Once the doors closed, the only way to go was downwards.
In the deepest, darkest depths of an empire bathing in the sunlight, the clanking of metal could be heard. Machines were working furiously to keep up the pace of the city’s hunger for more of... what, exactly? A lavender alicorn sneezed and nervously wiped her nose. Every little moment spent in the vast caverns made her heart beat just a little faster. There was a lot of noise, most notably coming from the turning of the gears and the howling of the guide. Presently, the Director was giving a speech to the small crowd attending today’s tour. So far, everything went according to plan.
“And this is the way to the nursery, where the foals are kept in secure capsules until their parents are able to retrieve them,” he said in a husky tone, pointing with a grey hoof down towards a seemingly endless hallway. Its ceiling was bright with luminous crystals, and the floor appeared to be as clear and reflective as oceanic water on a calm day. The lavender alicorn was staring off into space, not paying attention, and the Director noticed this. “Are you enjoying the tour, Princess Twilight? It’s a privilege to be here, but I won’t hold it against you if you’re tired.”
“N-No, I’m fine. Honest. You were talking about foals?” Tired wasn’t the right word to describe the princess’ state. She was sweating lightly, and her legs were shaking but not so much as to be noticeable. “Is it just me, or is the temperature in this room pretty high?”
“Temperature? Of course not, we keep this facility at a stable 72 degrees fahrenheit. It’s mostly for the comfort of the colts and fillies; we wouldn’t want them to get too uncomfortable.”
“In that case, maybe I should take a rest...” Despite herself, Twilight’s knees buckled, and she landed flat on her haunches. A mare with a typewriter for a cutie mark immediately noticed the princess’ condition, and came to her side.
“You sure you’re feeling alright, Your Highness?”
“Yeah, I’m... just a little exhausted. That’s it,” Twilight replied hesitantly. She knew that something was amiss, but there were no signs of anything insidious in sight. The tour had gone off without a hitch up to this point, and yet something wasn’t quite right. Nearly everypony in the room was staring at her, waiting for something to happen.
“Alright, if you say so. Please continue, Director.” With that, the crystal mare instantly forgot that the princess was in any sort of trouble, and nodded at the elderly stallion to continue with his lecturing..
“As I was saying, we run a very tight shift around here. Foals don’t see the light of day for the first week of their lives, and it’s standard procedure to keep them in as good health as possible,” the Director grinned, full of himself, and the gears in the background continued to turn as if nobody could tell them what to do. “After that, they are allowed above ground and return to their homes with their parents. Shall we see just how safe the structure is?”
The Director turned abruptly and trotted down the reflectant corridor, and the crowd behind him soon followed suit. Whatever had been in the previous room was soon forgotten about. Twilight was in the front of the manageable crowd of ponies, despite her condition. Sounds of hooves on glass filled her ears, and her heart only continued to beat at an incredibly rapid pace.
Bu-bump-bu-bump-bu-bump-bu-bump!
The noise was all consuming, almost too much to take. But there was still so much to see here, Twilight convinced herself of such. Yet something was wrong. Something had to be wrong. The lavender alicorn barely even remembered what she was doing a few minutes ago, or where she was. Pushing open a large hexagonal door with a hoof, the Director stepped aside and let the rest of the group inside. One would notice a sign above their head in big black letters.
NURSERY: SANCTUARY FOR NEWBORNS
PLEASE DO NOT USE MAGIC OR WINGS INDOORS
ALL ARE WELCOME
“As you can see, if there’s one safe area in the entire facility, it’s this one,” the Director said proudly. He casually waved a hoof to show just how vast the room was. Its ceiling was at least fifty feet above head level, and the walls were sleek and polished. Everything looked polished and shiny, almost sterile, and soon the place was filled with ponies from all over Equestria and beyond. Some came for other sections of the facility, such as the rehabilitation center, while others came to the nursery to “see all the babies”, as some of them put it. In fact, the nursery was packed with neatly filed bunks and incubators, which almost resembled cryo-chambers. “It’s okay to go near the foals, don’t worry. They practically don’t even know we’re here unless woken up.”
“I guess cute little foals could help calm me down...” Even then, Twilight doubted herself. There was no way in Tartarus that there should be this few infants in hibernation at one time. Within the nursery there were only about twenty or so foals. This is supposed to support an entire city, populated with millions of crystal ponies? It was not possible, and Twilight knew this for a fact. She walked by some of the incubators and looked into them, seeing newborns deep in their slumber. Cute, except that there should be far greater an amount of them in the only nursery in the city.
The Director appeared next to Twilight, as if he spawned out of nowhere. Did she not notice his hooves making clop clop sounds? He leaned in and stared intensely at the alicorn. “Adorable aren’t they? The future of the empire, right there in a comfy little chamber. Quite amazing, isn’t it?”
“Not really,” Twilight said calmly, trying to keep her heart rate at a controllable level. She turned to the Director and frowned at him in disapproval. “You know that this can’t be right, don’t you? Everything up to now had been... strange. That’s the only word I can come up for it.” The Director simply shrugged and continued to admire the foals.
“I assume you’re not familiar with the rehabilitation center we have at at this facility, Your Highness? That might answer some of your questions.” Deep down,Twilight knew he was correct. She hadn’t been that far into the tour yet, and for all she knew it could raise her spirits on the whole ordeal. The little foal in front of them continued to snore softly, noiseless, and ignorant to everything around it.
Bu-bump-bu-bump-bu-bump!
The lavender alicorn felt sweat on her brow, and instantly knew what she wanted to do. “Uh, Director, where are we going next? I don’t think you’ve told us that.”
“You’re right, I didn’t. As a matter of fact, it’s funny that you mention the rehab center, because we’ll be seeing how the young colts and fillies of the empire are tested,” he said in a smug tone, being very observant of the princess’ body movements. “Later, of course. It’s rather boring compared to some other parts of the facility.”
“Tested?”
“Exactly, my dear. The Forerunner loves such things, and he might be even more proud of those who passed than we are,” the Director proclaimed, and once all the other members of the group were done with their business, it was time to move on with the show. He ran a hoof absent mindedly through his mane and turned away from the alicorn.“Now everypony get together, we’ll be visiting the biodome in a moment! Everything you see here is just the tip of the iceberg, as it were.”
Within a minute or so everypony was back in the hallway, following the Director’s lead. Twilight’s stomach started to hurt quite a lot, almost as if someone were trying to tie her guts into a knot. She knew that there was something off about the facility, but she didn’t know what it was. Everything about the Crystal Empire had been bright and shining and full of wonders up until now, and Twilight felt as if there was an evil creature lurking underground, waiting for the moment to grab her by its sharp teeth and pull her under.
Bu-bump-bu-bump-bu-bump!
Through the network of hallways, stairs, and caverns the crowd proceeded to follow the Director deeper and deeper into the empire’s depths, with only artificial light to assist them on their journey. It had finally occurred to Twilight that not at any point had they gone any closer to the surface after entering the underground labyrinth. The only way onwards was to go further down. Twilight tried her best to ignore her anxiety and moved on with the crowd.
==(A/N)==
There was no way to tell how long it had taken them to arrive at the biodome, but Twilight couldn’t keep track of time herself. She barely even remembered what time of day it was when the tour started. A lot of details were just a blur as they ran through her mind, but there was still hope that she’d feel much better soon. The show must go on.
What they entered was surprisingly not metallic, or even composed of shiny crystals, but of plants and glass. The garden was dimly lit, and there was a disturbing silence in the air, save for one noise that stood out among anything Twilight had encountered so far. It was the laughter of children. Ponies in the crowd were talking amongst each other, smiling and not paying much attention much to what was going on. Twilight, however, was more than just paying attention; she was desperate for this sort of atmosphere. She looked up and noticed that that wonderland was in fact a dome, with a rounded ceiling quite high above the heads of its visitors.
“And this, mares and gentlestallions, is the Eden Observatory,” the Director spoke up, getting the awareness of the crowd, and grinned sweetly for the first time in the entire tour. “The wonderful colts and fillies who passed the S.I.P. test are more than welcomed to play in this gargantuan and ever-so-lovely dome. Supported by artificial sunlight, healthy doses of water, and the finest botanists in the empire, this area of the facility is arguably our greatest achievement in the realm of scientific progress.”
There was no denying the beauty that surrounded Twilight and her colleagues. Much different from the dull colors and transparency of previous sections, the Eden Observatory was a green paradise, filled with flowers of many different species, and even a big oak tree in the center of the garden. Even if it was for a moment, the alicorn was at peace, and she enjoyed every second of it.
“I... I think I might have to apologize for my actions earlier, Director,” she said sheepishly, blushing ever so slightly. Twilight could see young colts and fillies running around with each other, giggling and smiling as they played a game of tag. The Director ran a hoof through his mane and looked over his shoulder at the princess.
“It’s alright to be impressed, Your Highness. This section of the facility is designed for the sole purpose of viewing kids having fun in as natural a habitat as possible.”
“Yeah, I noticed that. How did you-”
“Planted them when they were but tiny little seeds. We genetically modified them to survive in such an environment. One of the empire’s many breakthroughs, I must admit. It’s completely optional to venture to this part of the facility, but there’re always at least a few kids running around here.”
“Huh...” Twilight became lost in their own thoughts as she separated from her group and went strolling through the garden. The feeling of grass and soil on her hooves was very much welcomed.It was as if she had come back to the surface and felt the sun’s warm rays kiss her lips once again. But she wasn’t on the surface; she was underground. Deep, deep underground where the only light around is dim and fake. How far down had they gone? One hundred feet? A thousand feet? Ten thousand feet? It was impossible to tell, and as she walked beside a row of violets she started to panic again.
There’s no possible way so few foals could be born without some interference with the lifestyles of the crystal ponies. Maybe there’s something causing the fertility rate of the crystal ponies to be so moderate? Ponyville had a similar situation for the longest time.
The birth rate in Ponyville up until recent years had ranged from four females to each male, to eight females to each male at its worst state. Some scientists theorized that abnormalities in hormone levels might’ve caused an increase in female births. This is highly implausible, but the real origin is still much a mystery.
Twilight wasn’t so sure of anything at the moment, and it already felt like she hadn’t really been outside in days. Her mind was racing, her stomach hurt, and her chest felt like it was being crushed with immense weight.
Bu-bump-bu-bump-bu-bump!
The unseen force was tugging at her, hoping that Twilight would collapse and let the shadows take over her being. Ventilation shafts that were providing the sanctuary with oxygen seemed to come alive, their low purrs turning into aggressive snarls. Suddenly... she spots something out of the corner of her eye; something in one of the vent tunnels. In fact, it was not something, but somepony/
Forgetting her thoughts, Twilight looked more intently and noticed a yellow coat, its hairs standing on edge, and thought for a moment there was a dead body in the shaft. She hesitated, but creeped over towards the vent shaft, and used her magic to pry the cover open. The split second she did this, the form came to life and retreated as far into the tunnel as it could. A draft could be felt as the being did so.
Shocked and relieved at the same time, Twilight peered into the dark tunnel and squinted, trying to see if the creature didn’t run away too far into the network. “Hello? Anypony in there?” For a few seconds, only the soft breathing of the shaft filled her ears. Then she spots a pair of vibrant blue eyes standing out in the blackness, and once she lit up her horn Twilight could faintly see the yellow form those eyes belong to. The figure was curled up in a defensive position, as if trying to be as far away from the alicorn as possible.
“It’s okay for you to come out, now. I’m not gonna hurt you, I promise,” she lurched forward and blindly reached for a limb to grab hold of. The form squeaked and resisted the princess’ advancements when she gripped what felt like foreleg. “Please be calm, little one. You really shouldn’t be in here.” It had occurred to Twilight that one of the children had crawled up into the ventilation shaft and had taken refuge in there, but from what?
The child only whimpered and lessened his resistance, slowly coming out of the dark tunnel. Acting as if he were at her mercy, the colt just looked down, trying not to make eye contact with the alicorn princess. Cautiously, Twilight tapped him on the shoulder, trying to get his attention. After a few seconds, he looked up with tears in his eyes.
“It’s okay, little one. Like I said, I’m not gonna hurt you. But what were you doing in there? Your parents might not know where you are right now. For all you know, they could be worried sick,” the alicorn said, looking genuinely concerned. Despite her efforts, not one word came out of the colt’s mouth. He was still scared, still trembling, and she could tell that he must be in some sort of trouble, fearing that he might get caught. After a few moments of the two ponies staring at each other intently, the colt dug his hoof into the soil and started writing out letters.
“Please don’t tell them I’m here!”
“Tell who?”
“The adults, and that Director guy. He’s mean,” the colt scribbled into the dirt with the tip of his hoof. Twilight began to wonder why the young colt wasn’t talking. He could easily whisper to her if he didn’t want to be heard by somepony nearby.
“Is there a reason why you’re hiding from them? They’re probably looking for you if you’re not supposed to be here,” Twilight said in a hushed tone.
“That’s why I’m hiding! If they catch me, they’ll take me to the Forerunner!” the colt scribbled furiously, as if the alicorn next to him was missing the one obvious fact that connected everything. Thinking about it, Twilight vaguely remembered the Director mentioning such a pony. Or was it a pony? She couldn’t be sure, and if anything she had a desire to find out if anything truly insidious was aloof in the underground maze.
“Do you have a name, little guy?”
“Ivory, but none of the adults call me that, and the other kids don’t talk to me much...”
“That’s a nice name. Why do you keep writing into the ground, Ivory?” Curiosity took a hold of the alicorn, and she couldn’t help but notice the colt staring at her lips; or rather, the movement of her lips. She figured it out just as he responded.
“They said I was born a deaf mute. I can read lips, though. But that wasn’t enough for me to pass the test, so the Director and the others took me away,” Ivory drew on the soil, and then looked up at Twilight with pitiful eyes, then started writing again. “You’re not like us, are you? You have a horn and wings, and you’re not a crystal pony.”
“Well, no, I’m from Ponyvi-” the alicorn stopped herself and remembered that the yellow colt wouldn’t know that Ponyville exists. “A faraway place, very different from where you’re from. It’s a pretty friendly place, so I think you’d like it there.”
“I thought so. You think you can help me?”
“Help you with...?”
“Getting out of here. I don’t want to go back, but I also don’t know how to get back to the surface.”
“Hmm,” Twilight pondered, and realized that she’s even more clueless as to the facility’s layout than Ivory was. There were hundreds of hallways, rooms, and different levels of the maze, and for all she knew they were thousands of feet below the surface of the empire. But she’s got magic on her side, and Twilight knew deep down that there had to be a shortcut, an easy way out, and so she managed a little smile. “I’ll try my best. Are you sure your parents aren’t wondering where you are?”
“They probably think I’m dead by now,” he solemnly wrote into the dirt. “I’d like to see them again, very much. Can you help me with that?”
She wasn’t sure if she could deviate from the group and lead Ivory out of the vast maze, and it even took her a few seconds to remember which way was left, but Twilight felt in her heart that she had to do this. “Yeah, I can do that,” she said, and pulled in Ivory for a soft hug. Neither of them noticed that the Director, along with his group, had long since left the Eden Observatory.
==(A/N)==
Taking advantage of the absence of her guide, Twilight accompanied the little crystal pony beside her. As time went on, she began to muse silently, remembering what little of the facility she could recollect. The stairs that connected different levels of the facility were spiral, and yet far too wide for even a cluster of ponies.
Much of the structure was also metallic, not crystalline, and suggests a much more futuristic method of construction. There was no way the crystal ponies built all this well over a thousand years ago. Even now, a good portion of Equestrian architecture was either wooden, or glass. The only crystals present were small ones that reflected off of multiple hues, and acted as lighting for pathways.
“There has to be a passage around here that’ll take us up, I just know it...” Twilight mumbled to herself. She wasn’t sure if she was getting hungry, thirsty, tired, or all of the above. Ivory was too busy with his own thoughts to give Twilight a response, nevermind the fact that he obviously wasn’t looking at her for any source of conversation.
Then, much to the alicorn’s surprise, Ivory prodded her with a hoof and pointed up towards a sign leading to one of the many rooms on this level.
EMPATHY BOX TESTING AREA
DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOANALYSIS AND CONNECTIVITY
PLEASE DO NOT UNPLUG ANY DEVICES
“What’s an empathy box?” Twilight wondered to herself. There was no such thing in Ponyville, or Canterlot, or anywhere she’s been to, really. She then assumed that it must be an experimental device, maybe still in development. The pathway leading up to this secluded little chamber of the facility had been disturbingly deserted. One would think that the alicorn and her little friend would’ve been spotted by now.
Ivory simply shook his head and pointed a hoof at the spiral staircase. Twilight was too distracted by her own curiosity to resist the sign, and used her magic to open the metallic door that led to the testing area. The doorway itself was, like the staircase, wide and sleek, as if designed for something much bigger than a pony. Once the door shut behind them, the ceiling lit up in an impressive display of colors, illuminating the chamber. The lights themselves looked like crystals, but Twilight knew that crystals don’t operate manually.
“Electricity...” the alicorn was taken back by the display. She knew that electricity was somewhat of a recent development, compared to many other discoveries in Equestria. Either the crystal ponies were far ahead of their time, or they didn’t build this chamber. Suddenly, Twilight felt a pain in her chest, and undoubtedly it was her heart accelerating.
Bu-bump-bu-bump-bu-bump!
It was as if some unknown entity was trying to rip her heart out, and it was working frantically to stay inside her body. Remaining still as a statue, Twilight concentrated and stood her ground, forgetting the little colt looking at her worriedly. Eventually, she calmed down, and silently told Ivory not to panic. At least, that was what she was telling herself.
Suddenly, a fuzzy sound could be heard in the distance. Twilight guessed that it must be feedback from an old recording, and the intercom in the room crackled to life with a start. The voice being projected through the intercom was undoubtedly male, and professional, but also somewhat enthusiastic. The alicorn could’ve sworn she heard it before, but Ivory didn’t notice anything.
“Welcome, newcomers and returning adventurers alike, to the demonstration chamber for a new-found technology ready to be enjoyed by the masses and change life as we know it! For those of you not in the know, this particular test room hosts the strangest and possibly most useful device developed by the glorious Crystal Empire. The Empathy Box is a piece of tech that allows two ponies to literally share emotions and even memories with each other, with the use of cerebral stimulation connecting two minds by method of short wave transmissions. While still in its Alpha phase, these amazing machines are guaranteed to be the way of the future!”
With that, the recording faded out and the intercom went silent, prompting Twilight to slant her head to the side. “Sharing emotions? But... that’s not possible... not without something diluting the brain wave sequences.” The idea of empathy through artificial stimulation was not a new concept in Equestria, but it was not one that had been successfully put into practice. There have been tests done on such a device, sure, but with gruesome results. Unless there was an unknown factor in the machine, it was too good to be true.
Ivory didn’t hear the announcement, but he remembered other colts and fillies mentioning this particular room. He had never been it himself, but he knew the dangers, and made an anxious question mark in the air with a hoof.
“Are you sure about this, Miss?”
“Don’t worry, little one. They can’t operate these without something moderating the devices. There might be a mechanism that does that around here somewhere,” Twilight said, unsure of her own statement, but positive that there was something in the chamber that made all of it possible.
Venturing over to a row of machines, Twilight noticed that each device had headsets connected to both sides. The device, or empathy box as Twilight assumed it must’ve been, was no bigger than a small dog, but had an unusually alien look to it. Cords and wires occupied much of the chamber’s space, burrowing into the ground and going to who-knows-where.
Driven by a will she couldn’t quite understand, the alicorn blindly turned a few dials on the machine, and put on a headset that had three prongs, one touching her forehead and the other two going into her ear lobes. She had to adjust the device, as it was not naturally built for pony craniums, by Twilight managed. With a wave of her hoof, Ivory carefully followed Twilight’s lead and went to the opposite side of the table the device was on. He too put on a headset, and while he couldn’t hear the low purring of the machine, he felt its vibrations.
The empathy box made a slight buzzing noise, and it took awhile for the connectivity to take effect, but soon Twilight was feeling a strange vibe. It was like a mixture between anxiety and unrivaled joy, and many colors of the spectrum were drifting through her mind so vividly that she felt for a second like she could touch the rays of purple and red flowing over her. She was excited, and yet paradoxically, as peace with herself. Twilight looked across the the table to see Ivory staring off into space. She couldn’t tell if he was happy, distracted, or exhausted. Maybe he was feeling the same thing she was?
Suddenly, a clash of thunder interrupted Twilight’s euphoric experience. It wasn’t loud, or even frightening, but rather subdued, almost distant, which disturbed the alicorn even more. For a moment she even thought she could hear a voice, low and unintelligible, telling her things that didn’t seem to come from any language she knew of.
“Ivory?” Twilight asked, trying to get the colt’s attention. “Ivory!” Inevitably, the colt fell out of his stupor and read Twilight’s lips. “I think it’s best if we get out of here, little one..” The yellow colt nodded his head in agreement and immediately disposed of the headset.
Neither of them quite knew what had just happened, but it wasn’t like anything they had gone through before. It was like a voice from beyond the grave trying to reconnect with the living, leaving synthetic emotions and hues in its wake.
As they were leaving the chamber, Ivory went too quickly and tripped over a thick cord he didn’t see that was connected to one of the empathy boxes. The force was enough to cause a tear in the rubbery substance, and instead of electrocuting the colt, liquid started to ooze out of the ripped section of the cord.
Going back to help Ivory to his hooves, Twilight stared at the pooling liquid in shocked silence, and slowly touched it with a hoof. The fluid was sticky and red, and it had finally occurred in the alicorn’s crippled brain that it was blood. With his mouth hanging open, Ivory frantically waved a hoof in the air, trying to get Twilight’s attention.
“We have to leave this place, Princess! The Forerunner will find us if we don’t!”
While Twilight couldn’t quite tell what Ivory was trying to say, her mind going in many different directions, but she got the general notion that they better move on.
The moment the two ponies exited the chamber, memories seemed to fade into nothingness. Twilight looked back up at the sign above the doorway, and blinked at it. Fatigue was one word to describe how she now felt. She tried trotting along the smooth floor at a fast pace, but realized that it was far slippier than before. Twilight lifted her forehoof and saw that it was covered in the blood from the cord, bright red and odorless.
“What is an empathy box?” she asked herself, numb to what she was seeing.
==(A/N)==
By the time it felt like they had made any progress, Twilight and Ivory felt like they had been going in circles for hours on end. They went down, left, right, and every direction known to ponykind. Every direction except upwards.
Room after room, corridor after corridor, everything started to blur together, especially for Twilight who sometimes drew a blank on which direction was which, and Ivory was not in much better shape.
Then came the auditorium, which was a spacious room, mostly empty and enormous in scale. The seats looked smaller than they actually were, but the sheer size of the chamber was quite jarring. Echoes could be heard throughout, and Ivory was leaning on Twilight for support, his eyes struggling to keep open. One could hear a pin drop in such a gargantuan place, but the silence was broken by a welcomed but suspicious voice.
“Three hundred miles,” said a burly but youthful stallion, coming out of the shadows of the auditorium. He was wearing a shiny blue uniform, contrasting with his grey coat, and Twilight had to squint in order to make him out.
“W-What?”
“Three hundred miles in either direction. The diameter of the facility covers nearly the entire area of the Crystal Empire. And that’s counting just one level of it, too,” the stallion gleefully trotted over to Twilight, who was on the verge of passing out from hunger and exhaustion. She was feeling physically ill, and her legs were trembling again.
“Who’re you supposed to be, Mister?”
“A worker who likes it down here, I guess you could say.”
“Well, we’ve been trying to find our way out of here. Maybe you can help us?” Despite him being the first ray of hope in what could’ve been days, Twilight treated the stallion like an underwhelming presence.
“Oh, about that. You’ve been taking the wrong path the whole time, my dear. You and your little friend there really need to have a guid with you at all time,” the stallion said passive aggressively, and Twilight could’ve sworn she saw him grin slyly. “We run a very tight shift around here, and it’s no good having wanderers get lost in the maze, as it were.”
“Does that mean you can help us? Something very wrong has been going on here, and I don’t think any of us are safe.”
”Why of course I can!” Twilight and Ivory were startled by the stallion’s sudden enthusiasm. “Wouldn’t want anypony to die of starvation down here, now would we? That would be very bad for business, and would be very time consuming. Can you imagine the paperwork if this facility was ever sued for such an accident? Must be ridiculous!” Smiling widely, the stallion scuttled away, gesturing for the two ponies to follow his lead. Ivory looked at Twilight with bloodshot and solemn eyes.
“I just want to go home...”
“I know, Ivory. I know,” the alicorn said, and tiredly followed the stallion in the blue uniform. Sound carried greatly in the auditorium, and yet even then, Ivory couldn’t hear a thing. The yellow coated colt had no choice but to go along with his adult companion, even if it might mean his demise.
==(A/N)==
The feeling of isolation was creeping up on Twilight again. Despite having two ponies by her side now, she couldn’t help but feel insignificant in comparison to where she was. By the time they reached the central engine room, her eyes were almost fully lidded, and her legs were shaking. Maybe it was the sheer exhaustion of traveling such a distance, but not likely. There was probably something else affecting her state, and a small part of the alicorn’s mind was still aware of this.
“And so we have reached the center of the facility. The engine room is the one place that keeps this whole institution alive,” the uniformed stallion said calmly, and acted as if he was showing a crowd of tourists the guts of the labyrinth. Ivory, reading the stallion’s lips, scowled at how prideful he was being. Twilight spoke up for the first time since the stallion found her and her younger friend.
“So does that mean we’re any closer to the surface?”
“Mhmmm. There are quite a few passages that lead to the surface of the empire, and a lot of them are not far away, actually.”
“Must get lonely, being stuck in here all the time...” The stallion ignored Twilight’s murmurs, and stopped abruptly in the middle of an expansive platform. Gears and levers were quite audible, and electricity could be heard flowing through sockets going from one end of the ceiling to the other. It was like a vast network of cables and metal, blanketing the underground complex in lightning and noise.
“Three hundred miles,” the stallion said observantly, pointing to one side of the engine room with a hoof, then pointed in the opposite direction. “Three hundred miles. I assure you, lady and gentlecolt, that this place is quite possibly the most useful technological marvel the empire has to offer.” Going over the over of the platform, the stallion leaned over the guardrail and gestured for Twilight and Ivory to see what he was viewing.
Peeking over the rail, Twilight looked over to see that the institute was even bigger than she had anticipated. A bottomless pit looked back up at her, although what was at the bottom was to remain a mystery. For some reason, Twilight felt a draft coming up from the pit, as well as gentle purring, almost breathing, and she felt an intense pain in her skull.
“Ugh...” Twilight stepped back from the edge of the platform and rubbed her temple with a hoof. Ivory noticed this and came to her aid. The uniformed stallion slowly turned around and his face went blank.
“You hurt him, didn’t you.” This accusation caught Twilight off guard, and she stuttered at the stallion with a puzzled look.
“H-Hurt who?”
Bu-bump-bu-bump-bu-bump!
“The Forerunner. There’s blood on your leg,” he pointed at Twilight’s forehoof in a husky tone, and the alicorn slowly but surely remembered hearing that voice somewhere before. While the stallion seemed to be calm, it was obvious that he was trying to restrain himself, or at least for the time being.
“W-Well, we were in this room, a-and Ivory tripped and fell over this big cord, and then sticky stuff started coming out of the rip in it,” she said shakily, trying to remember how blood got on her coat. Twilight was having a hard-enough time just trying to recall what room it was that the oddity had occurred in. “Everypony here keeps mentioning the Forerunner-”
“You hurt him, then!” The stallion’s outburst sent shivers down Twilight’s spine, and Ivory was nowhere to be found. Where was he? “He saw that you were a threat ever since you got here, and now he’s bleeding!” Before Twilight could react, the stallion pushed her over onto her back in a fit of rage of such force that it knocked the wind out of the stunned alicorn.
The sounds of her labored breathing made the stallion grin ever so devilishly, and within seconds he was upon her. To make sure she couldn’t fight back, the enraged stallion punched Twilight’s horn with incredible force, causing shockwaves of pain to envelope the alicorn’s mind and nearly cause her eardrums to rupture.
“AHHHHHHHHHHHH!” As this happened, the back of Twilight’s skull hit the metallic floor of the platform so hard that a lesser pony probably would’ve died from the head trauma alone. The Forerunner, whatever the creature was, had clearly done its job in weakening the alicorn’s mental and physical state, which left the stallion to not have to face much resistance.
Sitting on Twilight’s stomach, which his legs bent on either side of her body, the stallion reached for the alicorn’s neck and gripped it, hoping to strangle the mare in a matter of seconds. Twilight shut her eyes as tight as she could, her breathing being cut off as the stallion looked down at her with a hateful glare. “Long live Her Majesty!” the stallion hissed as the time went by, and yet the alicorn was still alive, albeit not for much longer he hoped. Twilight’s heart beat rapidly in an effort to keep her from passing out.
Bu-bump-bu-bump-bu-bump!
Suddenly, the uniformed stallion felt a tightness around his own throat. A thin tube was wrapped around his neck, and the stallion was forced back from Twilight with a jolt. Twilight gasped for air and looked up at who was fighting off the enraged stallion. Ivory had left the small group to venture somewhere for weapons he could use against the Director. The... Director... The memory surfaced in Twilight’s mind, and she recognized the voice that had guided her through parts of the labyrinth, and it was the same voice that greeted her and Ivory via intercom at the empathy box test chamber.
In a rush, a lot of memories came to Twilight, and she even remembered how to perform magic. The mare had forgotten how to use her horn a while back. Using her magic, Twilight levitated the Director, who was still struggling against Ivory’s efforts, and threw him over the side of the platform.
However, the tube was still wrapped around the Director’s neck, and with it Ivory was still holding on tightly. As the little colt passed by Twilight at a rapid speed, the alicorn grabbed hold of him by the midsection, and watched as the lengthy cord extend over the platform ledge. The tube was still tied around the Director’s neck, and as a last action he screamed in vain as he fell towards the bottomless pit, only for his noose to stop his descent.
An audible crack was heard throughout the vast engine room, and the stallion was no more. His hind legs dangled lifelessly as the a faint roar was heard from the blackness of the pit below him. Northwest, south, southeast, west, north, east, south, northwest...
