"Buck!" screamed Smooth Heart, slamming her hooves again against the metallic door. Which, of course, didn't budge.
"It's useless ma'am. We are trapped, until somepony arrives and deal with this, In one way or another. Or until we are able to remove the ring from my horn. In that case, I could free us." Stated the alicorn calmly. Smooth was already opening her mouth to give a venomous answer, but closed it when she realized that Blaze was right.
She let herself fall against the wall, and sighed loudly. They were trapped. And they couldn't get out, since there was no trace of the object they were looking for.
"You know… I'm starting to think we are going to die, in here." She quietly murmured. Blaze turned towards her, his eyes open in a surprised frown.
"Last time we talked about this, you seemed to be more optimistic."
"I was." Grunted the mare, passing a hoof over her eyes. "But then, shit happened. I actually realized that Crystal had the hoof on us from the beginning. He talked about data: is this some sort of test for him?" she asked loudly. The alicorn sat silently, a frown on his face when he heard the unicorn's name. The mare sighed again, while sliding to the ground and sitting there, her head softly thumping against the door.
"I don't know what's going to happen Blaze." She murmured, her voice slightly cracked. "I just thought we would have to beat the prisoners back into place. I knew that much. But I didn't know a lot more things." She gulped, then spoke again, her voice cracking even more. "I lost two ponies. I lost two ponies here Blaze. I never lost a pony, not even when I was in the royal guard, or here during some small riot. And now, I lost two ponies." Blaze's ears twitched at the sound of her voice.
"One was slaughtered by that… thing that Crystal calls a shadow, and the second one… Masud… he was…" began the mare, before finally giving up and starting to cry. Blaze studied the mare for a couple of seconds. He knew what she was passing through. He passed through that as well, even if on a far smaller scale. That had been unexpected, but even more unexpected was that he was feeling… weird, because the mare herself was sad.
When his mother had been in charge of teaching him the basics of… well, everything, she said a word. Empathy. She said that he wasn't supposed to feel it, since he didn't have to feel anything for his enemies. But she also said that that was a shame. But from what he understood, it was quite similar to what he was feeling now. He suddenly felt the urge to comfort the crying mare. He stood up from the medical bed and walked to Smooth's side.
"Mother told me about Masud. He was a good zebra and an excellent guard." He said, while sitting at the mare's side. Smooth Heart sniffed and nodded, leaning against the alicorn. Blaze moved his hooves slightly, uncomfortable, as his wings unfurled again with a soft 'pomf'. "What's wrong with me?" he thought to himself.
Smooth Heart gave a quick glance to the unfurled, candid wings and smiled slightly, before softly nuzzling the alicorn's side. Blzer rocked slightly, uncomfortable. He was receiving too much information from his senses that he didn't have any idea of how to understand. Then suddenly, the mare jumped at him, pushing him to the ground. It was mostly surprise that stopped him from reacting. He looked with confusion at the mare that was above him, her eyes now clean of tears. He noticed that her wings were completely opened.
"Have you ever danced, Blaze?" she asked in a calm tone, her eyes sparkling.
"I can't say I have, ma'am…" murmured the stallion, gulping. He would have really preferred to be fighting Plea without his magic and three legs tied, instead of being in that unexpected situation.
"This is fine. Then, I'll lead." Whispered the mare, before pressing her muzzle against Blaze's.
-oOo-
"Ok, something is gone wrong." Commented Midnight Shadow, while looking around in the corridor. "Why is there only us?"
"Maybe the others got captured?" proposed McGash, while studying the home-made automatic crossbow that Gizmo Fidget had made for him.
"I doubt it. There would probably be a corpse from the aggressors, if that was the case, and some sign of blood. No, they probably hid themselves." Commented Stained Reflex, twiching her ears. "What are we going to do now?" she then asked the unicorn who was looking worriedly around. Midnight was silent for a couple of seconds, scratching his neck.
"We search for the stairs. we are out of options anyway."
"We could quickly check fast the hospital bay, and see if maybe Smooth Heart and Blaze are still there." Commented Gizmo, trying to sound calm. "At least, if they are still there we can count on their help. It couldn't hurt to check." The unicorn nodded, before gesturing to the others to follow him down the clean and silent corridor.
-oOo-
"Wow. I have to admit, this is quite impressive." Commented Plea, walking slowly along the footwalk, his metallic hooves clanking against the metallic surface, as he looked curiously at the sea of undead creatures standing motionless below him. On the other hoof, all the prisoners that were there were backing away in fear.
"Thanks Plea." Said calmly Crystal, walking up the metal stairs. "Now, I can proceed with the final part." He commented, looking down. "By the way, why are you here? I thought you were going to replace your fur."
"The ponies you kindly spared have broken out." replied the metallic pegasus with his dissonant voice. Crystal's head shot up, as an angry frown formed on his muzzle.
"Well then, that's what somepony gets for being a little gentle." He growled. Then he leaned over the edge of the footwalk, his horn lighting up and the images of Smooth Heart and the others appearing, shimmering above the group of undead ponies.
Broken Jinx shivered.
"Watumwa, those are your first enemies! Crawl around, search them out, find them and kill them!" He ordered. Then he turned towards Plea. "Find them and slaughter them."
"No problem. I have already located Smooth Heart and the alicorn." commented the mechanical pegasus, flapping his wings. "I'm going to get them." The unicorn nodded, then pointed at the group of zombies walking up the stairs.
"You, you and you, come here." ordered Crystal. Three ponies parted from the rest of the group and crawled towards him and Plea, while the prisoners whimpered and fell back, cowering behind the unicorn. Plea didn't visibly react, even if his metallic feathers spasmed.
The three ponies were bigger than the other corpses, their white fur slightly stained with blood, their wings dangling at their sides, their horns sparkling faintly.
"Alicorn?" asked Plea, raising an eyebrow. They were indeed a tall alicorn mare and a couple of stallions, a bulky one and a skinny one.
"Alicorn? Wasn't Blaze the only one?" asked Cobalt Rain in a hushed voice, looking with fear below them. Broken Jinx nodded, his eyes still locked on Crystal Horn.
"Blaze is the oldest and finished. But a great number of them were in development. Those three were the most complete ones, almost as old as Blaze. In all likelihood the other…samples… were useless as test subjects for his poison." He finally managed to say.
"Other samples?" asked Moneybags, joining the other two in front of the grate.
"Foals."
"Oh."
"Take them with you." Said Crystal. "They'll obey you. Find the fugitives and kill them." Plea nodded and walked away, followed by the alicorns' bodies. "Instead, you bunch of cowards…" began the unicorn, turning towards the prisoners. "Find Zira and kill her."
"Uh? Why sir…?" managed to ask the mare that had brought him the vial full of poison.
"They weren't able to escape on their own. There were no possible escapes from that room. The door was the only possibe exit. And it only could have been opened from outside or from the control point. Find that zebra and kill her."
"Yes sir! and you?" asked again the mare, straightening a little and saluting. The unicorn looked at her for a couple of seconds, then started to walk away, while answering.
"I'll take the speed transport under this floor towards the sixth level. And finish what I have started." He grunted, before disappearing from sight.
"Well, that's great. Now what?" managed to sask Twisted Soul. Broken Jinx bit his lip. There was a large group of undead ponies, that he had been sure existed only in legends and movies, but were now searching for the rest of them. They could return to the first level, but they would lose Crystal…
"We'll follow Crystal Horn." He ordered. "I don't know what he's going to do in the last level of the storage area. I don't even know what there is there. But we have to stop him, since I highly doubt he's going to do anything good."
"You're the boss." Commented Moneybags, rolling over and crawling down the vent system.
"When we'll get our hooves on him, we'll force him to end that…spell, on the bodies." Added Cobalt Rain, crawling behind the earth pony.
"Whatever you want. Then, I'll beat him up. The most violent possible way."
-oOo-
"Why is this thing not dying?!" cried out McGash, shooting crazily at the earth pony in the prisoner's suit that was stumbling towards them. He had come around a corner, and was now walking towards them without a word, ignoring the bullets that had penetrated in his neck, chest, and had took away half of his head.
On the other side of the corridor, Stained Reflex was shooting against a pegasus mare in a lab suit. She cursed and reloaded the hoof-made rifle, while the pegasus mare just continued to walk towards her, half of her skull gone, revealing her brain.
"I don't know and quite frankly, I don't care!" shouted back Midnight Shadow, his horn blazing as he beheaded a unicorn. The head of the pony fell on the ground, and a thick, green smoke flew away from the severed neck. The body trembled and fell to the ground as well. "We have to move towards the infirmary! Just hold them back." he ordered, beginning to run, immediately followed by Gizmo. The mare and the griffin shot another couple of times, before galloping away.
"They seem to be something like zombies!" cried out Gizmo Fidget, while almost tripping on his hooves.
"Those creatures are good only for scaring pups!" growled back McGash.
"Then what are they?!" snarled Stained Reflex, glaring at the griffin.
"I… don't have any idea…"
"We are here!" screamed Midnight, cutting off the conversation. He gave a quick glance over the door, and immediately noted the tracks of a blowtorch. He slammed his hoof against the metallic surface. "Smooth Heart! Blaze! Are you two in there?!" he asked, while firing a shot against an earth pony in a straightjacket crawling towards him.
"Midnight? Yes, we are here!" sounded the voice of the pegasus mare.
"Bingo. Now we just have to open the damned door then." Grunted Stained Reflex, her shot blasting off the head of a unicorn mare. "So we have any idea how to do that?"
"I can try to force open the door. I mean, at least the pistons of the door will force it, and we can try to break in." Commented Gizmo, studying the door. "I can do it easily, and I can make a blowtorch in a minute, but I'll need your help Midnight." He added, beginning to tap on the panel beside the door.
"Whatever you want to do, be quick about it!" growled the griffin.
"Done!" called happily the earth pony, parting from the door as it opened with a low whistle. The griffin whistled, then ruffled the feathers on his neck, trying not to look impressed.
"Ma'am, we got separated from the others and now there are these things trying to…" began Midnight, before stopping and looking confused: Smooth Heart was messy, her mane tangled and ruffled. Blaze, beside her, was red as a tomato, his wings open wide and his mane messed up as well.
"Trying to…?" asked the mare, raising an eyebrow. Midnight Shadow blinked, before regaining his composure.
"To kill us. We have to move. Did you find a way to free Blaze's horn?"
"Nope. Give me a gun Gizmo!" ordered the mare, grasping one of the weapons that were on the earth pony's back, and turning towards the ponies that were advancing towards them. She blinked a little at the sight, but then just aimed and shot. "Where are Broken Jinx and the others?"
"I don't know, they must have escaped somehow. They probably encountered some guards." Commented Midnight, while beheading another undead pony.
"And these things?" she asked, blasting off a head and quickly reloading her rifle.
"Don't know. Just blast off their heads." Growled Stained Reflex, shooting an entire magazine into one of the creatures.
"That's enough." Commented Smooth Heart, while Blaze smashed nonchalantly one of the undead's head against a wall. "Let's move down. It's the only escape route, so eventually we'll end up coming across the others." Ordered the mare, before she noticed the sound of metallic hooves galloping over the floor.
"Stop them! Don't let them escapescreamed the metallic pegasus in his horrible voice, his sharp wings flapping wildly as he ran through the corridor, chopping pieces off from the crawling ponies he passed. Behind him, the three alicorns were trotting, their horns lowered. Blaze gave a quick glance at them, before turning towards the others.
"I suggest we flee as quick as possible. The odds, in a closed environment like this aren't in our advantage." He stated, his voice firm and calm, as if he was calmly sitting at a tea party.
"Well, if you find a good way to do so, we'll follow , smartass!" growled Stained Reflex, hitting an undead with her rifle barrel to push it back, before blasting off its jaw. The alicorn blinked, before grasping a weapon from Gizmo's saddlebag.
"Ah, no no Blaze, that's not a good weapon for this kind of fight!" exclaimed hurriedly the earth pony, pointing at two rockets at the edge of the weapon. "It's for fortifications, or a heavily armored enemy. I patched it up for those kind of si-"
He was cut of when the alicorn aimed at the floor, and shot the first rocket. Even if he shot far from them, the blast sent them to the ground as the floor exploded, sending debris all around, a couple of pieces hitting the undeads' heads. Plea didn't flinch and continued to gallop towards them, as from the alicorns horns, streams of green light were shot towards the group of ponies.
"Get down, down!" ordered the alicorn. The ponies and griffin gave a glance at the metallic pegasus chasing after them, before jumping down. After a fall of not even three meters, their hooves hit the ground. They flinched a little, before looking around: the corridor was quite empty, so they started to gallop away.
"Where are we going?!" cried out McGash, while following the others.
"I don't know! The furthest away possible from here!" screamed Smooth Heart. Plea's head poked through the hole, glaring down.
"Don't even try to escape from me!" he screamed, his voice piercing the ponies' ears. Blaze calmly aimed at the hole and fired the second rocket, tossing the weapon on the floor as soon the explosion echoed down the corridor.
"I thought you wanted to kill that thing." Commented Midnight, looking curiously at the alicorn. "Something changed?" The alicorn gave a quick glance at Smooth Heart, before returning his eyes to the unicorn.
"Yes. Something did change." He commented.
"Guys! Hey guys!" cried out a muffled voice from an air duct. "If you open this thing, we can run as well, you know."
"Of all the most stupid things…" grumbled Smooth Heart, as Midnight Shadow's horn lit up without him stopping, chopping away a part of the duct. With a series of grunts, Broken Jinx and the others crawled out of the vent, and joined the others on the run.
"It is nice of you to join us." Grinned Midnight Shadow, as Moneybags fell in step beside him.
"What are we running from?" asked Broken Jinx, while giving a quick glance behind them.
"The metallic pony."
"Oh. Got it."
"Saw what's going on?"
"Crystal Horn resurrected the dead with a poison, and he's heading towards the sixth level."
"Well, that's great." Grunted Smooth Heart, as Cobalt Rain and Silver Image shared a quick nuzzle, before Stained Reflex got back control of the mare's body and pushed back the pegasus. "We have to run towards the suspended wagos transport system. Maybe we can catch him."
"I hope so. Don't know what he's going to do, but I sure don't want to stay here and find out." Broken Jinx nodded, before turning toward the others. "Hey you all, it's quite likely that we are going to get in even more trouble. Are you with us?"
"Buck no!" screamed Twisted Soul, but his voice was covered by the exclamations of the rest of the ponies, and the muffled comment of McGash: "They'll better pay me extra." Broken Jinx grinned, and led the group down the corridors of the lab. Now that the other three unicorns had joined the group, they could continue to run and blast the occasional undead's head off without even stopping. Sometimes Smooth Heart and Broken Jinx flinched, when they saw the remains of a pony that they hadknown crawl towards them. But not for long.
They continued to run for some time, before passing through metallic door. They stopped, and stared, mouths agape, to what there was in front of them: the structure ended in a cave. An immense cave, carved crudely into stone. It was quite the change of scenery. The air was suddenly cold, as the floor continued a little bit, before cutting abruptly off into nothingness. Despite the set of lights lighting up the floor, the cavern was still submerged in darkness. A metallic bar, similar to a railroad, was suspended in midair, heading into the darknes.
"I don't know why, but I suppose that this isn't what we were hoping for, right?" commented Moneybags, noticing the looks on Smooth and Broken Jinx's muzzles.
"There was supposed to be a wagon here…" muttered the unicorn, pointing to the railroad thing. "But I guess Crystal's dislodged them… And we can't call his back from here, we have to return back to the control point…"
"Too bad you can't, right?" asked a distorted voice: Plea walked out of the door, limping slightly on a hindleg, as some sparks sizzled out from his metallic neck. Behind him, the three alicorns walked slowly towards the ponies, their horns blazing with green magic.
"Now, at this point its just stupid what you are doing." Growled Broken Jinx, aiming his rifle at the metallic pegasus. "You see what Crystal is doing! We have to stop him from doing whatever he wants to do!"
"Whatever you say, guard. I can't actually help you even if I wanted to. Now, we can just chill here, and wait. Nothing is going to change anyway." Commented calmly the pegasus, after glaring at the alicorn. As soon as he stopped talking, a blue, metallic wagon arrived, sliding down on the tracks with a slight hiss. "That's not…possible…"
-oOo-
Zira panted, looking at one of the last screens of her enormous computer. The rest of the screens were craked or completely smashed, glass shards scattered all over the floor, as well as twenty corpses, from all the prisoners that had tried to kill her. Just because she seemed a little nerdy, it didn't mean she wasn't able to fight. She was beaten too, that was true; she had been hit by an enormous number of bullets, hits and slashes, but she was fine.
Ok, she wasn't fine at all. She could feel her breaths become smaller every second, and the pain was numbing her brain. But she managed to call back the tram for those ponies. She looked on the screen, watched how they rushed in, as they blasted an alicorn's head off. She saw the alicorn, the very first success of the labs, charge Plea and pin him to the ground, he slashes from the metallic wings of the pegasus. She saw one of the alicorns charge stupidly into the two, pushing them both over the edge, as the last undead alicorn followed them, pushed off by the earth pony mobster and the unicorn medic.
She panted, coughing a little bit of blood on the keyboard. She tapped with her trembling hooves on a couple of buttons, before pushing a red lever. She saw the wagon tremble, and return to where it had come from. She smiled weakly, before sittting on the floor. She had done what she could. Now she was tired.
Awfully tired…
-oOo-
"Ma'am… are you ok…?" asked cautiously Broken Jinx, looking at the mare that was sitting in a corner of the wagon, glaring at the floor. Silver Image was beside her, murmuring comfortingly to her, as Shimmering Star distractedly rubbed Smooth Heart's back.
"Leave her alone, I think we may have something else to prepare." Whispered Midnight Shadow, loading his weapon and checking it.
"We are nearing the end. For better or worse." Murmured Cobalt Rain, as Nox fixed some scratches on the pegasus' wings. "In case I don't make it, you were a good friend Nox."
"You tell me that every time." Snickered unicorn, as the wagon decreased its speed and began to ascend.
"Huh? What's wrong? Why we are going up?" asked the griffin, looking around worriedly, as the wagon trembled a little.
"The storage levels aren't under the facility. It would be silly to store extremely precious equipement under fifteen levels in a seismic zone. Imagine if the anti-seismic devices didn't work. Actually, the last three levels are on the top of a mountain. The sixth level is righ on top." Explained Broken Jinx, as the wagon stopped and opened with a whistle.
"Let's go break some fucking bones." growled Smooth Heart, wiping away a tear.
-oOo-
Like all the labs, the 3-6 level was clean. And perfect. No stains, no blood splattered on the walls. All calm and silent. And extremely small. There were just a couple of rooms, before the main area: an immense, carved room in the mountain. As soon as the door opened, the ponies looked around with amazement, gazing at how well the metallic floor merged with the stone walls. The wall had an immense aperture on one side, showing the view of the Everfree Forest, lit up by the morning sun.
In the middle of the room, a series of machines were mounted under an immense parabolic antenna. Their eyes scanned the machine, before turning towards the only other pony in the room: Crystal Horn was looking through the hole in the wall, looking at the forest below him.
"Oh, you managed to arrive here. I'm quite surprised." He commented, turning and smiling at them. His smile didn't fad when at least four weapons clicked, ready to fire.
"On the floor Crystal, and put your hooves behind your head." Ordered coldly the pegasus mare. The unicorn ignored her, returning to watch out of the hole.
"You don't want to know why I did it?" he asked, with a little smile. The mare huffed. "I needed access to this place. And I also needed to prepare a special poison. A poison I'm sure you have seen in action."
"You are talking about the undead ponies, right? You are crazy, Crystal." Commented Broken Jinx, ready to block any spell the unicorn could have tried to use against them.
"Yes, them. And also, I needed to study the reaction of ponies in a situation of ignorance and danger. From this, I have to thank your friend Twisted Soul." Commented the unicorn, tapping his hat. "Since the experiment he did while he was free saved me a lot of time."
"That's nice…" growled the unicorn, his horn flashing of purple magic.
"Anyway, I needed a sample of poison, after testing its effects, and bring it here. Where there is this thing." Said Crystal, pointing at the parable-thing. "A material-convertor."
"A what now?" asked Silver Image, while Gizmo's eyes shone in wonder.
"It's sad to say, but even the most magical of the potions, in the end, is just a chemical. A composition of atoms. This thing is a magical convertor, that can change any kind of atomic mix into another." His mouth opened in a grin, while pointing at the machine. "Imagine the result, if the composition of the water would be changed in the composition of my poison…" he left the sentence suspended, while looking the terrified expressions on the other ponies faces.
"That would be the biggest bioterrorism attack of all times!" exclaimed Moneybags. "Boy, you are crazy!"
"Nice story. And guess what, I don't care why you decided to do something like that. Now on the ground, and we'll leave it to the princess to judge you." Ordered Cobalt Rain. For the first time, the unicorn's expression changed to one of surprise.
"Judge me? Do you mean, it will still be a concern for her?"
"What do you…?"
"Wait, did you really think I told my genius plan to you before actually accomplishing it, like a low-level fictional villain?" asked Crystal Horn in surprise. The machine whistled, and began to emit strange muffled sounds, as the antenna began to move.. "I already did it. I initialized the procedure. Ten minutes ago."
Oo-oOYeah, shit is going crazy. And worsening up for good. Stay tuned, the last chapter will be up in a few days!