Chapter 1: The Mutants

=Gaia, Equestria, Future Site of the Badlands. The Domed City, The Cages, 145, 675 P.C.E. =

The Doctor slowly began to awaken. As his vision came back into focus, he began to realize where he actually was. He saw from his surroundings that he was in a metal cylinder that stretched up all around him. It went up too high for him to get out. Looking up though, he could see he was outside. Looking around, he could see that this place was deliberately made as cramped and uncomfortable as they could really make it. He looked around for anything else that was keeping him from staying down here. He felt around wildly. He found a wire in the back of its neck. He realized that it was directly to vital nerves in his central nervous system. If he yanked too hard on it, it would tear said nerves out of his head, killing him very quickly. They obviously didn't think he was intelligent enough to remove it without ending up in a puddle of blood on the floor. So he pulled out a pair of scissors from his pocket. He cut off the wire directly at the skin. He began looking for a way to climb out of the tall cylinder they had put it in. He wondered how his friends were reacting to this same situation he was now in.

Romana, being at the same intelligence level if not more as the Doctor, also managed to quickly figure out what was going on with the wire as well. She pulled out the sonic screwdriver she had made for herself. She held it to the bit of the wire closest to her neck, and activated the screwdriver. The screwdriver created an electric overload that snapped the wire right at her skin. She stood up and looked around. She could tell that she needed to find a way out. She could bet that the Doctor had found some kind of way to break the wire without killing himself, but she was rather worried about Daring Do.

Daring Do was not doing well. She was no expert in pony anatomy, but she knew enough to figure out what would happen if she tugged the wire too much. She figured that The Doctor and Romana must have just pulled something out of their pockets to snap the wire, but lucky her, she didn't have anything at all. She didn't even have pockets at the moment. So really, all she could do until she found some kind of escape plan was sit and try not to kill herself. She would be able to find some way out eventually.

If you're wondering why The Doctor hadn't even tried to escape yet, it's because he needed to know how many guards were standing outside, and there were no windows of any kind in the cylinder. But once he knew how many guards there were, he could better calculate his escape plan. Suddenly he heard somepony (or perhaps somebody, he wasn't sure) coming up a ladder that was built on the side. He waited for whoever it was.

When the whatever they called themselves came up and shimmied down the cylinder, he couldn't tell if it was one of the ones he had seen, as he was wearing a gas mask. He craned down to look at the Doctor. "This one snapped his wire. Guess we can't use him for the experimentation." He recognized the voice of the first hunter. He supposed that he wore most of his courage like a pelt outside the fence, which he shed when he came back in. Right now it seemed that he didn't find it safe to even breathe in his presence, like he was contaminated. He began to climb back up out of the cylinder.

"Experimentation, eh? What's that like?" The Doctor asked.

Vyne didn't answer. He was obviously so shocked to hear him talking that he shimmied up the cylinder as fast as he could, but he tripped and fell, knocking himself unconscious in the landing. The Doctor moved past him and began to climb up the cylinder as fast as he could. He doubted that the guard had hit his head hard enough to not wake up before he successfully climbed out of said cylinder, but he could try.

Another guard descended into Romana's cylinder. He found the same thing that Vyne did: she had snapped her wire. "This one isn't eligible for the experiments either." And then he simply climbed out. Romana decided not to do anything about this one. She was simply happy that she wasn't going through the experiments, which didn't sound pleasant. Then she froze. What if one of her friends hadn't removed the wire?

When the same guard descended into Daring Do's cylinder, he smiled behind his gas mask to see the wire was still intact. "This one'll do." He said, grabbing Daring Do and pulling her up, detaching the wire. A shock ran through the wire as it was disconnected that immobilized her and made it difficult to process the information around her.

She was taken into the city. She was set down on a table and she just barely watched as the guard talked to Krycer, saying words she couldn't hear. The guard nodded and walked over to her. He placed the wire into a socket. Another great electric jolt ran through Daring Do.

=Gaia, Equestria, Future Site of the Badlands, The Domed City, The Cages, The Doctor's Cage, 145, 675 P.C.E. =

The Doctor had quickly realized he couldn't climb out of the cylinder by himself, and had found and taken the magnetic gloves from Vyne's hooves and hands. It was still not an easy task getting back up the cylinder, since the gloves were not even close to being made for his hooves. Still, he kept going anyway, as it was still easier.

Vyne came to and saw the Doctor climbing up out of the cylinder. He gasped when he realized what that meant. "No!" he yelled. "All of you mutants are contaminated. A disease! I refuse to allow you to bring the infection of devolution into the city!" In his extreme horror, he bought up his gun, set it to kill, and fired it.

=Gaia, Equestria, Future Site of the Badlands, The Domed City, Contamination Experimentation Laboratory, 145, 675 P.C.E. =

The jolt returned full mobility to Daring Do's body, but not in time to stop her frombeing sealed by metal restraints and automatically lifted into a glass cylinder that was sealed onto the floor.

Krycer put on a white gas mask and stepped forward up to the controls next to the glass cylinder. "And now we shall begin stage 1 of the experiment to correct mutations on the body of the mutant." And he pressed a button and turned a knob on the control panel.

Pain like no other shot through Daring Do's body as the experiment began.