Prison of the Damned

BANG! BANG! BANG!  The faint sounds of blunt force against metal began to rattle Sunny's ears.  He can feel himself starting to awaken....he starts see some light began to come to vision....  BANG! BANG!.....BANGBANGBANG!!  "It's no use Fire....the metal is too thick..."  That voice....  "Mi...MidNight....?", Sunny utters as he starts to regain his vision.  "Dad?  DAD!", MidNight yells followed by another voice.  "Sunny?!  Is that you?!"  Sunny goes to stand up, but then stumbles back against a metal wall clutching the back of his head.  "Yeah...it's me....dammit....", he curses as his head stung with pain.  "What's going on?, MidNight asks.   "Well....best that I can gather....they wanted me, and you two were just extra pick ups."  "What the hell gives them the right to do this?", Firezilla asks demanding an answer.   "Simple...they have an isolated place away from Equestrian jurisdiction.  Just because we've been kidnapped doesn't mean the calvary is coming...", MidNight says flatly.  "What do you mean...?", Fire asks, dreading the answer he was going to get.   "What he's saying....", Sunny began, "....is that we're on our own.  Without a location, they don't know where to look for us...and even then they would have to get permission from the Gryphon Emperor to examine any part of his kingdom.  Whither he knows or not, all he has to do is say no....and that means we are royally fucked..."  "That's just bullshit, they have to look for us even if he doesn't want them to.", Firezilla raged.  "Dads right...if any ponies are found spying in his kingdom without his permission...then it's a sign of war...", MidNight says accepting the ugly truth.

Once Sunny had fully regained his sight, the first thing he did was look to see where he was now.  He only saw four solid metal walls with iron bars sealing off the top, giving him some light.  "What can you see?", he asked.  "Same thing you can...nothing but four walls and a cage top.", Firezilla responded.  "How long have we been in here?"  "I was the first to wake up...that was about....almost 3 hours ago I guess.", MidNight said.  Sunny stood back up to his feet, shaking the last of the drowsiness as he rose.  "What do you think they're going to do to us?"  "No way to tell at this point...all we know is that they wanted us because of what we can do.", MidNight said.  "They'll probably drain our bodies of our blood....then implant our bones with chips connected to a computer so that they can turn our bodies into organic robots to join their army and kill their enemies...", Firezilla spoke up without hesitation.  "Fire....shut up....  Has anyone ever told you that you're paranoid?", Sunny uttered and asked.  "Well...no..."  "You're paranoid.", Sunny said once more.  "Alright then be that way, but I'll be looking forward to the I-told-you-so moment I will get when we're dead."

Two more hours went by.  "How much longer are we going to have to sit here?", MidNight asked sounding frustrated.  "Will you shut up and quit whining?  Geez, it sounds like you're begging for them to come slice and dice us up.", Firezilla responded.  "I didn't ask for your opinion mister jackass."  "And I didn't ask to be stuck here with a little whiny pussy, so I don't want to hear nothing."  "Will you both just shut the hell up and knock it off??!!!  We're all stuck here together and we're going to get out of this then we can't be whining like a couple of mares fighting for the same stallion!  Now let's just calm down for Celestia's sake and try to think of something...", Sunny yelled ending the ongoing argument between Firezilla and MidNight.  "...sorry...", MidNight said quietly.  "Yeah...me to...", Firezilla added.  "Now we're here because of me....that gryphon, Deadclaw said something about The Guardian will be his...  But that just isn't possible....he can't harness the power of it, it has to choose him on it's own.", Sunny explained.  "Something tells me he's got some kind of plan...", Firezilla added.  "Why you say that?"  "Well think about it...we are probably the three strongest ponies in Equestria besides Celestia and Luna.  And he is definitely smart enough to know that he can't take their power away from them nor can he get away with taking them hostage....this guys done his homework...he knew where we would be, he knows what we can do...   He's spent a lot of time putting this so called "master plan" together.  He's taken every precaution possible....he's put too much time and effort into this to see it crumble...."  "That's a good point...", MidNight said.  "Well...we can see why he would do it....but if he's put so much time into this he should know that it's going to be impossible to do something like this...", Sunny added.  "Like I said...he's got some kind of plan, he wouldn't take a risk this big unless he knew it was going to work..."

Just then they all jumped up as they heard a large door swing open.  "Let's get them down to the auditorium.", they heard someone say.  BANG! BANG! BANG!  "Fire....stop...it's no use, if it didn't work when we were sitting still how the hell do you think it's going to work when we're moving...", MidNight flatly said.  The banging stopped.  "Dammit...", Firezilla uttered.  MidNight laid his head back against the wall and looked up, he could see the ceiling moving.  "Hey...look up and we can see where we're going..."  "Oh yeah...we can see us getting closer to our doom only we won't actually see it until it happens...", Firezilla uttered sarcastically and honestly.  "Fire....sometimes you are really such a downer...", Sunny said.  They sat and watched the ceiling go by...  They saw the top of a door that lead into a very tall room lined up with large fluorescent lights on the ceiling.  They watched the lights go by...making them believe that these were going to be some of the last lights they would ever see.  They passed under another door frame, and they stopped in a smaller room.  They heard a door slide shut, followed by a buzzer and another door opening.  As the door opened and they entered, they heard yelling.  Hundreds possibly even thousands of ponies, gryphons, whatever just saying different things.  Ranging from "Fresh Meat" to "You gonna be my bitch" ringing through their ears, again bringing that feeling that their lives were soon to be over.  They passed under three more doors before they finally stopped on another small room.  Only this time when the doors slid open, they heard machines kicking on and the felt the small room start to move.  As the elevator went lower and lower, that feeling of awful dread kept getting stronger and stronger.  Just before the elevator stopped and the doors opened, Firezilla once again uttered:  "If we weren't in hell before, we're probably there now..."  They left the elevator and they saw the short ceiling of what could have been a hallway going by above their cages...

They finally stopped.  They could noises that sounded like machinery and electricity fluctuating.  "All right bring him out!", one of the voices said.  "Stop!", another yelled.  Sunny, MidNight and Firezilla recognized the voice all too well....it was the Warden.  "Put the orange one in first...  I don't want this machine to turn out to be a big half-assed shock treatment.  Put him in....now..."  Just then, as Fire watched the front of his cell to wait for it to fly open.....he felt a pain in his lower back.  He reached behind him...and felt what seemed to be the tip of a spear.  He pulled it from him, only to see that it was a syringe.  He felt his strength begin to leave him....and his feet start to wobble out from under him.  The door opened...and they dragged Firezilla's half conscious body out of the cell.  "Open the other's hatches....I want them to watch this...", they heard Deadclaw command.  Slots in the doors of their cells slid open revealing something that neither Sunny or MidNight ever imagined could exist.  As they walked toward the slots to look what they were being led to, MidNight slowly uttered in shock: "What...in Celestia's name...."  Before them stood a machine, of very advanced design and function.  The room was lined up...with what looked like giant Tesla Coils.  Tesla Coils were designed to manipulate lightning and harness and amplify power.  This much power in one place...was certainly a scary scene.  In the middle of the room, surrounded by the coils, was what looked like a metal harness.  They dragged the practically life-less Firezilla to the harness, and they strapped all four of his legs into big metal rings that kept him hanging in place.  Closer examination showed that there were thick metal wires that led from each coil to the harness that held Firezilla.  "No....no, let him go you bastards!", Sunny proceeded to yell.  It didn't take an educated brainiac to see what they had planned to do.  But all of his yelling and rage was in vain.  A switch was flipped.  And all at once, every single gigawatt of electricity surging through the harness.  Whatever remnants of the tranquilizer that were in his system from before, were long gone now.  He riled and screamed in pain.  Normally, Tesla Coil energy were practically harmless and about the only thing you would feel is a slight buzz of energy.  But this was four large coils all generating untold amounts of energy at the same time, all focused into one specific core.  This wasn't just a tingle....this was torture.  He continued to scream, Sunny and MidNight were yelling for them to stop.  Then what they saw next only made things go from bad...to worse.

As they were watching, bolts of electricity began to shoot up from the top of the harness.  Then, they watched as it seemed his very soul was being ripped from his body.  It began to form up above the harness as a transparent ball of red.  It kept getting bigger...and bigger....his screams almost overpowering the sound of the coils.  But then, just as soon as it appeared, the red ball shot back through the harness and the coils stopped.  Firezilla went limp and lifeless once more....Sunny or MidNight couldn't tell if he was dead or alive...  A Gryphon in a white coat then walked to the one side of the machine, followed by a team of scientists leading a very large metal chest of some sort.  The leading scientist then reaches into one side of the harness, and pulls back a glass container.  Inside, it looked as though it was filled with a black fiery that was trying desperately to escape.  The scientist handled it as delicately as possible, acting as if he was holding a nuclear bomb and not....whatever it was that was inside.  "Excellent...now plug HIM in...I want that power from him BEFORE the experiment is ready.", DeadClaw said as he pointed at Sunny's cage.

After they had successfully sedated Sunny after several minutes of coaxing and distractions, they dragged his groggy carcass out of his cage.  Soon enough, as MidNight screamed and yelled and pounded hoping that he could save his dad, they had Sunny hooked up in the machine and they began to power up the Tesla Coils.  If Sunny was in his right mind, his life would flashed before his eyes.  But instead, MidNight saw his life flash before his eyes.  He messed up what life he had when he had killed those ponies in cold blood all those years ago.  His mother and his father were the only things that he had that actually was worth living for.  Seeing his dad strapped in this massive machine, he began to believe those paranoid ideas that Firezilla kept blurting about over and over again before they took their 'final voyage' through this hellish place.  He could see all the time he had spent with Sunny just go through his mind in a flash.  He didn't have a personal life....his parents were the only life he had, and now he was about lose one of them and lose his own life in the process.  They flipped the switch, and the coils went into overdrive.  Bolts and sparks shot everywhere, making the very fur stand up all over you.  Sunny screamed in pain.  The lights in the building begin to dim and flicker, showing just how much power it was taking to perform their cruel and painful experiment.  Light bulbs began busting, sending sparks raining down upon the machine and all the ones that were involved.  A black ghostly figure seemed to come out of Sunny, getting more larger with every passing second.  Before them, was the very spirit of the Guardian.  For all to see, was a big black Alicorn shaped specter with glowing red eyes.  Trying so desperately to get away because it was now completely aware that the Gryphons were doing the impossible.  It had to get away, if it couldn't save the host it was with then it must move on.  Only it couldn't...   It fought and struggled and tried everything it could think of to get away, it was trapped.  And then, with much more effort than before, the Guardian's apparition seemed to grow smaller.  As it began to shrink, it tried even harder than before to get away.  But it was to no avail, for in a matter of seconds it suffered the same fate as Firezilla's power....it was locked away in a glass container and sealed away in a metal box.

"At long last...  The power is mine...  I want it down to the merge labs ASAP.", Warden DeadClaw said as he started to get up.  "But sir...what about the other one?"  DeadClaw looks back and remembers that there was a third.  "Oh...yes...him...  Prep him for the machine...", DeadClaw commanded sounding somewhat frustrated.  "I don't even know why we kept him alive..."  They went to attempt to tranquilize MidNight, but MidNight seen it coming.  They went to try to nail him in the back, but he broke half of the spear and injected someone else with the syringe.  This went on for almost ten minutes, and they went through 4 syringes before finally:  "Just shock the fucking cage dingbats!!!", the Warden shouted becoming more flustered than before.  Just then, just as the Warden commanded, 12,000 volts of electricity went through every inch of the metal container that held MidNight.  His entire body went numb, making him lose all feeling of every muscle.  "Son of a....bitch...", he said as he collapsed on the floor of the cage.  "See how easy that was?  And I didn't even lift a claw.", the Warden said, showing arrogance.  As they opened the door to the cell, MidNight continued to try to salvage what feeling he had.  He attempted to fight, but that was obviously out of the picture.  So finally, he attempted to struggle as much as possible hoping to at least break free from them.  It took them some effort to wrestle him into the harness, before he finally went limp using up whatever determination he had left.

MidNight started to regain feeling, started remember what was happening.  He did what he could to lift his head up.  His hooves were encased in the for metal rings, still warm from where Sunny and Firezilla received their so-called 'shock treatment' for lack of a better term.  MidNight could have sworn he could smell the faint odor of burnt flesh.  He could hear the Tesla Coils start to hum and crackle.  The switch flipped.  MidNight cringed and screamed, feeling a pain he never thought possible.  It felt as if he was being torn apart piece by piece.  Nothing he had ever felt before felt as bad as this, nothing even came close.  He could feel each individual hair that constructed his fur just stand on edge.  Each nerve ending felt like they were just screaming at the top of their metaphorical lungs, all at the same time.  He couldn't see what was happening, he couldn't open his eyes because his muscles were cringing and tightening so hard.  The machine began drawing every bit of energy from his body, forming as before, above the machine.  Only this time it was a darker blue that was sparkling with stars.  And just as what had happened with Sunny and Firezilla, the essence that was MidNight's power went back through the machine and was condensed in a glass container.  But the sight of it turned heads.  Looking at it, it was just like looking into the night sky with stars everywhere and the dark blue that went with it.  This intrigued the Warden, because something like this was only expected from the Princess of the Night herself.  "He may have been worth the effort after all...", he merely said before he got up from his chair.

As they dragged MidNight back to his condensed metal prison, the Warden walked up to the metal box to look at what all his orchestration has brought him.  Inside the box was the prize he was so desperately seeking.  The three canisters that contained the power of Firezilla, Sunny, and MidNight all just sat there in a row.  Each giving off his own aura of energy that was immeasurable.  "Phase 1 is complete sir.", a scientist near by said.  "Take the prisoners to the isolation cells.  I'll deal with them later.  In the meantime, take the canisters and start Phase 2.  It better be ready, and if it's not then make it ready and improvise.  Got it?"  "Yes, sir.", the scientist said before he gave orders to other scientists.  As the Warden stood and watched his prized achievements, the other scientist wheeled them away to another part of the facility.  "Soon...", the Warden began.  "...no one will be able to stop me....not the Emperor and certainly not those Alicorn bitches...."