Zero Escape: Nine Hours Nine Ponies Nine Doors

Shining and Spitfire entered the chapel silently, not saying one word to each other. After what Shining had witnessed, perhaps it was best for him to stay silent for a while. Everyone in the room looked at them with curious eyes. Shining didn't need to ask. He knew what they were going to ask.

"You guys found them, right?" Soarin' asked, trying to sound optimistic. Of course, he was right.

"Yeah. They're just beyond this door here, to your left." Spitfire said, referring to the door they had just emerged from.

"That's great! Good work, guys." Although Soarin''s words had no malicious intention, Shining felt a twinge of guilt come over him as the words hit him. If he had stayed with the group, this wouldn't have happened. Soarin' walked past the duo, seeming blissfully unaware of what conspired behind those doors.

With Soarin' gone, only Octavia, Zecora, as well as Shining and Spitfire remained.

"You can drop the act. Something happened." Octavia said, her eyes practically piercing Shining's soul.

"Indeed, we can see through your facade. It's quite obvious, you're both frauds." Zecora commented. "They saw right through me..." Shining thought. Well, someone was bound to see them eventually.

"W-what? Do I look like a liar? We found Braeburn and Fluttershy! That's all there is to it." Said Spitfire defensively. No part of what she said was a lie, but she was leaving some details out about what happened. Shining was beginning to feel like an accomplice at this point, even though what Spitfire did wasn't terrible, it was at the least, morally questionable.

"Okay, maybe you're not lying. Perhaps Shining would like to speak up?" Shining never thought the day would come when he would be emotionally manipulated by a girl in pajamas, but now this was reality. "Dammit, I'm screwed! If I confess what happened, Spitfire's gonna clobber me, but if I stay silent, I'll look even more suspicious..." Shining's eyes shifted left and right, trying to avoid eye contact with anyone.

"Well, what happened was..." Shining began.

"Shining Armor, don't you dare." Spitfire spoke in an angry whisper.

"What happened was..." Shining repeated. If Celestia could hear him, he desperately hoped for some kind of Divine Intervention to get him out of the spotlight. He shut his eyes tight and crossed his fingers.

"Hey!" Shining looked at the door to the left and saw Cadence, and Cadence alone.

"Have any of you guys seen Sigma?!" Her voice sounded urgent, already a bad sign.

"What has befallen our dragon friend? Surely he hasn't met his end?!" Zecora questioned.

"He's gone missing!" Shock quickly filled the room as the words escaped her lips. Things were going from bad to worse, fast. Shining took a few breaths, hoping his rational mind would offer a solution.

"What are you standing around for?! We need to find him, now!" Cadence seemed oddly concerned. Perhaps they had some connection to each other? Shining shook his head. That wasn't important right now.

"Yeah, let's find him!" Without a doubt, he wanted to get everyone back together. He ran towards one of the exits until-

"Gong, gong, gong..." The sound echoed throughout the chapel, it took only moments to realize what it was. A clock. There was one positioned at the center of the chapel, Shining ran over to it instinctively. It was three o' clock. Everyone else stared at the clock nervously.

"Quick, what time was it when we were in the throne room?" Cadence questioned, her face losing color.

"When I checked, it was one." Octavia said. Her voice tried to sound calm, but her stress and anxiety distorted it.

"It's already been two hours?!" Shining said, not realizing how much time had passed. He gulped, and tried to avoid reminding himself of the consequence of failure.

"I'm afraid, children, we must continue on ahead! Or we may reach a conclusion that I dread!" Zecora said. Although he hated to admit it, Shining bitterly accepted it.

"What about the others? We can't just leave! Someone, agree with me!" Spitfire said. No one spoke up for her, unfortunately. Spitfire clenched her fists. "Fine! If you wanna ditch your companions, go ahead. Be my guest!"

"Same here. I may despise this place, but I'm not willing to kill to leave here."

"Well, Shining? What are you gonna do?" Spitfire said, crossing her arms. Shining had two choices. Either stay behind, and lose precious time, or move on ahead, leaving everyone else besides Zecora and Octavia behind.

"Spitfire, I..." Shining looked into Spitfire's eyes and sighed.

"I'm sorry!" He looked towards Octavia and Zecora, and nodded. He took off out the left exit of the room, Zecora and Octavia followed behind.

"No! Get back here! You backstabbing little-!" Spitfire was chasing the group, and quickly closing in on them. At the end of the hallway, Shining could see it.

"An elevator!" He cried. "Hurry up, we're almost there guys!" In the clatter of footsteps, he could hear Spitfire's getting closer. "No... The fear should make me run faster!" He forced every muscle within his legs to move faster, and faster. Finally he was in range of the elevator.

"Yes!" Shining slammed his fist onto the 'up' button with excitement. The elevator doors slowly opened, and Shining jumped in as soon as possible. Zecora and Octavia followed suit. Shining pressed the highest button he could find, ensuring that the elevator wouldn't be coming back down for a long time.

"No! You're not leaving!" Spitfire sprinted with all her might towards the closing elevator doors and attempted to throw her arm inside the gap, but by then it was too late. The door closed just before she could reach in.

"Shi... ing Ar..or! STOP! I'm goi..ng.. to..." Spitfire cried, her voice muffled by the cold, steel doors that separated her from Shining.

"Ding!" The elevator began to hum as it moved up the long passageway. The three were silent. Then, something crossed Shining's mind. "Why did I do this?" He questioned to himself. Well, that could be for several reasons.

One, it was the [logical] thing to do. After all, on a deadline, you can't possibly waste time with trivial things. It's either leave alone, or die together.

Two, it was the right thing to do. The other participants were Shining's friends, right? Perhaps they want him to escape, so he can live to tell the tale. Yeah, that sounded right.

But above all, he didn't trust them. Each of the participants wanted to get out just as badly as Shining. Whose to say they wouldn't betray their way to victory? Shining was merely following instinct. There was nothing wrong with that. "Of course..." A strange sort of smile formed on his face. There was nothing wrong with that. There was absolutely nothing wrong with that.

"Ding!" The elevator came to a halt.

"We're here." Said the dark-haired girl, stating the obvious. Shining looked at the girl with cautious eyes, how did he know she wasn't Zero?

"Please, advance with care. We have little time to spare." The strange woman commented. Was Shining being manipulated? Were her words of advice really advice? Or were they just white lies solely made for tricking him?

In front of the trio, stood the number [3] door.

"Impossible... We saw that earlier, right? There was already a number [3] door!" Shining said, bewildered.

"In case you didn't know, Zero lies. Zero lies a lot. It would make sense for him to fake some details." The dark-haired girl said rather cynically.

"Whatever. Let's get going." Shining said.