Super Secret Cider Squeezy 6000

A circle of magic devouring the wall. Two Guards rushing in as the interrogator watches from behind. Being dragged off to the Projection Room, as I’d named it. Disturbing displays and beatings before being returned to my cell.

Rinse and repeat.

They never did let me sleep for long; just enough to make sure I wouldn’t collapse during the fun part. I soon realized I was being watched at all times after I forced myself to stay awake for the next cycle, if only to deprive them of the pleasure of shocking me awake. I dropped down from exhaustion when the Guards never came. Didn’t take them long to jump in after that.

The whole thing went on for days, assuming my way of measuring time wasn’t part of the show. A strange brown sludge was thrown into the cell every now and then to keep me from dehydrating and I was taken to a small nook in the walls to relieve myself, whether I had to or not, before the next display. The Guards never left my side on these occasions, but by then I was too exhausted to care. They also made damn well sure I drank the sludge. The idea of having to drink it through a straw didn't seem so appealing.

It's strange what days of near constant sleep-deprivation will do to a pony. My sense of stability went first. Then my vision got blurry and it wasn’t long before I was dragged back and forth like a drunk. Felt like one as well. I’d even started talking again, if I can call incoherent babbling talking, but they persevered. After a while all the scenes I was seeing blurred into one long mess of despair, broken apart by the movement from and to the cell and the brief shut-eye I got in between. Soon, even the despair disappeared and I was left looking at things that should have moved me but didn't.

“Hello?”

The migrating vision of my interrogator looking down at me, poking me with a hoof as the Guards stood by, let me know there would be no show this time. There was an expression of disappointment on his face. Begrudgingly, he turned to the Guards.

“Take him away.”

Much like the failed start to another round of visions, the way back to my cell passed in fragments. A few hoofsteps here, a moment of the walls moving by there, and then the image went still for as long as the motion lasted before it started again. I was a mop by then, being loosely dragged by my forelegs as usual. I got the feeling they gripped me more and more loosely with every passing, though I don't know if that was my body getting too exhausted and used to their grip to register the same force or if they simply saw no need to use full force. That said, for once I neither felt the impact, nor did I try to resist the fall when they threw me back in the cell. All I knew was that the cell got darker and darker.

Strange glowing lines on a black background danced before my eyes, warping and disappearing in grey and violet colors. Then the view turned entirely black and I found myself in the cell again, wide-awake and alert, only now I was floating below the ceiling. A mare was walking in circles below me, taking short steps and leaning onto the walls every few steps as she tripped over herself. She was missing patches of coat and shedding the hairs out of her mane and tail. Eventually, she sat down, wrapped her head in her hooves and whimpered. She was too quiet to make out the few words she said in between, but I did see something else. There were bloody hoofmarks on the wall where the opening to the outside would appear. There were a lot of them.

This was a nightmare, only of a different kind. There were no monsters or villains chasing me, no gruesome displays of violence or scenes of imaginative horror, only a mare in the same confined space as I was, unable to get out. A feeling of numb panic, that desire to act with no way to do it, gripped me as I realized I wasn’t sent here to break under interrogation; I was here to break, period. They were expecting me to die, either from insanity, starvation or maybe even suffocation. But the dream went on. The mare cried herself to sleep, the vapor from her muzzle becoming ever smaller. And then it stopped altogether.

I didn’t understand the message at first, not until I was forced to once again look at the mare. I was guided close the mare’s flank and the strange cutie mark on it. It was a rainbow colored apple.

Suddenly my view shifted with a flash. For a second I could see through the eyes of something as it was digging its way through a rock. A powerful voice called out at the same time, “Don’t fight it!”

The dreams than returned to the previous scene and I got to see the body of the dead mare dissolve rapidly. I wanted nothing more than for the nightmare to end, but whoever was showing it to me made sure I was always on the limit of waking up without allowing me to. The dreams only dissolved when there was nothing left but bare bones, and hooded ponies entered the cell with brooms and bags.

The walls and floor of the cell were swimming around me as I awoke to the sound of faint scratching from beneath, yet for all the motion around me, I couldn’t move. Not that I didn’t feel my legs, I did. Only they were more like wet noodles draped on the floor. They would move if I commanded them to, I just couldn’t find the will to do so. I probably wouldn’t have moved a muscle had it not been for that ever-louder noise.

I rolled to the side and put my ear to the ground. The scratching morphed into the unmistakable sound of digging when a different kind of sound appeared – muffled strikes against the wall of my cell, coming from the corridor side, multiplying rapidly. I listened for a second longer before I remembered the dream intermission. This was a rescue mission.

The ground beneath me cracked in tandem with the gateway flashing open in the wall, almost exploding into existence as if it were held back before by an impenetrable shield. Sounds of the Guards rushing to the cell and metallic clunks from the corridor entwined in a sinister symphony. The ground behind me exploded in a shower of stones. A terrifying creature leaped from the dust. Even in full back-paddle mode I couldn’t escape the grip of its claws or the demonic stare of its eyes. It grabbed me with a force I would expect from a dragon, and dragged me into the darkness below.

Without warning the creature’s claws sliced my back and dug in precariously close to my neck. Sharp pain radiated from the lines cut into my flesh as blood poured out, drenching my coat. I screamed into the void. But this wasn’t an act of malice.

Against the searing pain on my back, I felt my tail pinned to the edge of the tunnel. I could hear one of the Guards calling others for help in dragging me out, but the creature wasn’t having any of it. It whimpered an apology in the strangest voice I'd ever heard, then released its grip, catching me a split second later by the shoulders as I flew up and tugged with all its might just as a hoof made contact with my leg to grab it.

Searing hot pain shot through my hindquarters, but the sudden free-fall into the tunnel below numbed it instantly. As soon as we were clear of the Guards' hoof-reach, the creature dug into the sides of the tunnel it had bored, using its strong claws to slow us down. Then, as quickly as it had launched into the cell, it wrapped its paw around my barrel, pinning my forelegs closed and sending a fresh jolt of point down my back. Its muddy fur stuck to me in a close embrace, the stench of wet dog hair permeating my nostrils. Before I could as much as move my muzzle clear of its body, we sprang down into the darkness.

The sound of slow breathing matched the rhythm of the three legs now propelling us along the tunnel, grabbing the walls to slow us down and springing from turn to turn, up and down, along the convoluted path.

Between the pitch-black darkness of the tunnel and the dust, mixed with stench, forcing itself into my lungs, there was no reason to keep my eyes opened, yet I couldn't close them shut. I couldn't miss a single speck of light, were it to appear, if it meant knowing what was about to happen, even if the scraping of the tunnel walls against my coat told me everything I needed to know. When my hind hooves scraped against the rock, I hunkered down into the beast to avoid the walls of the tunnel.

The gashes on my back hurt like Tarturus, but that was nothing compared to what catching them on the rocks might do. My tail came to life as well, only it now felt as it was on fire. The bigger concern was that I suddenly found myself gasping for the ever-warmer air, yet despite the pain and the darkness, I somehow knew no harm would come to me. Not for now, anyway.

The creature’s breath drew shorter, the leaps and jumps became ever smaller, when I heard a familiar sound to the monotonous clashing of claws against the rock. There was another creature boring a tunnel, the sound growing ever louder, when the rock behind us exploded. Then the tunnelling continued, the sound going quieter again with every moment. Then it happened again, and again a few moments later, my heart skipping a beat every time another tunnel slashed across ours. I didn’t dare to crane my head back, but I did swivel my eyes as much as I could in a fruitless attempt to look behind. But the surprise came when I looked back ahead.

It was only now that I realized I could make out the outlines of the tunnel, sharp creases forming a winding wormhole. Then there was light. A moment later, we tumbled down into a crystal cave, the creature using its body to take the brunt of the impact, then releasing me awkwardly onto the floor. For a brief moment I felt a stab of panic. The cave was illuminated much the same way as my cell, only dimmer, and it was only when I saw the countless exists going in all directions that I knew I hadn't been brought to yet another cell. I stumbled off the ground and turned to finally take a clear look at the creature that had taken me from my cell.

I fell to my flank and back-paddled until I hit a wall behind me. The creature wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen. Standing in front of me was something with a big torso, huge limbs and tiny, evil eyes, with fluorescent orange where the white of the eye should be and no visible iris. It wasn’t a dragon, but then it also wasn’t a griffon and most certainly not a pony. Not from this reality, anyway.

Panting, with my back against a now blood-marked wall, wasn’t my proudest moment. Running away by itself was not the bravest thing to do, even if I could justify it under retreat & regroup, but I was in no condition to fight… that thing, whatever it was.

It’s fake, I tried telling myself, Just another illusion.. But the pain was too real, as was the blood making its way down the sides of my back, to say nothing of the breath coming from the creature’s crooked teeth. The damn thing was practically smiling at me. The it reached out with its paw.

“Calm now, pony. Calm.”

That was the breaking point. I blacked out.

When I came to I heard somepony speaking. Somepony I wish I wouldn’t hear. I closed my eyes as soon as I had opened them to feign sleep as the argument nearby continued.

“Is he alive?”

“Yes. We did everything we could.”

That second voice was also familiar.

“Why was this allowed to happen in the first place?”

“It was out of our control. I’m sorry-”

“Enough!” The barely contained shout was accompanied by a hoof stomp that went straight through my spine. She continued in a quieter tone a few seconds later, “This has been a mockery of our cause.”

“And I am responsible for that?” The question was said in disbelief, not defense.

“No. No, you’re not.” The unnerving pause that followed was her trademark, but I already knew that. What I didn’t expect was the apologetic way in which she tried to defuse the situation. “Let’s carry on.”

“Just like that? And do what, exactly?” the other mare suddenly hissed. “Half of us are in hiding, the other half are being watched and all we have to go on is the idea that this will somehow fix everything!”

“Now, don't -”

“Don’t you shush me!” She slammed her hoofs to the the ground. “This was your operation, not mine. I’m just an agent.” Even in my broken state I knew there were unspoken words after that.

“Ahem,” a third, male voice intervened, “How is out patient doing?”

The hoofsteps grew closer and I was already feeling around with my legs to see if I was tied down. I wasn’t. Most of the pain was gone as well; there was no time to waste. I looked at the approaching figures and rolled off the rock-hard bed, launching the cover in their general direction. By the time it fell limply to the ground in front of them, I was already standing with my back against the wall, ready to pounce. The next moment blood came rushing into my brain and the whole room began to sway, but I wasn't going to let them near me without a fight. I bared my teeth.

“Don't come closer.”

“I see you’re quite shaken,” the stallion nearly chuckled. “You were lucky you know. If she hadn't picked you up like that… Well, you’re safe now.”

I turned to face him, the aging unicorn with the blood-stained apron.

“Oh, don’t give me that look. I’m not here to hurt you.” He pointed at the stained sleeves of his striped shirt, continuing the blood pattern where the apron left off. “I’ll send you the bill for this.” He smiled as I took slow steps back, then he prepped his horn. “Now, let’s take peek at how you’re doing.”

Magic enveloped my cannons, forcing me to stay put as the apparent doctor looked me over from all sides, as much as I would let him, anyway. I threw my head to the side he was on, trying to show I could still bite if the need be, but that was cut short by two things. First, the stabbing pain the moment I craned my head, and second, that I could now make out bandages, soaked in healing potions, that hugged my torso. A large part of my tail had been pulled out, with the remainder a plucked and torn mess.

The doctor let out a disarming snicker, then went on with his examination, going “Mhmm” and “Hmmm” along the way. I tensed up after the failed rebellion, expecting a needle or a kick at any moment. There was no telling how far the Council would go to get their way. Even a fake rescue wasn’t out of the question if the creature was anything to go by.

“Well, you seem all right.” He walked past me, then turned back and waved his hoof. “No, not that all right. I don’t swing that way.” He chuckled under his breath, before readying his magic and saying, almost as an afterthought, “Oh, there's one more thing we need to do.”

Of course.

A sharp pain to my shoulder signaled the needle piercing my skin and after a second I was completely clear headed. My vision was back to normal and I could stand with confidence once more. Whatever was in that concoction even made me perk up a bit and I would have probably been smiling in any other situation. While I was busy marveling and fretting the newfound optimism the doctor had already started for the doorway where the bickering mares waited. As he passed them, one of the mares nudged the other forward. From the shadows came a welcome face with a gentle voice.

“Don’t worry. You’re safe now. Okay?” The taximare patted the air with her hoof as if to reassure me from the distance. “They won’t follow us here, we made sure of that.”

“I hope you understand, Specialist Neigh,” the cold voice of my old nemesis cut through my heart as she squeezed past the taximare into the room, “That we’re not here to harm you.”

Manners-Mare Pearl was standing directly in front of me, legs placed outward, head held high, as if this was still the Academy and I was supposed to fall to my knees at her command. It didn’t help that I was starting to tremble all over thanks to all the medication and magic circulating in through my body.

With a barely audible voice I managed the question, “What is this?”

Pearl smirked and answered, “I’m glad you asked. Can you walk?” before turning around and walking out.

It felt so wrong to follow her, so misguided, yet my hooves started moving on their own, drawn to the promise of wider spaces outside. The moist, stale air didn't inspire confidence that we were about to walk into civilization, but anything was better than being stuck in another small room, even if it was an improvement from the cell.

The doorway led to a passage, tall stone walls meeting in the vaulted ceiling high above, moss and torn spiderweb filling whatever gapes they could find. What little light there was came in from the end of the tall corridor, where a triangular archway revealed the first few steps of a wide round staircase disappearing into the gray light above. Tiny droplets of condensation on the walls caught the light and carried it on in ever-changing patterns.

My mind was so fixed on the space beyond I nearly rear-ended the taximare, as the two mares came to an abrupt stop in front of me. There was an old wooden door to our left, its dark wood panels criss-crossed with cracks. Much like the corridor, it was far taller than it needed to be, although not reaching the ceiling. Yet its size wasn't the only odd thing about it. An odd glimmer of the massive hinges gave away the notion that they were new, at least compared to the rest of the corridor that had been left to decay with time. They were merely painted dark-grey to better blend in with the surroundings, and opened without a squeak.

A pale yellow glow greeted us from beyond, concentrated in orbs randomly strewn about the hall we were about to enter. Magical crystals, losing strength, occupied the walls and floor, while thick square pillars cut through the chamber on each side of the central walkway. From the entrance the shadows of ponies and fixtures was all that I could see, as the darkness slowly reclaimed the light. When the door closed behind me and my eyes adjusted, I could see why.

There were no windows here, only stone walls all around. The pillars merely helped with making the whole place feel even more cramped than it was. Hushed, incoherent voices suited this place, as did the ponies working in the shadows. At least I knew the voices weren't imaginary.

“We are sorry you had to experience this,” Pearl suddenly said, jump-starting my heart. “Semper reached you a few seconds short of success.”

The grotesque form of the creature that had taken me appeared in the corner to my right. It was slumped against the pillar, half submerged in the shadow it cast.

“You may rest here for a few days, if you need to. You should understand things more clearly after that. Before we go any further, though…” she looked back at the creature, “Semper! Apologize to our newest member.”

She stepped aside as the creature approached. It looked miserable; slouched. Its head as lowered, paws nervously fidgeting. Then came the timid voice, the kind that no pony would have expected from a creature as robust and ugly as that.

“I'm sorry. I caused your pain.”

I looked in wonder at the creature that terrified me to near death not that long ago. Now it was standing in front of me, nearly shaking and speaking in a simple, scared way, as if it was still learning the language.

“Couldn't dig fast enough. Forgive me.”

A moment of silence followed. I knew I had to say something. Anything really, but all I could do was to stare at the creature in front of me. It was actually standing nearly upright, like a small bear, its strange body defying everything I knew about ponykind and all the other species I knew could talk. This was… wrong. Pearl moved slightly toward me, enough to break my stare. I corrected myself on the spot and replied with all the dignity I could muster.

“I forgive you.” That was all I could say.

My heart was racing at that point, and I was quietly questioning what I had just said, but I had seen enough in the past few days for something like this to shake me up now that I had gotten at least a modicum of rest. And a hooffull of medication.

Semper gave me a pained smile before turning and walking away, if I can use that term for something that lumbers off in the way he did. Once again Pearl broke my stare when she indicated me to follow her. We walked silently through what must have been a luxurious, if private, hall, which gave me some time to assess my new surroundings.

A few chipped and dented file cabinets stood next to crooked tables, barely fit to carry the weight of the folders, documents and maps strewn about them. Oversized pots and pans lay stacked on the floor in-between two pillars, still dirty from whatever was cooked in them. Couldn't see the stove, though the shadows gave plenty of room for anything to hide. Near a spot of light on the other side, a stack of wooden boxes by the wall was accompanied by scruffy sacks of all shapes and sizes. We even passed metal storage chests, the kinds we had at the Academy, only these had dark brown streaks sullying their hinges. I could see remains of tapestry on the pillars and the walls behind them. Half-disintegrated picture frames had been pushed into a pile nearby.

“He's a Diamond Dog, you know.” Pearl announced as we neared the wall the end of the hall. Something in her voice let me know she didn't expect me to know that, yet that it was something I should have known in advance.

“A diamond dog?”

The outline of a table soon appeared, including what was on it. A pair of kettles were flanked by expensive-looking ceramic cups, loafs of bread and a small collection of basic food.

“Yes.” She made a deliberate pause as she reached for a ceramic cup on the table. “You have a lot to learn. Tea?”

I didn't care much for tea, but the piles of stale food around it were mesmerizing. Suddenly, I was in a different place. The decrepit hall disappeared along Pearl and everypony behind me. There was actual, real, food waiting for me and all I could now feel was hunger as the faint whiff of old bread and porridge wafted my way. Those aren't usually the most appealing things, but a few days without any real food would make the harshest food critic a raving fan of the two.

I'm sure I saw Pearl smile and nod with the corner of my eye before I began, or maybe it was all in my head. All I know is that from that moment, I was grabbing everything I could get my hoofs on and stuffing in in my mouth. Tea became a tool for making food go down faster and a few loud noises signaled a plate or two falling to the ground before somepony decided to levitate take the rest away.

The pressure building up inside my stomach forced me to stop, eventually. I could barely breathe. Yet this pleasant helplessness forced me back into reality. The table in front was a mess, covered in a giant pile of half-eaten bread, crumbled energy bars and spilled porridge. I quickly looked back at Pearl, if only to somehow apologize for behaving like a pig. She wasn't there. Instead, she was talking to some other ponies not far away. The missing dishes were neatly stacked against the nearest pillar. Everypony else seemed wholly uninterested at the stallion that now had a good chunk of their food on his coat and muzzle.

I wiped as much of it away as I could and took a walk of shame back to Pearl. My legs had never felt heavier. I was chock-full of food, barely containing my panting that seemed to drag me down to the ground with every step. But I wasn't hungry any more, or thirsty. The pain had gone away. Even the trembling had stopped, and now only one thing remained: To make sense of the situation.

“You really shouldn't be doing that, you know.” The doctor appeared out of nowhere, blocking my way to Pearl and looking uncomfortably interested in me. Energetic, too. “Stuffing yourself up like a Rain Day turkey!”

He let out a loud laugh and leaned on my shoulder. Ponies were turning heads, but all I could see were his large eyes trying to focus on me and rarely succeeding. The way his head swayed made me think he was drunk, but the lack of any kind of booze odor kept that answer at bay.

“Oh, wait!” He suddenly looked up to his right and rose a hoof to the ceiling, looking at nothing. “You don't know why that's funny, do you?”

“Is everything in order here?” Pearl startled him as she appeared by his side.

“Yes, yes,” the doctor started, apologetically waving his head and hoof around, “I'm merely introducing your protege to the Griffon festivals.”

One angry look from the Manners-Mare and an incomprehensible sentence from the doctor later and he was gone, back into the shadows from whence he came. Pearl decided to ignore the whole thing.

“I'll leave you to find your bearings. Then we'll talk. I need to make an appearance anyway.” She pointed at the taximare. “You've met Sapphire, she will tell you everything you need to know.”

Something stirred in my brain at that point. They way Pearl casually glanced at the taximare, no matter how buttoned-up she wanted to appear this whole time; a motion she never would have made at anyone in the Academy. I noticed the odd clash of colors next, one that was made stranger only by the way in which the colors complemented each other at the same time. One of the mares was standing next to a broken mirror, and I wasn't sure which one.

Pink. White. White. Pink.

The strangest thing happened as they noticed me staring. They smiled. Sapphire did so openly, Pearl held back, her smile coming more from her eyes, followed by the tiniest movement of her lips. But it was a smile.

“You’re sisters,” I blurted out in a way that made it sound as a single word.

“Twins, actually. Fraternal.” Sapphire quickly added as soon as I showed the first sign of confusion.

“I don’t understand.”

Sapphire squinted slightly just as I heard Pearl take a sip of tea, then she started explaining, “We’re not identical, that’s why-“

“No. I understand that.” I really did, only this was the first time since I'd learned that particular piece of information that I actually found use for it. I glanced at both of them, then said, in the same monotonic mumble as before, “I don’t understand, why. Why all this?”

“To keep us safe.” Sapphire had opened her mouth to speak, yet it was the voice of the Manners-Mare that shifted my attention. She had moved a step closer to me while I was looking at her sister, daintily levitating the cup of tea and carrying a peaceful expression on her face. She then looked past me, taking in the hall, and made a slow motion with the cup. “If this is what you meant, although I assume you didn't.”

The smug stare that crept into her peaceful visage was a strangely welcome return to normal, at least as far as I was concerned. The way she suddenly felt like walking again cemented that. She stopped as she was about to pass Sapphire, half-turned back at me and stared into her tea, gently swirling it around.

“How much do you know about the Equestria of old, before Luna was banished to the Moon?”

“Not much.” It wasn't a lie. Whatever I had learned about our history had been slightly diminished by the events of the last week or so, not that I could trust that the forced visions or that damn book were any more truthful. That reminded me to add, “Only what I read about in that book of yours.”

“Which one?” she surprised me. “The one about the trains or the one Desert Carrot gave you?” When I didn’t reply, she continued, “What, didn’t you think it was strange how easily the first one guided you to Dodge?”

She cocked her head back slightly as she was saying that, her eyes narrowing. She was starting to become more and more like the mare I knew, yet I got the feeling she was still holding back. I wasn’t sure how to react, only that the time for subservience had long passed. Pressure was slowly building up in my veins. And I wasn't the only one. Sapphire had developed an almost sullen stare.

“Of course, then you went and blabbered it all out to the Council, but we can forgive that. Nopony can be expected to withstand their questioning.”

There was one problem with the way she said that. She wasn't mocking me. Behind the cold stare I could even swear I saw a glimmer of compassion. That could only mean one thing.

They don't know. For all the information they must have had to find me, they didn't know I had informed the Council of Dodge voluntarily.

“Dodge was cleared in time,” she reassured me, mistaking my sudden slump for concern.

I nodded. “So what is this about?”

“The Kingdom is dead and we’re working on bringing it back.”

With that she started walking again, Sapphire signalling me to tag along before she, too, followed Pearl. The doctor had emerged from nowhere in the time we'd been standing still, and was now talking to someponies in the far end of the hall, near the door. I wouldn't have noticed him, had it not been for the nervousness he now showed, wiping his muzzle with his sleeve every few seconds and nodding at whatever the discussion was on about. I didn't have the will to conjure up theories about what was going wrong this time, nor did I have the time. Pearl stopped a moment later, near the familiar chests.

“We can't expect you to fight without knowing how to fight,” she started. “And we can't expect you to fight without knowing what you're fighting for. That, I will leave to Sapphire. As for the how...” She looked down at the chest and put her teacup on the other one. “In here are our greatest weapons.”

They are weapons chests, I immediately thought, just to rebuke her mentally.

A circle of magic enveloped the edges of the heavy lid and the chest opened with a screech of its rusty hinges. But there were no spears stacked neatly inside, no shields flanking them by the sides, or crystals to harness magic. Something else was stacked to the brim of the chest.

Books?

Row after row of books with faded, torn covers lined the crate. The titles were made up of words that hurt my head trying to read them, with the exception of a select few that dealt with magic and history. Suddenly, The use of isometric zone magic sounded downright familiar. The rest was all dynamics this and intertwining that.

“I don't expect you to know these by heart. I expect you to know how to use them. Knowledge is power...” she trailed off for a moment, looking at me, “And speaking of which, you have a lot to learn. I know I keep saying it, but it's true. This is the heart of the subterfuge. We are dismantling the False Empire one pony at a time.”

She finally noticed the blankness in my eyes, only she misread it.

“Even after all they did to you, you're still not convinced? You don't see that something is terribly wrong in this little Equestria of ours?”

I did. I wanted to shout out that I had seen things nopony should ever see, that I had experienced things nopony should ever have to go through. I wanted to unleash a roar to drown out all the voices and noises around me. But kept my mouth shut. I dared not speak. I wasn't sure what I was scared of more; the faint possibility that this was a set-up by the Council, or the notion that I had no idea what I was being dragged into. Silence was the only remedy for either.

“Celestia is a fraud.”

The hall went quiet at those words. For the first time, I heard more than a passing whiff of anger in Pearl's voice. There was pain in there, too, no matter how much she tried to hide it.

“It hasn't been a thousand years since Luna was banished, and she wasn't banished for hijacking the day. And you can forget about the three tribes founding Equestria. But I don't have time to walk you through it all.” She motioned to Sapphire without breaking eye-contact with me. “You'll learn all of that. But here's the really important question.” She came very close. “Where do you think you are? No, don't bother. Not like that. Where do you think everypony you know thinks you are?”

My neck squeezed tight. She didn't wait for my panic to manifest properly.

“As it stands now, you’re effectively banished from Equestria. North Isle Moures is where you are – officially – for the host of crimes you’ve committed.”

She calmly counted them off, like it was a shopping list and I was there to make sure nothing was missing. And there really was almost nothing missing. If there was an offence worthy of the Royal Court, it was there. If I didn't feel every word piling on my chest like a bag of cement, I would have felt surprised that murder and rape were not among them. Instead, crimes more befitting a traitor were piled one atop another, generally going by what the Council had accused me of, only now divided into more specific sub-crimes and anti-equestrian actions.

It was a perfect cocktail of lies. The gentle variation of the crimes made it sound plausible, if hard to actually pull off by a single stallion, creating an intertwining web of motives and actions that any Spire Daily reader would have no problem believing, nor snickering at. Even as I stood there, listening to the hatefully persistent voice narrating the ending of my life as I knew it, I saw Canterlot recede in a dark mist.

“Quite a reward for the lifetime of servitude you had promised them, no? Truth is, they wouldn't hesitate to drop you from the High Spire if it would make Celestia smile.”

They? I thought, before it became a scream. “They?!”

She flinched at that, the growing feeling of victory on her face replaced by something entirely else.

“What were you doing all that time? Where were you when they strapped me down and forced those things into my head?” Then the real question formed. “You knew! Why didn't you warn me? Stop me? Something, anything?!”

She looked away in a failed attempt to hide the remorse her body was betraying, not knowing whether to look down or at somepony else, eyes darting around in small increments to find something to latch on to. This, she hadn't expected.

“Why did you even choose me for... this?!” My voice broke. There was one thing at the end of that sentence and I wouldn't allow it to happen. I forced back the tears trying to escape my eyes until I finally collapsed to my knees. Better that than crying.

“I'm sorry.”

The ponies behind her were leaving the hall by the time I looked back at her, Sapphire rushing them out for a brief moment of privacy. Only when the door closed and we were left alone did Pearl continue.

“We thought you were something you're not.”

She came closer and bit the inside of her lip before explaining in as flat a voice as she could muster, “My agents can be overenthusiastic at times. Your admiration for the Squeezy gave them hope that you’d seen the light. Especially after you’d taken up research into it, even if we guided you along the way. Many ponies were amazed at how it produced cider; you were one of the few who wanted to know what it was. You saw the different world behind it. Or so we thought. That brought you to a snare instead. We hadn't predicted that.”

After a brief pause, she added, “You would have been the first of the future Royal Guards to join us. An invaluable asset.” The look in her eyes betrayed the potential she saw in that, yet something was lacking. “I see now that you were far from read to join our cause, but you've seen them for what they are, so I ask you now: Will you stand by us?”

“For what?” I spat out, as a hysteric laugh threatened to escape me. “It's done. I'm done.”

“Don't be so sure, Specialist Neigh.” The confidence in her voice returned as quickly as it had vanished, and I saw her pink eyes staring back at me with the intensity that only somepony with a true vision can hope to create. “I won't lie to you. There's a real mess out there. We're far and few between and Celestia has the whole Royal Guard at her disposal. But I am proof that there are chinks in her armor. And those chinks run deeper every day.”

she then added, almost mockingly, “Besides, you haven't seen the ace we're hiding up our sleeve. You'll never be a Royal Guard, Specialist Neigh. Not with that name, anyway. But we can still get you through the Final Stride.”

She held out a hoof to me and I saw the strangest sight I could have ever imagined. There she was; in the middle of the a dark hall full of jagged shadows twitching on the pillars, cutting everything in their path into broken pieces. There she was, my wingless angel.

I took her hoof.

“One condition,” I said the second I cleared my head of that image, trying to hide the fact that I was anything but convinced of our success, but I had nothing to lose either way. “You tell my father I'm not in prison.” She wanted to object, but I cut her off as calmly as she had spoken to me before. “No. You're still in there. You can make it happen. Get to him and let him know I'm fine. That's all. Then we get the others.”

“I can't jeopardize this operation.” The quiet response held a hidden fear and I pounced on it.

“No. We get them out. My father. My friends. We get them out.” I waited for a moment, to let her see I wasn't moving, then I added, “I'll tell them what I saw. They'll believe me.”

A few seconds passed before a quiet nod sealed our agreement, even if the fire faded ever so slightly from Pearl's eyes. Concessions had to be made. I didn't know how much of a chance we stood against Celestia, but I knew one thing: That everypony dear to me were next on the list if I wasn't found. And no matter how slim our chances were here, they would be safer here than out there.

As we walked out the chamber to regroup, I took in the chaotic scene around me in a new light. There was a an awful lot left to do here if we were to make anything out of this little revolutionary idea. We would need to turn the mishmash of parts that had created the mess into a coherent form, to bring actual weapons crates in with real weapons. We'd need bunk beds and all the facilities a training camp would require, if we were to build an army out of ordinary ponies. We'd need an open space to train for the fight that would inevitably follow, no matter how peaceful the current methods were. Supplies and ponies, that's what we needed most of all, though. Not books in chests.

It's never gonna happen.

The door swung open to reveal a concerned face backing off from the eavesdropping. Sapphire breathed a sight of relief at the sight of the two of us appearing unharmed from the chamber. The tension in the ponies standing to the sides dropped; the intervention wouldn't be needed.

“Do as we discussed.” Pearl dictated in a tone that revealed all too well that she was trying too hard to sound strict. “I'm leaving for Ponyville.”

A nod signalled the agreement between the two sisters, one walking away to the spiral staircase bathing in dull light at the end of the corridor, the other pointing back into the chamber to tell me all I wasn't told about the world as it used to be.

Only now did the name struck me and I did little more than whisper, “Why Ponyville?”

“They're quietly looking for you all over Equestria,” Sapphire replied, “She's going back to Ponyville for interrogations. It wouldn't look right to have her missing for long.”

Huh.

A moment before I stepped back inside, Pearl called out for me once more.

“Oh, one more thing! Agent Neigh? Welcome to Spriteworks.”