The wind whistled through the spruce trees and the dark clouds in the sky seemed to foretell some evil was at hand, ready to strike down some poor soul down at the drop of a hat.
He strode through the bushes on that foreboding mountain, leisurely brushing branches away with his hands and fern overgrowth with his cane. At last, his destination was in view. Sanctorium stood high and devoid of light in the windows, for all the lanterns had been snuffed out by the wind. The front gate was always the most challenging obstacle to get by, but he knew he could do it. Every waking hour, he traveled to this imposing mountain, watching, waiting; looking for a weakness, a flaw, a crack in the fortress, if you will. And now he had one. The wind would be too loud for anyone to hear screams of agony...until it was too late.
One of the bat-pony guards stationed at the entrance heard a faint rustling in the bushes. Looking over to his companion, he nudged him and gestured to the general area with his head. The other nodded and both readied their swords.
"Whoever you are, show yourself!"
Then a silhouette rose from the underbrush, raised his hands and walked forward, just enough to remain in the shadow's embrace.
"I'm sorry, did I frighten you gents?" he said in an unnaturally high voice, but very refined manner.
The guard closest to him only commanded, "State your business, sir."
"Why, I'm here to visit a friend, officer," he replied. "I do hope I can do that, ever since-"
"Yes, yes, you can. Who are you here to see?"
The man smiled, though no one else could see it.
"I've forgotten her name, I'm embarrassed to admit, but I think she was in room...bah, what was it...? Thirteen? Solitary confinement?" His last words were fraught with heavy stress. The guards suddenly became even more serious and stood rigid.
"NO. Absolutely not. We don't care if you're her father, brother, adopted child, whatever. She's far too dangerous to even have her door opened," one of them firmly stated.
"Very well. I can take a hint..." said the man as he turned around and began to walk away. He had gone a few steps before he stopped short, spun around, and rushed out of the foliage. When his form was revealed in full light, the guards' eyes widened in terror. The being in front of them wasn't a pony, but a human. His pale blue-grey skin, seemed to suggest he was different. He was dressed up in very formal wear, a double-breasted jacket adorned with golden buttons around his chest, cobalt blue hair, dark grey slacks, and a noble's cane. His emerald green eyes pierced the overcast shadows from the sky.
In an instant, the man had arrived at the first guard and stopped inches from his face. The human smiled wickedly and his eyes glowed white before unleashing a beam of white ethereal light out of his mouth. It ate away at the pony's face, leaving nothing but white bone. No blood. No viscera. The guard fell to the ground with a dull *thud*. The second guard was terrified and dropped his sword and tried to run away, but he saw an occult symbol appear on the ground in front of him, which the man was raised out of.
"Where are you going?" The desperate cries for help were doomed to go unanswered. The human gave his cane a quick flick of the wrist and the gold sphere at the top split and widened to support an almost impossibly large curved blade. "Hope you don't mind if I..." he began. Then, with blinding speed, he raced forward, jumping up and slamming his sword into the guards' throat. "Cut in," he finished. The pony fell limply, and was dead before he hit the ground.
The man walked toward the front gate after dragging his blade out of the guard's throat with a nauseating sucking sound. He faced the tall containment walls of stone and muttered, "Let the carnage commence," before he blew the gates wide open.
The inmates and advisers wheeled around to face the sound of the blast. The man strode into the entrance grounds where most physical activities were done. he looked up slowly, revealing his cat-like eyes and the scar going across the left one. His laughter was full of malice and supernatural tones.
"When I mop this facility with your blood, I'm coming for your princess next," he said as the guards rushed to him, brandishing their broadswords.
Not even ten minutes had passed until Sanctorium was in complete chaos and disrepair. Half the east wing had been completely blown away, and corpses littered the hallways. Faint screaming was heard in the distance, a mix of death throes and and raving lunatics enjoying their new freedom (even though the human had killed just as many maniacs as officers).
*Wham!*
"Talk!"
*Wham!*
"TALK!"
*Wham!*
"Talk, damn you!"
The doctor he was manhandling was desperately trying to speak through forced gasps of air. His irregular speech patterns were interrupted by heavy choking. "What...*gasp*...do you...*gasp*...want here?"
"I want her."
" 'Her'? There are thousands of females in this facility," he swallowed hard as he said, "Which...which one are you trying to find!?"
The man began reciting informational files from memory. "Patient Number Thirteen, Solitary Confinement," he said. He grabbed the doctor's neck with both hands and began to throttle him violently.
"Now tell me where she is!"
The medic shakily raised his hand, pointing to the right hallway. Without turning his head, the man threw the doctor out of a cracked windowpane and charged on. In minutes, after navigating twisting halls and scaring some of the more sane inmates away, he arrived at a vault door that almost reached the ceiling, made of stainless steel with a giant lock mechanism on the front. He lowered his head.
"I have no time for puzzles. We need to get to work," and with that, he blew each separate mechanism off the door.
The door flew open with a loud *clang* after being kicked full-force. The room went straight down vertically, with heavy iron chains hanging from the ceiling and extending down, a spiral staircase encircling them. He made his way gingerly down the stairwell, descending into the murky blackness below.
Back in the obliterated halls of Sanctorium, a tall, hooded figure with pale-blue skin rose from a symbol much like the one the man had risen from earlier. His eyes were invisible under his cloak, but his expression remained blank, even as he gestured with his hand, releasing black shadows that flew out all over the facility. They came to rest over the bodies of the deceased, and when they did so, they were revealed to be a silhouette of the one who died. All at once, the shades were reabsorbed into the lifeless bodies, which soon twitched and began to move. Their eyes, however, remained glazed and blank. They all stood up shakily. Some couldn't stand up at all, as the mutilations they suffered by the man's greatsword hidden in his cane impaired them so. They droned a lifeless hum from their throats. The cloaked man waved his hand in the direction the other one had gone.
"Do not let him escape," he said in a deep voice. At this command, the undead soldiers lurched unsteadily forward.
The man who had destroyed Sanctorium in the first place was still traversing the stairs, but he took a moment to admire the chains that never seemed to stop running down in the center of the spiral staircase. Expertly crafted out of the strongest metal to date, and since they're inside, they won't rust, They're virtually unbreakable, he thought, but he chuckled at the notion. But only "Virtually." Soon he came to the last few flights before the bottom, where a feminine figure was hunched over, barely moving, and bound on every limb multiple times. The man came close to her, admiring the scene for a second before drawing his blade.
"Wake up, dear. Destiny is waiting just beyond these walls," he crooned before his sword cut every single chain that bound the mare.
They all fell to the floor with a symphony of crashes and bangs. If she hadn't been alerted to his presence before, she certainly was now, because her head shot up in an instant to look at him. Her light blue eyes, though significantly small, were cutting the darkness of the cell in half, and the human could see them clear as day. He smiled.
"Stand up," he told her. Before, his voice had been cold as stone, but it seemed to melt a little. The mare did so.
"Ah, doesn't that feel better?" he asked. "Now, my dear, if you'll kindly-"
He was interrupted by a violent outburst in which the mare lunged at him, screaming hysterically. She tackled him to the floor and wrapped her hands around his neck. She was fully visible now, as the light from the door reflected off the walls, and everywhere except the center of the room. Her greyed-out pink body contrasted sharply against her worn straightjacket.
"If there's one thing you should know about this place, is that they usually throw food down to me," she said through grated teeth. The man seemed very unfazed, despite being in a chokehold.
"Yes, I'm sure they do," he coughed a little, "But don't you know it's impolite to interrupt someone when they're talking? Especially if you wrestle them to the ground soon after."
"Shut up!" she screamed at him. She lowered her voice as she said, "At least tell me why you're here, before I snap your neck."
The human smiled again and said, "I come here with a...proposition for you."
The mare's expression became very uninterested. "Well, what is it?"
"Simple...I came here to help you get your old life back, Pinkamena."
Pinkamena froze as her mind thought back to the years prior to her...incident. The man grinned and gently got up as her hold weakened. She stared him right in the eyes.
"You're lying. Just like the rest of them. You're saying you're my friend, but I know better now. I won't fall for that again, so get out of here," she coldly remarked.
"But Diane--if I can call you that--this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," he explained. "And if I may also say so...there are no strings attached."
Diane only turned away, crossed her arms, and lowered her head. "Go away," she told him flatly. He was about to retort, but he knew force wasn't going to get either of them anywhere. He grinned smugly.
"Alright," he conceded, "I can take a hint. But before I go, think on this: you've got nothing. No honor. No friends. What have you got left to lose? Eh? Just give it some thought," and he started back up the spiral stairs. "Well, until next time...maybe."
Pinkamena didn't even bother to turn around, but her mind kept nagging her to do something, before the man's footsteps completely faded away. She groaned and covered her face in shame. He had gone a substantial distance above the floor, so when he saw Pinkamena vault up and over the railing right in front of him, he recoiled in astonishment.
"My word, you're agile," he said breathlessly.
Diane ignored his comments and gripped his shoulder, whispering, "Just because I'm taking up your little 'offer' doesn't mean I trust you. If you don't deliver, then prepare to catch all kinds of Tartarus."
He smiled at the irony of this statement. "Oh, believe me, dear, I am more than capable of it."
He then motioned upward, to the outside of the cell. "Shall we?" he asked.
"Sure, mister..." Diane eyed him suspiciously. The stranger understood she was asking for his name, but he desperately tried to think of something else.
"Eh...I don't really have a name," he said cautiously. "Although some refer to me as, 'The Mad Gentleman'...whatever you may prefer," he finished.
Up ahead, they could both hear a rush of footsteps and guttural moaning. There were shadows dancing across the upper wall. They looked unsteady, and the outlines coming down the hall looked drained of life. The Mad Gentleman looked forward and drew a cleaver out of his back pocket, tossing it to Diane. He turned and grinned at her.
With Sanctorium mostly on fire and corpses strewn around like Christmas lights, Diane and her new aquaintence stepped quickly into the Everfree Forest.
"Well, I say," said The Gentleman, arching his back and stretching his arms up high. "That was a fun experience, wasn't it?" Diane was almost soaked with blood and gore, and many more holes had opened up in her straightjacket from nearly being diced alive. She was silent, holding her other arm and looking at the ground.
"What's wrong?" asked The Gentleman, noticing her mute behavior.
"I...haven't felt right since I came to the asylum. I feel like I have theses...episodes, sometimes. They change my mood way too quickly, and I don't like it," she sighed.
"Ah, his influence over you must be growing weaker," he muttered.
Diane turned to him, asking, "What was that?"
Mad Gentleman straightened up. "Nothing," he said in a dismissive tone. He looked at how badly Diane's jacket had been beaten up.
"I think someone could use new clothes. Let's go get some," he said cheerily, and they walked out into an open field in silence.
Canterlot was in pitch blackness, the hallways almost empty. What few Centurions remained at the castle were off duty. Celestia was busy in her study, looking over old tomes and filing messages from neighboring kingdoms, so she jumped almost thirty feet when a Solar Guard burst into the room without knocking. He was in panic, and gasping for air.
"Your...majesty...I have..." he swallowed hard, "...terrible news..." He nearly collapsed on the floor, but the princess rushed over and supported him.
"What's wrong, sir?"
The Centurion wanted to speak, tell her how everything was going to hell, but both his fatigue and worry over how the princess would react made him hesitate.
"Sanctorium...destroyed...some...demon-thing caused it..." he gasped. Celestia raised her eyebrows in a confused manner. "She...she's escaped." It took the princess a second to register what he just said. When she did, her eyes went wide, and her voice became noticeably harder.
"I want all Solar and Lunar Guards on high alert. Make posters and place them where ponies can see them clear as day," she commanded. She returned to her work, albeit shakily, when she stood up quickly again and added, "Oh...and lethal force is authorized."
The guard bowed respectfully, but as he turned to leave, he doubled back. Celestia looked up from her papers again, questioningly.
"Majesty, are you... are you going to contact Twilight?" he cautiously asked.
Celstia solemnly turned back to her work and whispered, "No. Never." The guard stood awkwardly for a second, then bowed again hurriedly and raced away, shouting "Alert! Alert! We have a threat that must be neutralized!"
