. Terribly wrong. Teddy had witnessed both of Finish's sane and insane moments before and after her shameful fall. She was certainly an energetic mare who enjoyed painting Gaea in a positive light no matter how hard the task was. He stormed off in a huff, and glared straight back at the Head Warden.

"Where's that scientist?" he asked her.

Hesitantly, Bon Bon directed him further down the hall, and he rapidly arrived at a large door guarded by heavily-armed Clone Soldiers. He soon gained clearance when Bon Bon arrived to wave her keycard before the panel. The doors slid open to reveal a lab with four long tables filled with tagged ancient magical artifacts and lost technology. The two ponies inside, Professor Heartstrings and Professor Covalent Bond, were caught off guard when Teddy pushed the latter against the wall.

"What did you do to her?" he asked.

"Do what to who?"

"I know your kind, always experimenting on ponies with these… these things! It's one thing to do it to the other prisoners, but to Photo Finish?"

"I was ordered to."

"Then who ordered you?"

"I did," said a soft yet familiar voice.

It didn't come from inside the room, but it came from a speaker. Professor Heartstrings approached the two stallions and held a wireless videophone for them to see. On the screen was the Chancellor herself, and whether she was a doppelgänger or not, Teddy would not risk offending whoever was at the other line. He lets go of Bond and fixed his collar and coat.

"Chancellor," said Teddy, "surely you must have a sound reason, but Photo Finish was one of us; an Elite Earth Party member."

"I understand your concerns Mister Teddy," spoke Posey, "but do recall that many years ago our dear Photo Finish overstepped her boundaries when she attempted to take the Element of Truth without proper preparation. The end result was her mind becoming damaged by that artifact's magic, and I had pinned my hope of healing her by bathing her in the light of the Second Element of Creation. It seems that we still have a long way to go. We must continue with the experiments."

"But Chancellor…"

"Have I made myself clear?"

Even from the small, pixelated screen of the videophone, Posey's cold stare had the ability to traverse the cellular waves and render Teddy immobile and frightened.

"Warden Bon Bon," said Posey. "How are things?"

"Good, Honorable Chancellor," said Bon Bon. "I cannot thank you enough for appointing me here as warden of Rock Prison."

"You are happy here, I take it?"

Bon Bon nodded, but she stood at the other side of the videophone where Posey could not see her. Yet, Posey seemed to have received the cream-colored mare's response judging by the slight smile across her face.

"Professor Bond," said Posey, "why don't you show Mister Teddy the next experiment? He should get an idea how important our tireless research is."

"As you wish, Honorable Chancellor," bowed Bond. “This way President-Adviser.”

Teddy still felt the ice-daggers piercing into his soul. Portrait or no portrait, Posey's pulled his strings, and she directed him to accompany Professors Bond and Heartstrings to the next room where white-coat lab technicians operated the various computer consoles filled with displays of graphs and numbers. A long stretch of windowpanes separated everypony and a long stone chamber barely illuminated by foreboding red lights. In that chamber at the very end lay a seemingly innocuous and large block of stone that had a vague image of what looked to be an image of the ancient character representing “omega”. From Teddy's viewpoint, that stone emitted an ominous blue glow.

“Bring in prisoner 0228,” Bond spoke into the gooseneck microphone.

At the other side of the chamber, the doors slid open. Two Clone Soldiers dragged in a struggling purple earth mare to strap her uncomfortably tight to a bolted metal chair. They had left her, sealing her inside as she struggled to wring herself free from her restraints.

“Open up the Element containment block.”

The row of technicians pulled levers and pushed buttons. Mechanical arms with drill-like probes emerged from hidden compartments in the wall and pierced themselves into the block of stone. The stone whirred in pain, and everypony except for Teddy remained calm as the earth shook around them in the subterranean laboratory.

The stone was anything but rock, and it opened mechanically to diffuse a blinding beam of blue light onto the prisonmare. She began screaming in terror for several seconds before laughing maniacally and foaming in the mouth.

Nopony had been hurt or brutally dismembered, but Teddy did not have to experience such things to truly become horrified by the evil witchcraft of magic. He wanted to protest, but he couldn't move his jaw. He wanted to smash the consoles, but he stood frozen. Posey's icy daggers had done its job and they remained stabbed into his soul.


A few days had passed when Twilight, Sunny, and Spike began their reconnaissance around the prison perimeter. The walls were too high, and even at full levitation power, Twilight would immediately be shot down by the guards in the guard towers. Blowing a hole through the walls or through the door would be difficult because the armored cars would run her over should they not decide to fire. Even if she were to get in, Twilight and Sunny would still have to deal with the armed guards. How many of them, Twilight could not calculate to know.

Still weak from being distant from her half of her soul, the unicorn had to rely on Sunny as her legs and hooves, instructing her to draw up diagrams and plan of attack. Then on one late afternoon, Spike walked right up to her and volunteered to sneak in.

“That's noble of you,” said Twilight, “but this isn't the Labs. Applejack’s imprisoned in there, and we can't risk breaking in without securing her safety.”

“Do you remember that sewer line we passed through?” Spike asked. “I’m small enough to crawl in, and there’s a big chance that they can't detect dragon magic. We can use the tele-orbs to send messages back and forth.”

“Spike, I promised Dr. Octavia to look after you. You’re still a baby dragon.”

“I know, but I am a lot tougher than what ponies think. Please Twilight. At least let me do something to repay you. I'm in your debt.”

Twilight looked to Sunny, who nodded back at her. The unicorn might be still drowsy and tired to see anything, but the Earth-Alicorn's nod could mean anything. Even if she had a millennium's worth of wisdom, Spike should not head out alone.

“Look, here’s a tele-orb to receive my messages and ground-up scales so you can send messages back,” he said. “I’m gonna go in and see if there is a way to break Applejack out.”

“Spike, wait!”

The little dragon ran off with carrying his dragon-magic tools in his scaly pockets through the thick jungles and steep hills through the Everfree Forest. He had a feeling that Twilight might command Sunny to chase after him, but nopony had appeared behind him.

He made it to an open and barren wasteland of field where junked vehicles dotted the area every 500 feet or so. A discolored stream cut across the valley, and following led Spike to a pipe spewing up the most rancid and repulsive waste ponies could ever concoct from their own selves. Seeing this made Spike have second thoughts, but he needed to repay his debt he owed to his rescuers by saving Applejack. The baby dragon took a deep breath, and crawled in.

In the Labs, Spike had experienced the utter pungency of the cruel experiments the ponies did to him and the other creatures. The scientists hardly often took him to be experimented on the upper levels, but he remained conscious of the gruesome grafts performed on other magical and non-magical creatures that produced acrid pus from their ugly surgical stitches. In a few cases as they were transporting him, he passed by day-old carcasses carelessly thrown into large metal bins, some of which were brought down to be frozen for future experimentation. Compared to back then, these sewers were nothing.

Crawling in darkness in this horrible and slimy grime, the stench overpowered his tear ducts and nostrils. He had the temptation of igniting his fire breath, but whatever gasses bubbled up would spark an explosion that even he could not survive through. The brave little dragon thought of the times he suffered silently under the painful experiments as a means to resist breathing fire, and it paid off. Hours later, he approached a slow-swirling septic pool, and crawled on to the nearest concrete ledge.

Where he ended up, he did not know, but he continued to follow any source of light shone through grates both narrow and small. Traversing through larger pipes, Spike had decided that he should wash up before sneaking above ground, but he had to find an area where there was soap.

At the first grate, he climbed up for a better view and spotted guard ponies walking back and forth. He wanted to move on, but he decided to listen on a few minutes.

There was a particular pair of guard ponies, a stallion and a mare, who had immediately embraced each other upon their meeting.

“Saw you during the ’Tunnel of Love’, Colton,” said the mare.

"Daisy, not here," said the stallion named Colton.

"Sorry, 'Golden Grape', and thanks for the gift."

"I had to waste my vacation days just to get to Sewer Town, and I'm sure it is legit. Say, did that Ace make a pass at you yet?"

"He did, but don't worry hon. You've already captured my heart."

Barf. Spike heard enough and no amount of reading the romance subplots in the novel Twilight made him read could make him stomach this lovey-dovey junk. He climbed down and crawled further through to pipes, made a left turn, and went up towards another grate. Here he saw multitudes of the strong legs and hooves of dozens of stallions in a steamy shower. He also saw glimpses of their Nature's call, their well-toned legs, and other impressive appendages from his vantage point. Other than the sounds of running water and the hard scrubbing of coats, nopony spoke during this quiet ritual of communal cleaning.

Then one of them dropped a small bar of soap through the grate Spike peered through, and the baby dragon quickly dove down to grab it before the sewer waters washed it away. Suddenly, he heard a ruckus coming from the grate he just peered from. The painful and agonizing screams of one stallion in the shower, for some reason, deeply frightened the baby dragon, and he dared not take a peek back let alone return there to clean himself when the prisoners had vacated the area. Spike's heart beat with dread as he continued further into the prison's sewer tunnels.

The scent of fresh fruits and vegetables led him astray from his intended agenda. Sure, he had a meal before he left, and while he could easily survive on meat and gems, his diet could accommodate whatever ponies ate. It reminded him of the times when Dr. Octavia came down to sneak in fruit baskets she received from her many admirers. In many cases, her gifts were the only real food he could ever eat.

The remembrance of Octavia made him sad, but he sucked his tears back into his eyes. His nose led him up a manhole cover and before he opened it, he checked it for any sort of technological or magical sensors.

All clear. He twisted the cover open and came out of the sewers. Nopony could be seen in this dim area, but from he could tell this was a food storeroom. It wasn't as massive as the one in the Palace of the Earth, but after being on the run for days, this was a feast. The baby dragon's growling stomach got the better of him and he leapt out to eat the nearest crate of apples before he proceeded to the others. Not since Winter Tulip’s birthday party did he have so much food. A little guilt of gluttony eventually settled in, and he thought about sending some of his feast back to Twilight and Sunny.

But he couldn't. Knowing Twilight, she would reprimand him with a letter (written by Sunny) about his gluttony and his wasting his dragon fire in such a manner. At least, that's what he thought she would do, and the unicorn might just sigh in disappointment instead, which was all she could do at the moment. Still, he might able to send both a message and some food back should he be able to locate Applejack.

Finding a box, he packed in it as much food he could sneak out through his dragon fire, but the grime on his claws made him realize that he still reeked of sewer slush. He certainly would not want to send Twilight and Sunny food that smelt grossly unappetizing. Then it dawned on him that if he didn't clean off his stink real quick, somepony would sniff him out.

The storeroom had one set of stairs that led upstairs to a large kitchen, and to his fortune it was also empty. He waddled over to a faucet hose meant to wash very large food items or smaller ones in bulk, and nearby there was a drain. Spike took his time using the soap he picked up from the stallions' showers as well as a nearby dish brush to clean out his scales and everything in between. He never had to clean himself like this before. Twilight had taught him the basics of hygiene, and a few times Sunny helped him give him showers and baths as part of his life lessons. In the Labs, all they did was fire a water hose laced with anti-bacterial chemicals that stung his eyes for days.

Even now despite the danger all around him, he was glad to leave the tortuous shelter of his former home, and was now able to see what the world above the surface looked like. Perhaps this was the reason why he bonded with Twilight so easily because like him, she too was trapped beneath the land most of her life. While she had family, especially one that was missing, Spike was not sure if his parents were still alive after being taken away from them. He might have still been an egg when he was kidnapped.

He stopped the hose and dried himself with a nearby towel. Carefully he put everything back in place, and even resorted to mopping up the excess water. That was another one of Twilight's life lessons: always clean up after yourself.

The door to the kitchen suddenly opened, and in his shock, Spike dropped the mop.

"Who's there?"

He nearly froze, but Spike crouched on all fours and scurried over to the next counter as the sound of hooves echoed throughout the kitchen. The pony had eventually trotted over to area where he showered, and then trotted over towards the open door to the basement storeroom. Spike hurried faster towards the nearest door, but slid to halt when he saw a janitor pony sweeping the halls beyond the cracks of the door.

The pony trotted faster in hot pursuit, and Spike closed the door as distraction. The little dragon ran as quickly as possible to hide behind a pile of boxes at a corner, and silently waited for the pony pursuer to take the bait.

"Hey, have you seen somepony pass by here?"

Please, oh please, take the bait. The door opened and closed, and silence followed. After almost a minute had passed, Spike had slumped down breathed a sigh of relief.

Then an apple shot out and knocked over the piles of boxes, leaving only one high enough to hide the baby dragon. He let out a loud gasp, but he quickly covered his mouth to prevent himself from screaming.

"Come out now!" yelled the pony. "I don't care who you are, and I won't let your kind escape!"

He couldn't be scared any longer. Spike pumped his chest out and kicked his box out of the way. With claws clenched into fists, he turned to face his pursuer. Whatever his enemy had, he couldn't have anything that would scratch his purple scales.

"All right, pony!" he cried. "Bring it on!"

When their eyes met, Spike gasped. So did the lanky mustard-yellow pony who dropped the cutting knife from his mouth. Neither dragon nor stallion could hold back the single masculine tear that rolled down their faces.

"Son?"

"Dad?"

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