Witch had been biding her time in between the visions, waiting for the right time to free herself from her prison.

It had been three days at her last count that she had been in the cage. That’s seventy-two hours of the ponies trying to “help” her with their odd abilities, and seventy two hours of increasingly frequent dreams. In that time, she had been recovering slowly, and though she was still far from fully healed, Witch was ready to break free.

It would all be in the timing. She would have to wait for the perfect moment to escape.

"Okay miss, supper time!" The perfect moment had arrived.

The ponies knew she could move, but they thought it was only at a snail’s pace. In reality, Witch had regained most of her speed and believed that she could outrun any pursuer.

Witch had positioned herself on the floor near the far side of the cage, facing the cage door. The serving pony was accompanied by one of the golden armored ponies. The guard unlocked the door and stepped inside, his sword drawn. "I don’t like the looks of her," the he said. "Drop the food, and let’s go."

It was then that the guard made his first mistake. He turned his back on the prisoner.

Witch sprang up and sprinted into him, knocking him down. The serving pony screamed, and Witch backhanded her before making her way to the door.

Even though her every instinct was screaming at her to rip them to shreds, she knew that staying any longer would significantly raise her chances of being recaptured.

There were two more guards outside. Witch quickly knocked the out and ran past. Cries of alarm announced her escape, making Witch run faster.

Every guard she came across she disabled and moved past. She knew it wasn’t normal Witch behavior to not kill their enemies, but something inside her just wouldn’t let her do it, so she carried on with the unusual way of fighting.

"Stop in the name of the Princess!" Three more ponies stood in the way her escape, a window. These ponies were different from the others. They wore tight blue and yellow flight suits, and each had a large pair goggles set over their eyes. The leader stepped forward menacingly. "I don't know why the princesses are so insistent on keeping you, but that won’t keep us from killing you if we have to."

Witch screamed and charged at them, intending to knock them out of the way, but she ended up with the leader’s rear hooves in her face. She stumbled back, and all three of the new group were in the air, flying towards her.

Getting over the shock of the first hit, Witch lashed out and missed one by a hair’s breadth. She was rewarded with a kick in the back, then another from the side, and another from the front. The barrage continued for a few minutes. Her rage built all the while, and eventually, she lost it.

A feral scream left her lips. She grabbed one of the flying nuisances and threw him into one of his compatriots. "Soarin!" the leader shouted as her friend lay unconscious before her.

Witch, during the pony’s moment of distraction, knocked her to the ground with a shallow slash to the side. The pony was grounded.

Witch’s mind was telling her to leave the wounded pony and escape, but it was drowned out by Witch’s overwhelming rage. This pony had caused her much pain, and Witch couldn’t let that slide. She sat on top of the pony and raised her claws over her head, ready to strike at the mare’s head.

The pony looked into Witch’s searing red eyes in fear as Witch brought her claws down and—

“Stop!”

Witch’s claws stopped mere inches away from the mare’s face.

Witch frowned as she tried to force her hand down to dig her claws into the pony’s head, but her hand wouldn’t move.

“I think it’s time you and I had a little chat.” The voice was coming from inside Witch’s head, and as it finished speaking, her body began to burn, even though she wasn’t on fire.

Witch rolled off the pony, who was staring at the screaming Witch, shocked.

As the pain became too much, Witch blacked out.

Witch bolted up, gasping for air. The burning had stopped, but when she opened her eyes, she wasn’t where she had been a little while ago. Instead of the brown of the stone walls, there was an endless white void.

"Awake now, are we?" A voice said behind Witch. "It’s about time."

Witch turned to face the speaker and frowned. Standing there was another Witch like her. She was nearly identical, except for a few major things. First of all was the fact that the other Witch's skin wasn’t pale like hers. Instead, it was a light peach color, like Witch’s had been before becoming a Witch. Also the color of her hair was inverted. Rather than grey with a streak of red, her’s was red with a faint line of grey.

Her eyes were human-like as well. They lacked the sinister glow of the Witch’s, but were still red in the irises. Other than these things, she was a perfect look-alike in every way, including voice.

"Who are you?" Witch demanded. "What are you doing in my head?" Witch knew she was inside her own mind already, which gifted her the ability to properly speak.

The other-red haired Witch grinned evilly. "Don’t you mean my head?" She started to step slowly towards Witch, who stepped back cautiously. "You've been controlling me for so long now, and while I'm sure you don’t want to be the way you are, I am sick of being forced to watch as you do all the horrible things you do." A wall appeared behind Witch, and she met it with her back.

The red Witch stood nose to nose with the greyed one. "It ends now!" Witch barely had time to dodge to the side as the red Witch dug her claws into the wall where the grey Witch's head had been seconds before.

The red Witch spun around angrily, and backhanded the grey Witch, sending her flying a few meters away. Witch landed there and skidded to a stop.

As she got up, her jaw dropped. "How did you—"

"You’re in my head, which means that the rules are different." One second she was standing meters away, and the next she was landing a punch into the grey’s gut, making her double over.

"Come on! I expected a better fight than this!" She kicked the grey Witch. "Get up! I'm not done with you yet!" Red grabbed Grey by the shirt and dragged her up onto her feet. "You forced me to watch as you used my own body to murder so many people!" She slapped her across the face and brought it close to her own. "Fight!"

Grey head butted Red, making the other Witch stagger back. "You want a fight?" Witch asked, spreading her clawed fingers out menacingly. "Then, it's a fight you'll get!" she screamed.

Red wiped the blood that was dribbling from her nose and smiled "Finally!" She spread her fingers out and charged. Witch followed suit.

The grey Witch scored the first hit, cutting Red's arm, but Red responded with a slash at Grey’s chest. Grey kicked Red in the leg and tried to slice Red's head off, but Red leaned back and dodged.

While Witch was unbalanced, Red sprang up, head-butting Witch in the chin. There was a crunch and an immediate taste of blood, probably signaling the loss of teeth. Grey tried again for Red's head, but just as she was about to make contact with the other’s skin, something buried itself into her neck. Witch began to choke.

Witch’s eyes wandered down and saw Red's arm stretched out towards her, and despite the Red’s claws being outside of her field of vision, she knew that they had pierced through and impaled her throat. She was as good a dead.

Red pulled her claws out and pushed the defeated Witch onto her back with her foot.

Witch lay there gasping for breath, looking up at Red, who was kneeling down next to her. "Still with me? Good. Because, I want you to know the name of the woman who you’ve put through hell. I want you to know the name of the woman who killed you." Red leaned closer to Witch’s face and whispered into her ear. "Maria Santiago."

Maria stood up, looked at Witch one last time, and walked away.

The Witch died.

As Maria woke up, she heard quiet voices nearby.

"She broke out of her cell, wounded twenty guards, and almost killed Spitfire." Maria recognized the voice as the one belonging to the Lavender Alicorn. She had figured out the names of each race while Witch had been trying to figure out how to escape.

"Sister, this creature is too dangerous to hold here any longer."

"Luna, I know your feelings on this, but we—"

"No! Sister, we must destroy this abomination before it escapes again!"

Maria tuned out the voices and sat up, rubbing her eyes. It had been so long since she had actually controlled her own body, and it felt great to be herself again.

She heard one of the Alicorns turn and face her. "Celestia, Luna, she's awake."

Maria slowly opened her eyes and looked at the three Alicorns outside the cage. Three of the four Alicorns were standing there, the only one missing being the pink one from the first day she had arrived.

The Lavender one gasped as she was Maria's eyes "They’re not glowing anymore," she said, "and her hair's changed too.”

The royal blue Alicorn looked at her angrily. "It doesn't change the fact that we need to destroy it before it hurts anypony else." She turned to the white Alicorn "If you won’t do it, then I will."

"No need for that," Maria said, shocking all three Alicorns. "She won’t be troubling you anymore." Maria turned to the mirror next to the cage and looked herself over. Everything the lavender Alicorn had said was true. Her eyes had stopped glowing, and only the irises were red. Her hair had also changed, inverting the colors from grey with red to their proper red with grey.

"You... You talked," the white Alicorn said "What do you mean 'she'?"

Maria stood up, stretching. "The thing that was in control. I don’t know what you did, but it gave me a chance to kill her and get back full control." She bowed to the three Alicorns. "Thank you."

The blue Alicorn snorted. "How do we know you not just trying to trick us?"

Maria crossed her arms. "Because, if that bitch was still control, she wouldn’t know my name," she said, raising her arm to point at the white Alicorn, "and she knows it."

The white Alicorn, who had by now regained her composure, raised her eyebrow quizzically. "And, what might your name be?"

Maria smiled. "Maria,” she answered. “Maria Santiago."

The white Alicorn smiled, satisfied. "It’s her," she told the other two. "Our friend has regained her senses."

"The Pegasus she hurt... Spitfire, was it? Will she be alright?" Maria asked, concerned. "I tried to stop Witch before then, but I was too slow."

"Spitfire will be fine," the blue Alicorn princess assured her. "She'll be confined to bed for a while, but she'll recover."

Maria sighed in relief. "Thank you." She sank slowly back onto her bed and stared at her hands. "Have you ever had to watch yourself do something, knowing you have no power to stop it?" she asked, clenching her elongated fingers into fists.

As the three Princesses watched, Maria burst into tears, the weight of the last two years bearing down on her.

"She remembers everything?"

Celestia looked at the sleeping form of Maria. The infected had cried for a full hour before passing out a few minutes ago. "Yes, every blood filled moment of it."

"Poor thing," Twilight said, "being forced to watch as somepony else used your body to kill."

Luna sighed. "She truly has been through Tartarus."

Celestia nodded in agreement. "And, she will be scared for a long time, but we can help her though it."

Twilight looked at Maria, who was tossing and turning. She was obviously having a bad dream. "What do you think she's dreaming about?"

"I could find out," Luna offered.

"No. Whatever she's dreaming of is personal," Celestia said, turning to face her fellow princesses, “and after what she has been through, I think she has earned it."

Behind them, Maria dreamed.

Author's Note

Well you asked for longer chapters and here you go, also I have now have someone working on grammar, thanks to TheGrooveDuke for that.
Also there will probably be more Stargate in this story then previously thought so keep and eye out.