"Day three," she whispered, dragging the rock across the wall to tally off another day. "Supplies dwindling. No chance of escape."
The man in the white suit who stood guard looked back over his shoulder at her briefly.
"Hermione, you can stop saying that now. Artemis is figuring a way out, I'm certain."
"Do you really think so?"
"Hermione dear, that's what I'm certain means. Don't worry."
The little fire they had been keeping was beginning to wear down, open flames did not like to last very long in the planet's atmosphere. Hermione broke off another portion of the portable firestarter and tossed it into the center, causing the fire to grow back to its normal size. She had one piece left, a bundle of wax and wood and accelerant. There were two energy bars now, a single flare, a half-charged flashlight, and a single fragmentation grenade. Their 'camp' in the colony's cargo bay had remained fairly secure, though by their current standards, that meant they were in danger about every three hours. The fire helped immensely- though they had lights above them in the loading dock, they tended to lose power. When they did, the fire provided some light. It was also warm, and it seemed to Hermione as if they didn't like it. She wasn't certain yet, but she had a hypothesis. Every time the fire died down, they would show up.
"Eliza sure has been gone for a while," Hermione whispered.
"She'll be back," repeated the man.
It was at that moment that the wind picked up, shimmying the loading dock doors and invading the cargo bay. Hermione dashed to block the fire, but it the wind extinguished it with instant cruelty. The old, rusting dock doors eased back under the wind's attack, and scraped through the lights, destroying them.
"A-Atticus," whimpered Hermione. "We just lost both-"
"I know," replied the man softly. "Get your wand ready. Stay close. Everything will be fine."
The ceiling above them gave off a clatter, followed by a rumble, and a set of sharp clicks.
"They're here," gasped Hermione.
"Hey, Curly? We're here."
Hermione inhaled sharply, and snapped her head to the source of the noise. It was Jakuzure, waiting impatiently at the heavy set of doors in front of her.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled. "I… zoned out there, for a bit."
"We know," said Sanageyama. "Is this going to keep happening?"
Hermione did not answer his question, and instead held her AEGIS up to the door's scanner. The system beeped, and the locks within the door began to noisily disengage. It was clear that the Menagerie was sealed off with the same level of security as Research and Development, which did make a creature escaping seem quite suspicious.
"Nonon, move away from the door." Hermione waved her hand to indicate where the girl should go, but Jakuzure simply pouted.
"Why?"
"Because, what if there's something on the other side?"
The doors began to slide apart with a grinding howl.
"There's not anything on the other side," snapped Jakuzure.
"Oh, um, hello there, Nonon, and, uh, Mrs. Granger," whispered Fluttershy, who was on the other side. Hermione twitched in place a little, took a deep breath, and stepped forward.
"I don't know if you're aware, Fluttershy, but there's been an accident."
"An accident? No, I don't think I've heard-"
"Forty-Seven is dead, and one of your creatures is responsible."
Fluttershy slumped to the floor of the entranceway, her eyes welling with tears.
"R-r-really? R-really dead?"
"Yes."
The Pegasus transformed into a sobbing mess on the floor, wailing incoherently. Jakuzure looked back up at Hermione.
"Guilty?" she mouthed.
Hermione shook her head, reached down, and tossed Fluttershy over her shoulder as the group moved down the entranceway. As soon as they passed, the heavy doors sealed behind them, to prevent anything from escaping. The Menagerie was another sort of sterile place, with white walls and grated floors, all sparkling clean. And despite its cleanliness, there was a definite funk in the air that indicated that, at some point, an animal had defecated there. Every few feet there were crooks and prods mounted on the walls, clearly more than enough to wrangle any number of creatures. It was clearly well-equipped, but one thing seemed to be missing.
"Where are all of your animals?" asked Hermione.
"Oh- let me get that," sniffled Fluttershy. She floated off of Hermione's shoulder and pressed in a panel on the wall. The clean, white surfaces split open, pulling away to reveal hundreds of enclosures behind heavy glass. The range of creatures represented was truly immense- there were benign-looking Pokémon, deceptively innocent Tribbles, and a hulking Ravenous Bugblatter Beast. All of them were settled into a rough facsimile of their natural environments, complete with nutrient dispensers. It was about as nice of a setup as one could ask for, especially since most of the animals were there for study and experimentation.
"Now, I-I haven't had any breaches of containment," whimpered the Pegasus. "So I don't know how something could have gotten out. Do you know what it was? We can check and see if anything is missing from its enclosure."
"Double X One-twenty-one," said Hermione grimly.
Fluttershy's eyes widened. "Oh, dear. This way, please."
She led them down a few more corridors, passing by every sort of creature imaginable, from various Earths and otherwise. Hermione looked back over her shoulder at her colleagues, who (excepting Jakuzure) were amazed by the sights.
Typical.
Are you the one looking for me? Oh, it's like un jeu! I'm so excited!
Hermione stopped violently, searching for the source of the voice.
"What are you doing, Curly?" groaned Jakuzure.
The witch could not seem to find anyone else nearby. "Did you- did you hear that? Was that… Pinkie Pie?"
"I DID NOT HEAR ANYTHING," shouted Gamagori.
"Yeah, are you sure you're doing all right?" asked Sanageyama. "You're spacing out, and hearing things- maybe we shouldn't be doing this. You need to chill out."
"No, no," Hermione insisted. "We're going to make up for our earlier mistakes. I have to figure this out."
"Well, um, Mrs. Granger, we're here." Fluttershy pointed a hoof towards a large, grey cylinder that rose from the floor. It was covered in locking mechanisms and pipes, which coiled around it like vines. "We only have one, but we have to be careful with it… all it takes is one to-"
"I know," grunted Hermione, stepping closer to the chamber. "Let's have a look inside."
The Pegasus floated towards a panel on the cylinder's right and began to adjust a few dials. "All right, I'll have to make sure it's sedated, first." The cell vented steam and began to make heavy unlocking noises, not unlike the door to the Menagerie itself. Individual panels began to retract out of the way at a painfully slow rate.
"How long is this gonna take, exactly?" asked Jakuzure.
"Oh, it'll be a while. It's very important that this one stays secure," Fluttershy gushed. "So we've got a lot of layers between us and it. Why, just earlier we had a mechanic come in to work on the system and make sure it was working properly."
As the cylinder slowly opened, Hermione sunk deeper into her anxiety. If they were mistaken, and the creature had not escaped, it would still be there, in its enclosure, waiting for them. Sedation meant very little- they were very resourceful. And if it was not there, where it should be, that meant it was roaming the ship as she feared. Hermione did not want to face either outcome; she did not want to face anything anymore. She could still feel herself suffocating in the darkness, desperately holding her breath to avoid being detected by her invisible, insatiable foe…
Jakuzure poked Hermione's shoulder. "That's it? That's what you're afraid of?"
Hermione looked up into the freshly-revealed enclosure. There were no simulated rocks, no vines, and no branches to crawl across. There was no nutrient dispenser, or pool of water. There was a flat white floor, the glass surrounding the chamber, and an infernal visitor from her past.
"Yes," she gasped. "That's it."
It was sitting on the far side of its circular room, as far from them as possible. It did appear to be sedated, as it was curled up into an egg-shaped ball, its head and tail between its legs.
"It's a drone-type," explained Fluttershy. "And an unusually large specimen. It was single-handedly responsible for something called the Sevastopol Incident, but I'm not sure what that is. All I know is that it's bigger than it's supposed to be, and that's why Artemis wanted to study it."
"Of course he did," Hermione whispered, taking cautious steps towards the glass. There was some sort of morbid fascination drawing her eyes back to the very thing she did not want to look at, but she managed to overcome it for long enough to notice something else in the enclosure.
"Did your mechanic… get inside the tank?" she asked, slowly and deliberately.
"I don't know," said Fluttershy. "I can't remember."
Hermione extended a finger and carefully pressed it against the glass. Fluttershy and the Elite Four gathered around, and saw exactly what she was pointing to.
"So… whose blood is that?"
Not far from the opposite edge of the tank, away from the creature, was a very small puddle of human blood. There were a few drops along the puddle's edges, but for the most part, it was contained in a single pool.
"I just really don't know," whispered Fluttershy. "Who would it be?"
"What about what Mrs. Granger said- about it being the mechanic?" offered Inamuta.
"Well, um… I saw on my schedule this morning that someone was coming by to look at a few of our containment systems. So it was about an hour later that they paged me- they didn't have the clearance to open the door. So I went and opened the door and…" Fluttershy looked up, puzzled, then pawed at the ground. "I… opened the door, and then they- argh!" she threw her head towards the floor in pain, but Hermione caught her just in time. "Why?! Why can't I remember?"
"Okay, okay, ssh," said Hermione softly, lifting the pony back to her shoulder. "We'll figure this out."
"It is certainly suspicious that you just can't remember what happened after that point," noted Inamuta.
"Oh, I know it looks bad," whinnied the Pegasus. "But I really want to help you! I'm no good at lying, honest! It's just when I try to think about it, my head starts hurting!"
Hermione set Fluttershy back down.
"That's all right. We've seen what we need to here. Fluttershy, I want you to lock that thing back up again, and then I want you to visit Medical."
"Okay. I'm really sorry," she whimpered.
"Don't apologize to us. I have a feeling this whole thing isn't your fault. Uzu, Ira, Nonon, Hoka, let's go. We need to visit Personnel to find out who they have signed up as mechanics."
The group began to depart with the sound of the sealing chamber behind them. Jakuzure sprinted out in front of them, and turned to face their leader.
"Are you serious?" she snapped. "She just tells you that she can't remember and suddenly she's innocent? That's the biggest red flag I've seen today!"
Hermione frowned. "I know Fluttershy, just as much as you do. We know she has a tightly-knit group of well-balanced friends whom she consults about nearly anything. She's far from running with the wrong crowd. Furthermore, she wouldn't hurt a fly, let alone a human being. So I doubt that she could have orchestrated the murder whether by her own accord, or on someone else's orders."
They passed back through the entranceway, just as a team from Medical began to arrive. Hermione shot a triumphant glare back at Jakuzure.
"And look- she's really going to medical. She clearly wants to figure out why she can't remember."
"OR THIS COULD ALL BE AN ELABORATE RUSE," suggested Gamagori.
"You see, that's what I'm thinking," Jakuzure agreed.
"Or someone forcibly altered Fluttershy's memory. Then they opened the tank to release it, but it got them on the way out."
"So who would put it back into its enclosure?" asked Inamuta.
"Oh. I didn't think of that," admitted Hermione.
The real answer is much more interesting! You're getting closer! Trés bien!
Hermione let a hand fly to her head. "There it is again! Didn't you hear it?"
"No," said all four of her colleagues simultaneously.
"Bloody hell, maybe I am going crazy," sighed the witch.
At that moment, alarms began to blare from above them. Hermione was nearly convinced that she had preferred being in the line of fire as a Trans-Dimensional Analyst.
"Definitely crazy," she hissed.