Re:Harmony

by starcross7

53 - The Poisoned Populace

Chapter 53 - The Poisoned Populace

"A-against us?" asked Fluttershy.

"What are you talking about?" asked Twilight. "I thought the Empire had no contact with the outside world for almost a thousand years? What could they possibly know?"

"They know enough," said Aurea. "Maybe Shining Armor had blurted something about his past, but with him arriving here in the state he was in threw the Royal Family in a panic. They began asking themselves, 'What if our unicorn brethren are in danger? Or worse? What if the pegasii and the earth ponies are gearing up for an all-out invasion? What if we have been finally discovered?' Shining Armor was their portent, and the Empire has been systematically drugging the entire populace for their schemes."

"What good would that do? If they're planning to invade the outside world, why would they poison their own citizens?"

"The Empire needs every pony for their plan: every stallion, mare, and foal. They're going to weaponize their emotional energies and use the Crystal Castle itself as its main weapon."

"Just how powerful is this weapon of theirs is?" asked Applejack.

"I'm not sure, but I heard legends that it had the power to challenge the Element of Creation itself."

"You've actually heard of the Elements of Creation?" asked Twilight.

"Only that it was a devastating force that tore apart worlds in its wake. Do you three know something that we should know?"

"We have three of them," said Applejack. "The Element of Truth, the Element of Pleasure, and the Element of Empathy."

"Please believe us that we don't wish for any harm for your Empire," said Twilight. "We only want the Elements to stop the war between Gaea and Pegasopolis."

"I believe you," said Aurea, "but I'm not sure if I can trust you. In my eyes, you're no different from the Royal Family who wishes to use Crystal Castle to protect the Empire. Believe me, I care not what happens outside our borders. Those two countries could destroy themselves for all I care. As a patriotic citizen of the Empire, I have a duty to protect my fellow citizens from the influence of outsiders."

"If you're thinkin' of hurtin' Shine," said Applejack, "then we're endin' our little pact right here and now."

"Like I said, I don't care what happen to the outside world or its inhabitants. If you want to remove Shining Armor from the Empire, be my guest. At the very least, you should see firsthoof the unintended consequences of that stallion's arrival."

She didn't care? It was just as bad as letting him get killed by his own guards should his memories return, and Applejack gnashed her teeth in an attempt to control her anger. Aurea had her pride as a citizen of the Crystal Empire, and Applejack could admire that. Threatening Shining Armor's life, whether implied or not, was a different matter, and she would not take it, especially since Twilight's expression was wrought with utter worry that her own brother might be the enemy.

The orange pony would reserve judgment for now, for Aurea and her comrades began leading Applejack and her friends further into the cave system that soon turned into a full-fledged mine of carved crystals, shafts, and railway carts. It did not appear that the mine had been active for a while; one could only imagine what specific minerals they were harvesting besides the ones that made up the cavern at large. Frankly, it appeared more pleasant than that the dreary darkness of Rock Prison's mines, but at least here there were no prisoners or slaves.

It was a long walk across many narrow rock bridges, and Aurea led everypony to a flat jagged wall. One strike from Castle's hoof against the wall rocked the cavern, and the wall collapsed like a cascading waterfall to reveal a hallway filled with ponies milling back and forth between several doorways. Nurses brushed back and forth wheeling in and out gurneys, table trays, and rudimentary hospital equipment.

The Crystal Rebel leader's pace down the hall was deliberately slow so that Applejack, Twilight, and Fluttershy could see through each doorway the apparent crimes of the Empire's Royal Family. Each doorway beheld long rooms filled hospitalized crystal ponies forcefully sedated or tightly restrained to their beds to restrict violent convulsions. In one room, one stallion broke out of his. An alarm bell was rung. Frantic shouts were exchanged between panicked nurses, and a few stallion rebel guards were called in to hold down the patient and sedate him.

Aurea finally took Applejack and her companion into the last room in the left at the end of hallway. Size wise, it was identical, but this milky crystal room had nothing but unconscious patients and the most medical equipment, which Applejack swore were lifted from a Gaean hospital. Every patient had heart-rate monitors beeping in slow unison and respirators hissing in eerie calmness. The only other conscious ponies were at the far corner of the right side of the room. One was a milky white earth pony female nurse, and the other a caramel-colored unicorn doctor male with flatlining heart rate monitor as his destiny glyph. The stress of his findings of a patient hidden behind a bleach-white curtains reflected in his unkempt mane and his wrinkled white lab coat.

"You've seen that pony who went wild," said Aurea. "Like all these ponies in these hospital beds, she suffered Bliss withdrawal. Bliss is the medicine they require all the crystal ponies to take for disease prevention, but in reality it alters their mood and forces them to become happy against the will. This is the end result of the Bliss withdrawal. Comas. Organ failure. I'm not sure if these ponies will ever wake up."

"Their voices," Fluttershy muttered. "I can still hear them."

"It's quiet here, Flutters," said Applejack.

"No. It's the loudest here. They're still in pain, in extreme agony! I can't bear it!"

Aurea had motioned Quicksilver to escort Fluttershy out of the room. Applejack did not know what she saw, but between violent withdrawals of the drug and this room, she found this one the most disconcerting. Mares. Stallions. The elderly. The drug had left their bodies mangled internally, and their manes and coats were dulled. It wasn't as if the government of Gaea was a stranger to this kind of callous and horrific experimentation on a massive scale, but to see this in a seemingly pure Empire sickened Applejack.

Applejack and Twilight walked down the room looking at each pony patient, and a few they read their charts. They tried to remember their names, but the sickening air of the Empire's crimes against their own people made it difficult, if not impossible to do so. They reached the end of the room to meet up with the nurse who wiped the brow and horn of the stressed doctor.

"So you must be the Esteemed Guests everypony is talking about," he said. "I feel so ashamed to have you see our beloved Empire like this. My name is Stable by the way. I maintain the equipment Aurea and her guards wheel in once a week."

"So you're not a doctor?" asked Twilight.

"I never intended to be, but fate forced me learn as much as I can to help these ponies. After learning about what my equipment did to these ponies, I had to hide underground and find a way to undo the damage I had unintentionally caused to them. It's ironic that my Destiny Glyph will be the heart rate monitors hooked up to all these ponies."

"So this is what happens in the latter stages of withdrawal?"

"Indeed. Bliss is a hyperactive stimulant that causes an overproduction of serotonin. Problem is, it also causes an overproduction of adrenalin and other hormones, which is enough to throw many ponies into a violent rage among other ailments. These ponies here were many of the first victims Aurea and I managed to rescue from the underground dungeons."

"The ponies on the surface seem okay."

"Only because the Royal Family have refined the drug after numerous 'testing' done in the guise of free healthcare."

"Who's behind the curtains?"

The doctor sighed, and somberly he pulled away the curtains to reveal a bed surrounded with twice as many medical equipment as the others in the room and twice as many tubes poked into the unconscious patient. To Applejack and Twilight's horror, this patient was but a filly, and many patches of her coat had been fallen off her skin. The heart rate monitor blipped once every second.

"She has no name, but we call her Opal Bloom since she is an orphan," said Doctor Stable. "The cabal had been rounding them out for their drug testing along with ponies who have little or no relatives. They tell the public that they have been found loving homes or relocated in rehabilitation centers. They're partly right about the latter."

"You named her Opal Bloom?" asked Applejack.

"It was Aurea who suggested it. Was that not an appropriate filly's name?"

"Actually, it is. It's just that..."

It did not take much effort imagine Apple Bloom lying in near-death before Applejack's eyes. Her coat color might be different, and surely most fillies look similar to one another. Opal Bloom had a large yellow ribbon tied in her mane in a way Applejack would have done to her own little sister.

This was unforgivable. Applejack clenched her teeth to contain her anger and to prevent herself from smashing the wall and causing a cave-in. She didn't hear the silent voices like Fluttershy, but she could visually imagine them as she trotted out the room and into the hallway. She didn't want to look at these victims of the Empire, but she couldn't erase the images of the near-lifeless bodies out of her minds.

She finally found her Shine, but the stallion she knew or thought she knew wasn't the one she expected. He wouldn't have allowed all this to happen underneath his snout. He had a sense of righteousness, and would never allow children to be harmed in his exploits. If he were a part of this, she would not know what to do. She was afraid of what she might do to him, and this angered her further. Shining Armor might not be the mastermind, but if he was assisting the cabal, he must be stopped.

"Applejack, are you okay?"

The calming light of her world, Twilight, appeared before her.

"I know, it's sickening," the unicorn continued. "For a moment when we arrived, I thought we found a paradise where ponies could live together in harmony, but underneath it all, it's no different from Gaea. To think my brother's arrival--"

"It ain't his fault, sugarcube," Applejack assured. "We woulda caused the Empire a whole lotta distress anyway if we came here before Shine, even if we didn't find anythin' wrong here. I know we're supposed to go huntin' for the Elements, but since we can't leave, we can at least save this Empire before savin' the world. Otherwise, we'd be nothin' but selfish ponies after power."

"You're right. We don't have any proof that Shining Armor has anything to do with this, but if he is a part of it, I'll be the one to stop him."

"Twi, you don't have to..."

"He's my brother, and he's my responsibility."

"All right. We'll go talk to the Aurea mare and plan a way to put an end to the cabal behind all this."

They never got that chance, for Castle and two spear-armed crystal stallions cut them off before they could reenter the room.

"I knew we couldn't trust you mares!" he cried. "The Royal Guards have discovered the bookstore's secret entrance, and now they're coming down here!"

"What's going on?" asked Aurea after overhearing Castle's shouts.

"These so-called guests sold us out!"

"Now's not the time to panic, Castle. It was a matter of time anyway, and I needed to see firsthoof if I can trust the safety of our Empire to them."

"They bear the pieces of the Elements of Creation. You know the destructive power of those accursed artifacts."

"Like I said, I trust the safety of our Empire, and our Empire alone. Applejack, you and your friends cannot be caught here. We'll find a way to meet again, but if you don't hear from us in one day's time..."

"Yeah, I know. Where's is Fluttershy?"

"The pegasus?" asked Castle. "I think she's in the children's ward entertaining them."

Immediately, Applejack and Twilight ran off to the children's ward where Fluttershy had just finished reading a book to about eight of them. Discreetly as they could, the two of them relayed the news to the pegasus that they needed to escape. While she understood this perfectly, Fluttershy and her two friends tried hard not to arouse any panic from the foals in recovery, but it was hard to hide the urgency with adult ponies running back and forth in a panic to fortify their base against a Royal Guard onslaught.

Another nurse mare took over for Fluttershy and told the young patients about the game they were playing to further reduce the stress upon them. Satisfied that the children would be looked after, Fluttershy followed Applejack and Twilight back out into the main hallway where piles of papers were burned and shredded into wastebaskets. Non-critical medical equipment were smashed and destroyed. Able-bodied Rebel Guards lined up in attention as Castle marched up and down dolling out orders to each and every one of them.

Aurea and Quicksilver escorted the three Esteemed Guests out of the base and back into crystal mines. Not wanting to travel back the way they came, the mares walked through a more treacherous route that ascended higher and higher, and crossed many deep crevices and dangerous drops. Applejack and her friends suddenly noticed Aurea staggering back purposefully. She winked to the ponies in front of her, and immediately turned around to gallop back to the secret Rebel Base.

"Keep moving," Quicksilver ordered, "and keep up."

Aurea could only escort them halfway only to be sure of Applejack and her friends' safety. With Quicksilver in control, the walk became a gallop when she sprinted ahead, forcing Applejack, Twilight, and Fluttershy to run to simply keep sight of her. Moments later at a safe height from the lower levels of the mines, the three soon began seeing below them the ant-like influx of the Royal Guards' Geosense Corps and Magic Corps. Bridges were bombed and rocks fell from the ceiling in the ensuing battle, but the Royal Guards marched on unfazed and created bridges with unicorn magic. The tremors of the battle below made it seem that the mines could collapse on itself at any moment, but Applejack and her friends had to press on for their own safety, even if a part of each them wanted to go back and help the Crystal Rebels fend off the Royal Guards. Pinkie might be absent from their group, but even with two of the Elements of Creation, they had an equal chance of driving the Guards away or falling in battle. Even then, Applejack knew that she and her friends were currently in a perfect position to stop the Empire form poisoning its own ponies and prevent a civil war from tearing it apart. This was not a battle they could fight right now.

The three had lost sight of Quicksilver at a turn, but Applejack's recently discovered Geosense ability led her friends to a dead-end where the yellowish Crystal Rebel had been impatiently waiting. Once they arrived, Quicksilver pressed a panel on the wall to open a stone door leading into a large basement storage room of some house or warehouse building. Several old wooden chairs, tables, and other pieces of furniture were piled on top of one another, but all were positioned in a way that would obscure anypony's entrance or exit through the secret passage.

"Make sure nopony sees you when you get out," said Quicksilver. "We're at the third to last ring of Underton."

She motioned Applejack and her friends to enter ahead of her, and once they did, Quicksilver immediately sealed the stone door behind them. Now they really couldn't go back, but hopefully no Royal Guards would be able to find them here.

The coast was clear when they emerged out into what appeared to be a warehouse district of Underton. There was hardly any activity in the lower levels of the mining village, and although the buildings were carved rougher and veering towards utilitarian, the area was still much more clean and amicable than many of the so-called government worker districts of Gaeaopolis.

But this was no time to admire the neighborhood. Once they were a block away from where they emerged, Applejack, Twilight, and Fluttershy raced up the spiral incline of the main road, hoping that nopony, especially that of the Diamond Princess' entourage, noticed their absence of their impromptu eating contest. Yet nopony seem to be suspicious of three non-crystal ponies running up to the ground level in a panic. The citizens Applejack and her friends passed by still had those forced smiles due to the drug in their system, and yet they had not ran into a Royal Guard or two. They even passed the bookstore where they entered into the underground rebel base, and found no guards or anypony lurking around.

Applejack led her two friends back to the alleyway where they took a breather to escape from the eyes of the Royal entourage. Twilight quickly summoned back their summer dresses back onto their bodies and redid the any hairstyling and makeup Rarity and her handmaidens performed on them. Prettied up once more, the three mares composed themselves as best they could with a deep sigh, and then as nonchalantly as possible exposed themselves to the main street with a dainty trot.

Right after they turned a corner, Spike, who was wrapped in bandages in his arms and legs, collapsed in front of them. He had been dragging Pinkie Pie on his back the whole time, and the pink pony had trail of red running down her forehead towards her snout.

"Girls!" Pinkie Pie cried. "It was terrible! Rarity… she..."

The pink pony rolled over and fainted. Behind her and Spike, a stern-faced Rarity and her guard escorts arrived and stared towards Applejack, Twilight, and Fluttershy.

Comments

[DayDreamer]

S..so I guess that means Rarity won the eating contest? Another great chapter. Awesome job.

[GMZ_Casper]

3374904
That is true, but that isn't what I was referring to. She seems to have a special ability of controlling others. However, I don't know the full depth of what and how regarding it, without more info on it. I know it is a version of Fluttershy's Stare, but the normal version (if it is close to canon at all) shouldn't really do that. It does seems similar, and it didn't exactly remove free will, but it felt that it influenced the victim differently than Fluttershy's...at least, that is what I theorized, and I could easily be wrong about it.

[GMZ_Casper]

3388987
You may want to read onward before you go with that theory...

Eh, maybe, maybe not.

3349920
I don't know about that. You can be a compulsive liar and yet still have an honest heart. Or, the reverse could happen, where you can tell the truth most (if not all) of the time, but have a dishonest heart (I think the best example of this would be with Salvador Cumo from Xiaolin Chronicles, who used either the truth or sweet words to lure in his victims, in order to fool them into doing something he wishes).

[ferret]

"The cabal had been rounding them >out< for their drug testing