Ch.1 p.2 - Balefire falls

Chapter one, Part two: Balefire falls

I stepped outside my flat and locked the door. The staircase, lit with a flickering light, had the horrid look of a decaying hospital. I frowned at the odor flying in the hallway. The cleaning service had done their job a few days ago, washing the place with bleach, medical alcohol and others chemicals swamping the air of this closed space. All together, the chemical itched my nose and dizzied my head. I looked up at the ceiling. The air recycler was dead, again. It had been malfunctioning for eons, and the repairpony was yet-to-be-seen.

“Okay Vava, calm yourself. Let’s go to work,” I murmured out, trying to convince myself, rubbing my temple.

“Hey… Vault…” a stallion grumbled behind me, reeking unhappiness.

Oh Princesses, I knew this voice far too well, and it was one I really, truly wanted not to hear that morning.

I swiveled on my hooves and stared into the eyes of a unicorn stallion, grey coat and a blue mane, groomed and nearly shining under the neon light. His cutie mark was a scroll with a green tick at its bottom. As always, his face was marred by a constant, relentless poker face. I looked down at his Ministry of Wartime Technology’s logo, sewed to his white blouse, right above his name. That stallion loved to brag.

“Hi… Admin,” I greeted through my teeth, faking a smile. “How are you today?”

“Quite fine,” he answered without a smile.

Now, he looked… deeply sad. A frown on his features and his frowned eyebrows clearly showed he was scanning me. He had those eyes, contracted, seeking for something odd to point out, hawkish to say the least. I couldn’t blame him, it was his job, seeking for errors, flaws and mistakes. It was even his damn talent, finding errors. He looked at me coldly and moved closer. My fur raised on my skin as he put his hoof on my shoulder.

“If you want to talk,” he brought forth with a sigh.

My eyes widened, watering. I bucked him away, my hoof striking his chest of all my might. My breath accelerated, turning louder. Admin coughed and winced, his breath suddenly difficult and raspy. Holding his blouse where now a hoofmark appeared, he let no words out. Instead he stared at me with eyes loaded with pity. I didn’t look back when I ran down the stairs, trying to repel the tears flowing to my eyes. He knew! He had eavesdropped, that bastard!

I couldn’t really blame him. The walls here were as thin as paper, letting paroles and sounds go through as if nothing had separated the flats. Thanks to that, all my neighbors had heard my screams and pleads, the whole night! And they did nothing. Amethyst’s death was known to the building and rumors would soon spread. How long would it need to have me labelled as a careless mother, as a pony that spilled the blood of youth, future of Equestria? For many I had let ‘an opportunity to win the war’ fly out and get wasted.

Everypony should have heard the MoM’s agents come and leave. They all knew! And for this, I hated my world.

I fell off, hurtling down the staircase. At the time, I lived on the seventh floor. My landing a floor below was harsh and hard, aching where the stairs had punctured my skin. Getting my issues and pain together, mustering myself about the throbbing pain in my limbs, I kept going down the stairs only to walk into the street.

When I pushed the entrance gate, the sun rising in the horizon flared over my eyeballs. I waited for a few seconds before daring open eye at my surroundings. It was half past seven and already an endless flow of ponies was walking down the crowded sideways, going to work or accompanying children to school. A normal day of a normal year. The radio rambled loudly in the street, announcing a bright and happy day for everypony, the war was contained. Bullshit! Pinkie Pie shaped balloons were hovering over the tops of the city, their crew equipped with large telescope and strange bowl-like tools. Pinkie Pie was watching you, forever. The propaganda couldn’t be truer.

I dug my space into the ponies trotting the streets. The metro station wasn’t far away from my flat, but reaching it was an ordeal during the peak of the day. Over-closeness was making the atmosphere incredibly hot. The content of my saddlebag clattered and clicked, rubbing the flank of the ponies circling me. Many spat curse words at me while the stress rolled down their faces with sweat. Though, pegasi had an easy life, flying over our scalps while earth ponies and unicorns had to struggle to breathe beneath.

I lifted my head and looked above me, seeking for fresh air. The sky was streaked with hundreds of communication wires and electric cables. The poles dividing the sideways into portions showed hug red speakers. From there came the songs and reassuring propaganda messages I had learnt by heart throughout the years, like a repeated mantra you would hear at the rail station while waiting for an always late train. Damn train drivers… In fact we weren’t even given the luxury to wait at the station anymore. They had always been on strike. Until of course the martial law had kicked in our daily lives. I knew those speakers could ring at any time, announcing an incoming threat, enjoining us to reach the nearest shelter. It could be anything… invasion, bombing, terrorist attacks, balefire bombs… Don’t think about that Vava!

“The end nears, my little ponies!” a voice yapped at the corner of the street. “We, yes I repeat, we have corrupted the Princesses with our vile wills, mere ponies stained by the sins of mortality.”

I took a look closer, ice-breaking through the crowd. There, standing on a hoofcraft wooden pedestal was an old bald buck. From his toothless mouth, he shouted at the ponies stopping by only to listen to his strange jabber. A strange fire was burning in his eyes which fascinated me.

“I feel it. The sky darkens and the ground pounds under the hooves of thousands and thousands of Zebras and Ponies thrusting themselves at each other, treading upon the corpses, bathing into blood, ripping off their throats and drinking their own sludge!” he eructed vehemently.

Among the spectating ponies, I saw a mother dragging her not-so-crafty pink filly away, her mane seemed to be made of gold and her eyes of the palest pink I had ever seen.

“But moooom, I wanna see the pretty pony!”

“Don’t listen to him,” she whispered. “He just fell on his head.”

“Okay…”

I snickered softly as the pinkish and cute filly disappear in her mother’s trail among the passers-by.

“The end is coming!” the ranter blurted out, paying no attention to the agitation he had created. “The time of the great diseases beckons, ready to harvest the souls of the worthy. Only to leave the unworthy on the scorched soil we once called home, now violated by our own decadence!”

More and more ponies had slowed around me, giving whispered thoughts to their neighbors, shocked and mesmerized by the old pony’s speech. A group of Ministry of Morale’s agents loomed afar from me, struggling digging their way toward the mood-pooper, who didn’t fret about that incoming threat. The rag of a pony he was chuckled on his improvised stage at the sight of the brown coated mares and stallions coming for him.

“Don’t you feel it in your guts? The dim light of the sun is dying. The night is creeping to us and the shadows veil unknown threats. And we hide the truth to ourselves…” he smiled and spent his last seconds of talking spelling out his final statement with a shocking calmness. “That we are all going to die.”

The agents, all bearing Pinkie Pie pins similar to Balloon’s, pierced through and stood in front of the buck.

“Stop your hummocks, you sick brainwasher,” one of them barked. “You’re under arrest for troubling the common folks’ safety.”

The old pony scolded his assailants with a wide smirk as they walked forward, circling him. They pushed him down and hoofcuffed him. He shouted as the agents pulled him away. As he struggled back, the emissaries threw him at the ground and dragged him behind, leaving a large path of dirt onto the asphalt. The ranter whined, his fur hideously burning with the friction.

“We will all die!” he screamed. “Or we will rot in a hell we will have built with our bare hooves!”

Then he was being gagged, shutting him up. And I even heard the loud crack from a stun gun being sank in the old buck’s rump. He shrieked, whimpered, then went silent. I watched the agents disappear with the apocalypse-monger and walked away. Damn, nothing is better in the morning than this kind of encounter to give you a small shot of pure happiness... The Streets were overcrowded and claustrophobia sparked some irrational fear in my mind, what if zombies was to appear? I needed to move. I looked a last time at the sun rising in the horizon and sighed. I turned back, swearing about Ponykind’s craziness.

The metro was no better place. Ponies urged into the carriages, pushing everypony inside, crushing them against the windows as an aura of lateness soared in the air. I tried to breathe as much as I could inside that messy crowd. The door’s speaker shouted their known beep, announcing the departure. They hissed on their lateral hinges and nearly closed when a pony jumped inside, running with sweat. The doors shut behind him. It was Admin

He closed his eyes, catching his breath with difficulty among the ponies pressing their elbows in his sides. After a long time spent wincing, wrestling himself in a position far more endurable, he focused on his close neighbors and looked right in my eyes. I was, I had to admit, standing right in front of him. If we had been lovers, I would have surely blushed. A bliss we weren’t. I looked at him with anger in my reddened eyes. He scowled back at me. Oh, I could say he was pissed off. He had always tried to seduce me, harassing me for years. We were co-workers after all. I was glad he was not my boss, just a ‘close’ colleague. He never abandoned the idea thought, making me really uncomfortable some days. But today I could tell he was extremely pissed. I knew he would get it back at me, one way or another. What a spiteful and immature stallion he was. I smiled internally, we were similar in some ways. The stare battle between both of us lasted a very long time.

The wobbling of the train carried on with an unceasing and repeating rattle, numbing like a lullaby. I looked at my hooves, trying to focus. When I had nothing to occupy my mind, I couldn’t back away from Amethyst’s face transfixing me with her watery eyes. Please, make it go away. Make something worth my attention, worth drowning my memories in. My head lowered and I swept the tear off my cheek with the tip of my hoof. When I raised back my head, Admin had turned his back at me and everypony was minding his own business. Even here, squeezed by that flow of anonymous ponies, each one of us was lonely.

₪ ₪   Ѻ  ₪ ₪

The ministries formed a massive hub inside Canterlot. They had the biggest buildings, apart from the castle itself. Impressive, their massive shapes stood high next to each other in an immense square where hundreds of carts and ponies passed by every day, at any time. They were the first employers of the city and region after all, only Stable-Tec could compete with such mastodons.

And I, a tiny pony lost in a huge stream of anonymous faces, was one of their many workers. A cogwheel in the machine. To be honest, I was one of the many handyponies of the Ministry of Wartime Technology. I know the title isn’t very fashion, but in tarnation, I wasn’t among those ponies forced to sweep the floor over and over again until they ended as crazy as an amputated zebra. I worked for the Testing & Approval Department, or TAD to its employees. Oh, I can even hear ears twitching and curiosity buzzing in your chests like thousands of butterflies. The name was fancier than it really was.

The main entrance of the Ministry of Wartime Technology was reserved for the customers and spokesponies of the companies the ministry watched over, which meant nearly all of them. Ponies knew Applejack was a liberal, hating putting her hooves in somepony else’s business and pockets. Yet, she couldn’t let all of them roam freely and compete fiercely without a keen and strong aegis. We were at war after all, we shouldn’t fight each other but work hoof in hoof on a common project, being the victors of a world war.

Thus, the TAD had been created. It was not a repressive division of the ministry, bashing and fining every moving target on the markets. It was more of a patent factory, if I could make such comparison. All the new creations and ideas that went out in Equestria had to show up here sooner or later. For, they were tested, patented and then approved or rejected. I was often surprised during my shift that I could see and even touch the weapons and deadly inventions passing by. Applejack had to make sure it was not a threat for us all, hence we, TAD’s workers, were there to test out what could be the salvation of Equestria in the future. As a mid-life mare, I had been working there for nearly sixteen years. Yes, you could say war got me that job. And to be honest, I’d seen some scary stuff there. But all had slowly been replaced by a long and dull monotony. A routine I had been happy to embrace and make mine.

As I said, Admin and I worked there. Me as dogspony, him as a controller. And as simple workers, we had to enter by the backdoor. The Ministry of Wartime Technology was a gigantesque building designed like a massive barn of metal, wood and rock, maybe an acre long and seven stories high, the underground levels not being taken into account. It was also one of the most secured place in Equestria and we had to go through many checkpoints before reaching the backdoor entrance. Before we crossed those glass doors, sliding silently on their sockets, Admin stopped me, closing my path with a hoof.

“You fucking pissed me off, Vault,” he whispered. “You punched me albeit I only wanted to help you. I’m not the fucker you think I am.

His eyes tried to meet mine, to no avail.

“I won’t talk about what happened yesterday,” he delivered. “It’s just… I expected you to apologize.”

I huffed at him with a smirk. He was the one that had kept harassing me for years. And now, he asked me to beg for his pardon. I passed by. He was the mistaken pony, not me… right? The hallway was a clean marbled hall with a reception. Propaganda could be seen, pasted on the walls like masterpieces of art secured inside their minimalistic frames. One caught my attention, kicking in my curiosity. I had never seen that one before. A mare was rolling up the sleeves of her fleece, staring at me with assertive eyes. The yellow background showed a bright font inviting mares to work for the Ministry. Sadly, it only outlined that little by little, Equestria was running out of stallions to carry out the work into the plants and factories. Most of them were dying on the frontline. Having mares entering the army, signing for taking part of the frontline infantry was relatively new. Soon, Equestria would be a nation of widows and orphans….

I cut my contemplation off and walked back to Admin.

Sitting behind the reception desk, a mare was waiting for us. As always the secretary’s mane was magnificently curled and groomed. What was her name already? I couldn’t remember.

“Welcome,” the pony greeted us.

“Hi,” Admin replied dryly.

She eyed us, being side by side with Admin was eerie, evereypony knew we weren’t friendly. She sighted deeply and pulled out of her desk a set of plastic cards and pushed them in our direction.

“Here is your daily pass, Vault,” she explained before looking at my co-worker. “Here’s yours, Admin.”

“What’s the program today?” he asked, adjusting the card he had just clipped on his torso.

The mare brushed her chin, making a funny face.

“Hmmm… I think we received the crates from Mimezinga Ltd. today. And well, it’s the time of the year when we have to test the new models of life support suits.”

“Boring,” Admin grumbled.

“Ah, yes…” The receptionist cut him off. “You got the newbie today.”

I arched a brow. Then I realized with a loud ‘oh’. The Direction had hired an intern mare from the Canterlot University for Technical Studies, all on behalf of my boss who was undoubtedly waiting for us below our soar hooves. What was the freshmare’s name already? I was really bad at remembering names. I asked Meadows.

“The ID shows she’s called Chrome Wrench.” The mare showed the intern’s card to me, freshly made and shiny. And as the receptionist still had this one, it meant Chrome was already late for her first day of work. Admin chuckled.

“Let’s get started,” he sighed. “She will catch upon us.”

I truly enjoyed my job, a fatiguing and fast-paced duty that sucked my worries out of my mind. It was a stressing but rewarding work as you never knew what was waiting in the basement of the Ministry of Wartime Technology. When she was younger, Amethyst had once asked me if we had combat mechas. I shook my head with regret as Admin and I reached the elevator. Never again, I would hear her sweet voice.

The atmosphere in the TAD was pretty hot for a morning. I would not be surprised my co-workers would have switched on the air conditioner, making a fridge out of our reserved basement, the minus fourth floor that we gently called the ‘warehouse’. The descent passed slowly and went spent into utter silent. Admin and I never dared to look at each other, even for a fading instant. Only the annoying chirping music of the speaker kept us from drowning in an absolute silence. A ‘ping’ popped in the air and the doors slid open. A mess of crates, desks covered with papers, and ponies agitating in the foreground and obstructing a large test zone in the background stood before us. A true scene of chaos. The TAD would never change. Twenty reinforced doors leading to antechambers meant for every kind of testing were dug into the walls of the warehouse. All together, the TAD was a cathedral kept awake and alive by ponies faithful in the Ministry of Wartime Technology.

Tarnation, It was hotter here than on the first floor. Where were the technicians when we needed them the most? I saw fans on every desks, humming in the air as they slowly swiveled. At least we were glad the electricity bills weren’t written down our income statement. We would have filed bankruptcy a long time ago.

The TAD was usually maintained by four teams we used to call squads. We all had the exact same roles, we had divided ourselves in the sole concern of accelerating the work. Going through the equipment, patents, stuffs and shits and assessing them were an extremely long, tenuous and administrative process. Yet, it was kicking in some fun for most of us. Being a beta-tester was indeed not an opportunity given to anypony.

I saw one of the teams laughed in the background, gathered around a strange metal case. They pasted a rejection stamp on it. I chuckled with a smile. We all knew that all Equestrian designers that had to pass through our approval hated us. We were the ones that could break apart years long and costly investments, throwing back at them years of Research & Development that were a hellish burden on their balance sheets. Eh, we were a spine in the net present values of every company in Equestria. That every shareholder despised us was an understatement. And I had been wondering how lobbies had not taken us down yet. I understood our ‘customers’ well, I would hate knowing that an unknown and underqualified mare like me was holding the Damocles’s sword over their products, employments and economic future.

Admin and I went to our area. Among the four teams, ours was the smallest. Maybe because we were the assistant of the TAD’s big boss, the old and not-so-wise Rusty Cog. The old copper-colored Earth Pony was rummaging under his wooden desk. Only his brownish hind legs were left to see, jerking intermittently from side to side as he rolled over his rump, seeking for something. Many times he cursed the princesses.

“You’ve lost your glasses again, decrepit log?” Admin snickered.

“You little piece of shit,” the old stallion spat, knocking his head under the desk as he tried to sit. “Ow, damn fucking Celestia’s wide open plot!”

He hopped on his bum until he went entirely in sight. His wrinkles and furrowed brows gave him strange slit eyes, and his long tresses of white beard gave him the look of a wise oriental figure. I puffed a laugh behind my hoof as I knew it was all pretty lies. He was the most swearing pony I had ever met. A bald unicorn redneck at his finest. He was out of context inside Canterlot’s walls, like a stain on a white doily. However, he had seen Equestria industrial’s revolution and was even the inventor of the oscillating cylinder steam engines, which brought us the first modern locomotives. I wasn’t even born that he was already known. He was an antique buck we had to respect, that he deserved it or not was not at the top of our agenda. By the way, don’t ask me how Applejack had succeeded in getting him out of his retirement. For all of us, random workers of the fattest of the six ministry, it was a complete mystery. Every day there couldn’t be a moment when he wasn’t insulting the Equestrian government or the ministry mares.

“All’s complicated today. Y’all can’t drill there. Y’all can’t dig up here. Y’all patent that crap… Bla, bla, bla… Rubbish!” he rambled.

He looked up at me with his tired eyes. I spotted the coffee cups stacked on the ground and top of his bureau.

“You haven’t sleep again, Rusty?” I asked with a knot in my throat, repressing my craving to smirk.

“Nope.” He shrugged. “We’ve received a prototype from Stable-Tec and it kept me awake the whole damn night.”

Admin and I laughed at the statement.

“I thought you hated S.-T.?” Admin condescended.

“I hate Scootaloo and her two bitchy friends,” he croaked. “They think they invented the black powder and could sell the final product as if it was atomic compounds. Those brats!”

With his hooves Rusty mimicked a talkative and rambling mouth, all he needed was marionettes of the three mares of Stable-Tech.

“Oh, When I build something, I build it to last!” he condescended with a high-pitched and annoying voice.

See? Always insulting and rambling around, like the old, tired and spiteful buck he was.

“So,” I added. “What kept you awake about them?”

“They… S.-T. brought me a fucking power engine to test.” He pointed his hoof toward one of the room test.

“Number fourteen chamber?” Admin asked, surprised. “Why using the hermetic room?”

The massive steel door in the back of the warehouse was stamped with a big ‘14’. A bright red light was flashing over its frame.

“My hunch,” Rusty bragged. “And I was right to do so, the thing started glowing and it nearly breathed radiations onto my face. Room fourteen is closed until I’ve found what we need. I swore the three bitches tried to kill us all.”

Rusty bucked his desk over, sending all the porcelain cups on the ground. The noise of shattered porcelain scattering around filled the air; many heads turned in our direction. None of them were furious. They were… compassionate. Hell, we were the boss’s dogs after all. Yet, I had shivered slightly, the sound reminding me the lamp Amethyst had kicked earlier in the middle of the night, before… I bit my lips and whimpered.

“Are you okay?” Admin whispered.

I didn’t reply.

“Ah, ah!” Rusty shouted.

Thrust away, the desk had left a massive print of dust on the ground. I could see a small key nearly hidden under the cover of dirt. On its holder was written the code of the storage rooms. I gasped, it wasn’t just a random lost item.

“You’d lost the key for the life support suits’ storage!” Admin blabbered, his eyes swelled in their sockets.

“Meh,” the old stallion replied with a shrug seeping out carelessness.

“Oh dear Luna, why did Applejack recruit you?” Admin facehoofed, half-laughing, half-blameful.

“Because I have a brain and I haven’t put it on a shelf,” Rusty teased back with a smirk. “You shrimp!”

A sound of breaking wood burst behind the three of us. With curious stares we looked back.

“Sorry,” muttered a young mare, the cutest I’d ever seen in my life. “Pretty sorry…”

She backed away from an earth pony stallion staring with blazing eyes at her, showing his teeth. Yes, she was cute; a small pink unicorn with a white mane striated with strokes of electric blue. Her pink eyes shone under the many lights of the warehouse and her cutie mark was, as you guess, a beaming monkey wrench. She was surprisingly well groomed for a mare working in mechanics and technology. I wondered if she wasn’t some kind of spoiled child fallen from a wealthy nest called Canterlot’s high society.

“Excuse me,” she apologized again.

Like a ghost she drifted in our direction, making no waves in the warehouse. It was too late of course. Everypony had seen her, and amused smiles blasted onto many faces as she walked toward us. At least she would introduce herself better at noon, when everypony would go out on the square to eat at one of the cheap restaurants neighboring the ministries. She never dropped her smile, sheepish and apologetic.

She stood unsteady before Admin, who was eying her with picky eyes. Rusty, who was still holding the key in his hooves and me, yawned. I needed something to drink, my throat was dried. The air was so hot that I was glad when a fan waved in my direction, splashing air onto my face. I was also happy I had taken my stuff at home.

“Hi. My name is Chrome Wrench. I’m the major of my student year,” she initiated, ready to enunciate her whole curriculum to balance her mishoofed introduction.

“Really? What are you doing in this shithole then?” Rusty joked aloud.

Rusty kept chuckling and Admin grunted at him with offended eyes. I bit my lower lips, cracking down my own rising laughter. Chrome blabbered with an annoying lisp. I raised my hoof and patted her head.

“That’s okay,” I reassured her. “He’s just messing around with you. Welcome on board Chrome, I’m Vault Skin.”

I turned around, presenting one after the other the two stallions of the team.

“The young one is Admin Signature and the crumbling male wreck over there is the boss, Rusty Cog.”

She greeted her with a warming shake of her head.

“Well, before anypony here start sobbing with some kind of drama, you have a job to complete,” Rusty interjected at me, throwing the key in Admin’s hoof. Then he looked at Chrome. “You’re staying with me. You’re new, I must show the basement to you and present you to the clique. We ain’t here to make cupcakes.”

Chrome nodded with a pinch of hesitation and fell into step alongside Rusty. Admin and I trotted toward the storage rooms, walking around the different and messy desks of the other teams. The door we were looking for was a massive reinforced piece of metal located on the opposite side of the warehouse. Aligned like siblings, each door had a distinct purpose and was a protection against what rested beyond, should it be a shooting range or a broomstick closet. Well… we sure weren’t going to build one wooden door for such minor thing, better go for a plain stainless steel gate instead… Applejack should have loved the architects, how much money had been wasted in such antics. The door we looked for ended the row, it was nothing more than a massive antechamber where everypony was putting…. Excuse me… throwing the stuff we had assessed and rejected, and that no company had ever claimed back.

Over the years, what had been an empty three hundred meters squared room metamorphosed into an amazing Ali Baba’s cave. We had loaded and unloaded weapons, leather, plaque and magic armors, kilometers-long wires, things, stuffs, tings and thingummies that we had lost track of since. When Admin opened the door a strong musty stench breathed onto our faces, the sour smell of closed spaces and dust.

“Yuk,” I spat, making my tongue fret in my mouth in a desperate attempt to get rid of the reek. “Damn, is the air conditioner still dead?”

“Eeyup, Mare Obvious,” Admin retorted.

The air was blurred with the particles in suspension. Like many places in some key areas of the Ministry of Wartime Technology, the cleaning service was not allowed to come here and do their job. And we, the ‘testers’, were too lazy to do it ourselves. If Applejack had to come here someday, I wondered how she would take care of us. Maybe we would clean everything lickity split before her arrival, hoping she wouldn’t notice. Would she fire us all if she’d come to find out the mess the TAD was? Would she buck our butts up to the moon? At the moment, we had succeeded in getting rid of the Pony Resources’ aegis. Those damn executives couldn’t even hammer a nail.

Amidst a somber ambience the flickering lights hanging on the ceiling cast around Admin and me, I saw many black metallic racks strewn over the room. We went to the farthest one. Many blue pale plastic suits were aligned together on a coat-hanger bending under their weights. Damn me, those life-support overalls were fancy! The original company’s logo had been ripped off their flanks and they all sported a spherical glass jar hung on their collars. We had those things for two years at least, I didn’t remember having used them since. Admin and Rusty had them tested against radiation when we had gotten them. Then we had stored the whole bunch in the room and never touched again, until today of course. They were impressively efficient, radiation and chemicals dripping on it like water on a hydrophobic fabric. What was the reason of the TAD’s rejection? Well, if I remember well, Rusty had pointed out a flaw in the Artificial Intelligence coding. I had been surprised the old buck knew programming languages. He had to shut the program down after it had stabbed one of my co-workers with healing needles, the poor buck had had a cold and the A.I. had gone crazy about it. Me? Well I knew nothing about programming. Lines and Lines of code weren’t my hobbyhorse.

“Take your suit,” I advised Admin while I was ransacking among them to get an overall look at those jewels of technology.

When I looked back at him, I was surprised he had already done so, putting on as fast as possible, while keeping the creasing of the suit low.

“I’m waiting for you in front of fourteen,” he grumbled.

“Yeah, yeah,” I sighed out my tiredness, sweeping my hoof in front of him like I would do with a fly.

The odor of the storage kept needling my nose. Rubbing it while I was following behind Admin’s rump, I heard my belly growl. I opened my saddlebag and took a sip of my drink and eat a whole biscuit. I wished I had a bowl of milk to dunk it in. Yet, work beckoned and we quickly exited the room. My trip to the TAD’s private fridge would come later. Closing the gate behind me, I caught the key in my mouth and checked the door was indeed locked.

Back to our desk, Rusty was still talking to Chrome, her pale mane falling in front of her eyes. Often, she passed a hoof through her strokes, putting them back behind her perking ear. Stress irradiated from her.

“And last but not least,” Rusty chuckled with his raspy little voice, “my desk.”

He tended his hooves over the piece of wood, bucked over. He smiled and excused his messiness, scrubbing the back of his head. Rusty and Chrome laughed shortly before seeing Admin and I behind them. Chrome and I helped the boss tidying his personal space. Rising on his two hind legs, Rusty pushed his hooves on his sides and got a loud crack out of his backbone. He grunted in pain.

“Thanks,” he mumbled, trying to hide his quickening breath. “I’m not young anymore.”

While Chrome was sweeping the dust away with her hoof, Rusty spared us a flirting slap on our butts, taking us by surprise. Chrome gave a cute ‘eep and granted him a swift tap on his muzzle.

“How dare you?” I countered.

Snickering, I grabbed some dust on the ground and blew it onto his face with a playful grin. Rusty sneezed uncontrollably. The ponies that had seen Rusty’s pervert deed burst into laughter, making Rusty rumbled with a defeated pout. A battle was lost, but the game had only started. He was Rusty after all.

“Don’t think because she’s a newbie,” a mare from another team shouted,” that you’re allowed to go backward, old perv’!”

Rusty grinned and clapped his hooves once.

“Well, cease-fire. Admin, Vault,” he called out. We acquiesced in return. “Here you go in fourteen, check the generator and shut it down, find the compartment where the core is located, and take it out. You’ll need to get rid of the radiation. There is an air recycler in the fourteen. Just, let me find some air filters.”

He looked at Chrome, ghoulish, her hooves running with shakes as she tried to hide the quivers when she had seen our worried frowns. Too late.

“Did you say radiation?” she asked.

“Hey.” Rusty smiled with a shrug. “We ain’t paid for nuts. We have to get our hooves dirty, sometimes. But don’t worry, it’s your first day, I won’t ask you to go down there. You’ll stay with me. Watching some TV doesn’t bother you?”

She shook her head, plucking her lips for fear of telling something Rusty wouldn’t like. A beautiful prude, there weren’t many of them anymore. If I was into mares she would have put me into the mood… Ah, Vava, stop stalking on young ponies and talking rubbish. You were in your forties, she could be your daughter. Daughter…

I bit my tongue hard, but not enough to taste blood in my mouth. Please Vava, stop thinking for a while. You knew it wouldn’t bring good to you. I shook my head, trying to cast my wrong thoughts away. I brushed my mane clumsily, itching like hell, took a deep breath; and closed my eyes for a few seconds. When I opened them again, I stepped forward and trotted to the fourteenth door, Admin on my left side.

We could have passed a bison through that gate, round, hermetic and massive. I remembered Stable-Tec used the same type of model, bigger though. You remember earlier, when I told you every door was exactly the same? Well, I lied. Just a pinch. ‘Fourteen’ was the only one digressing. Others were just thin metallic doors, four centimeters thick. The ‘fourteen’ was built in a corner of the TAD’s level. It gave to a small hallway we used as a decontamination chamber. From the inside it was nothing but a cylinder where a floor made of metal sheets had been riveted. The upper limit of the passage displayed a series of shower heads. It had always been the cleanest place I had been given to see in my life. The gate the chamber gave on was similar to the first gate, just tinier. Beyond was a massive place, slightly smaller than the store room. It was a closed atmosphere area, there we used to test chemicals and hazardous compounds or weapons. Don’t ask me what, I wouldn’t be able to answer to that question. I was a factotum, not some kind of engineer or chemist. Admin on the contrary knew about that. And me, simple worker, I just carried stuff around, helped, sorted out data and did the most basic works. I knew a bit of accounting too. Yeah, I knew it wasn’t the best job ever but it was well-paid. The fixed salary was very low of course, but I was making a fortune out of the risk premium I got from that job, an unqualified mare such as me was extremely lucky.

“Well,” Rusty’s voice crackled in the interphone fixed under an unmovable camera, “prepare yourself. There is only mild radiation behind but it will still make the rad-counter tick. Admin?”

“Eeyup.”

“I want you to find the flaw and shut that power engine down. With Vault, find me the carburetor and take the fuel or whatever the core is out. Vault?” I nodded in front of the camera. “I want you to switch on the air recycler, there is a set of magic filters in the compartment under your hooves, take them. I also put your stuff there.”

“Oh, thanks.”

“Well, I’m initializing the procedure, the door opens in three minutes.”

The interphone burst with static and went quiet. I walked on the side of the decontamination room and opened the metal storage stuck into the ground with a nudge. A muffled but still screeching siren rammed into the air, announcing the imminent opening of the ‘special room’ as we like to call ‘fourteen’. In the square box below me was a set of five heavy and spongy disks, made out of some material that I couldn't identify. Yet, I could see them glowing with the bland white light of magic. I lift my saddlebag and slid it in the compartment, taking out its current content to make space.

“Hey, get ready?” Admin asked me mindlessly.

“Don’t worry, little pony,” I called back. “Just let me finish.”

Once I was done, I had stacked up the five discs next to me and was ready to initiate the procedure. Admin had put the glass helmet on.

“Come here,” I advised him. “I’ll close it for you.”

With my bare hooves, I clipped the golden-fish jar on his head fixations and zipped his suit up to his neck, folding back on it an additional radiation protection. We heard a short and surprising hiss, mentioning the living suit had entered into its closed system routine. Then, I walked behind him and opened a small brownish panel stuck on the back of the suit, I pushed on the red interrupters inside and was greeted with flickering lit up diodes. The H.U.D. flashed inside the helmet, flaring at Admin’s face who snapped out, wincing forcefully. A weak hum came from a tiny speaker sewed to the suit, filling the hallway with buzzing static.

“Can you hear me?” Admin asked through the glass protection while the speakers were adjusting to his natural tone.

“Five out of five,” I confirmed with a blink as his voice lost the last remnants of electronic spluttering. “I…”

“Vault?” Chrome spoke through the interface with a tone betraying growing worries. “Where is your suit?”

I couldn’t say through the static if she was stupefied, scared or both. I… I surprisingly hadn’t brought mine. My eyes peered at Admin. He glanced perplexedly at the camera, paused, and facehoofed with a loud sigh. I swept my foreleg on my head, pushing aside the messy locks falling onto my face. I had no suit or protection at all. Time was playing against me and I needed to act quick... Otherwise I was… Stop thinking about that, Celestia Dammit!

Admin and I tried to pull the exit door with all our might, to no avail as the hermetic lock had been switched on. The shriek of the siren intensified, making my heart beat rise dangerously. Sweat trickled on my face and tainted the ground with tiny drops of salty water. Think fast, act swift, don’t stop. I cried out for help into the microphone, wracking the ears on the other side of the channel. Through the interphone, I could hear Chrome pleading somepony to shut down the now deadly procedure. Irrepressible shakes rammed through my hooves. A mechanic voice rang into the air, beginning the final countdown, a red light wobbling over the next door announcing the process was still going on.

“Ten!”

“Nine!”

“Eight!”

Oh sweet Luna stealing Celestia’s cookies in the kitchen! Think! Fast, fast, fast…

“Seven!”

My mind fell into stressing numbness as I banged at the door with my bare hooves, making me lose a precious second.

“Six!”

I heard Chrome’s sobs, deformed through the electric interface with burst of static flapping my ears. I almost felt the tears watering my face.

“Five!”

I jumped to the locker under my hooves and ransacked it upside down. I found a pair of leaded goggle with tainted glasses, a box of empty diodes, and a gas mask. Meh, this stuff was not going to be useful if I was going to swim through pure radioactivity, were they?

“Four!”

I took a deep breath between my tachycardia-induced huffs and stroke my hooves onto the metal door once again. Chrome’s weeping had turned into a loud crying, cracking in the interphone. Damn, I made her cry…

“It’s just my first day,” she blabbered from afar.

“Three!”

I imagined her shrinking onto her hooves with watery eyes, trying to block the last words that would came out of me, cringed between the scared stares of my co-workers.

“Two!”

Celestia dammit. Did I mess up this time?

“One!”

“Well… Stop screwing around with the newbie!” Rusty deadpanned. “Go fix that damn machine instead of playing with her.”

The countdown stopped with a loud thump. The red light vanished and the door giving to the testing room swung open. I put the goggles and the mask on and slowly walked in with Admin by my side. Through the interphone I heard a massive flow of laughter. I commiserated with Chrome. I was grinning nonetheless. She was the freshmare, we had to build up a prank only for her to freak about. Hey, she was late for her first day! I pictured the whole TAD having looked at the play until they had all fallen on their rump, holding their sides. Poor Chrome, being a laughing stock was hard.

“But…” Chrome muttered with a lisp.

“There is no butt in this story, Miss Wrench!” Rusty chuckled.

“You have to get her out!” she howled. “Now!”

“No worry,” Rusty reassured. “Miss Skin ain’t a common mare after all.”

Eeyup! I didn’t get my cutie mark from bucking apple trees, you see. Mine was completely different. A black metallic shield closing onto a green circle, it had to be something particularly badass, or useful. To be short, my skin is ‘thick’ to radiation. It runs on it, unable to go through and stain my flesh. Don’t ask me why, but I can say my resistance is my talent, sort of. My name says it by the way.

Oh, that doesn’t mean I am completely immune to radiation. Why do you think I had to wear eyes protection and a mask… and clenching my butt?

Did I tell you my parents were miners? My family used to extract radioactive materials out of the Equestrian soil a while ago while I was still a filly. One day, I was seven years old, my parents had found out a metal so radioactive they had called a unicorn to move it away. Unfortunately, I had spectated the scene without a protection. A magic ray sparked off the irradiated rock and struck my side. My cutie mark appeared at this moment. Yes, this is how I got my talent. After a quick check my parents found out I hadn’t been irradiated and believed I was completely immune.

Anyway, at the time I was quite happy, my parents had always blocked me the entry to the mine. Too dangerous they had told me. But with my cutie mark, they had accepted me wandering into the mine, exploring wherever I thought it was interesting to go. Thus, I had roamed alone and without any protection in there for too long until one day I had collapsed. A doctor found cancer cells in my body. Only my skin was immune, that is the hard truth. Being told I was sick had been depressing. My talent was great, but not perfect. Yes, I couldn’t hide my disappointment, my talent was incomplete and had nearly killed me, together with my natural curiosity. Thereafter the revelation, my family had spent all their savings into a cure, RadAway had been discovered, and because we had found my illness early, I got to survive. However, we had lost our exploitation in the process, forced to sell it all.

Leaving the mine we had owned for longer than I can remember, my parents went to live in Fillydelphia, a massive, dynamic but somehow extremely unhealthy city… polluted and shallow of nature. The local council had recruited my parents as teachers at the Geological Institute of the City. And during their whole career as lecturers, they did pretty well and even became famous in this domain. Now, what about me? I ended at the Ministry of Wartime Technology. I had dropped school early due to my illness, and without any diploma, the opportunity I was given in the Canterlot’s hub had been a stroke of luck I had refused to throw away.

But let’s go back to our radioactive chamber, would you?

I adjusted the mask and glasses onto my face, ready to dive into the radioactive swimming pool awaiting behind the threshold of the second gate. Do you know what I hated the most about radioactivity? It’s that you couldn’t see it, smell it or even feel it at all, until it was too late. Ponies always expected a kind of greenish and fluorescent cloud, scary and overwhelming you could easily spot. Having just an empty space in front of the muzzle and a gadget next to you giving away a constant tick-tock sounds wasn’t frightening enough for the movie makers that had mystified the ‘almighty and poisonous radiations’. In my opinion, if I may speak frankly, I thought an invisible enemy was far scarier than anything else in the world. Oh yeah, invisible zebras were undoubtedly worst.

The hermetic room was a disc-shaped chamber which unique soft round wall was covered with instruments and tools of any kind, from the electric screwdriver to the gem-powered magic cutter. And in the middle of all these piles of tools nopony had the courage to sort out, I saw it. The object of our worries was a miniature power plant shaped as a strange squared cube which contours had been planned. Completely white, only a side showed a rack of thick cables and a panels of buttons together with a small screen display. I trotted in its direction, careful not to mess around and untie the mask shut on my face, biting the contours of my features. On his own, Admin had a hard time moving with his bulk suit, I smiled at him after he had fallen onto the ground in a loud thump that wrestled a flow of swears out of him.

“Damn you Vault,” He coughed. “You’ve got a too simple life.”

I shuddered at the remark, trying to act as I had never heard it. I looked at the linoleum flooring the hermetic room, biting my lower lips, memories flowing again in front of my eyes. Standing back on his hooves, Admin saw my placid face. I was struggling, hoping I could get his words out of my head, and with them, Amethyst’s face. I knew we were far from the interphone, only I could have heard him. He looked down at his hooves, shameful. A long silence settled between the two of us and only his hoof patting my shoulder break this dull code of silence.

“I… I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” he tried.

“Just finish your work,” I spat.

I smacked my head once I had made sure the cameras couldn’t see me. I breathed with difficulty through my thick mask, intensifying my thirst as I sought for air inside. Admin went silent and moved toward the cube. Then, going through the keyboard under the screen, manipulating cables, he took care not screwing up the operation. His horn flared brightly under his glass helmet, sending pale turquoise sparks that bounced inside the golden-fish jar. The outlines of the cubes shone dully under the white light pouring out of the ceiling. I toured around the large box approximately the size of a big stallion, the Stable-Tech logo was etched in each side of the item. As Rusty had said, I found a loose panel behind the cube. It took me time to take its screws out and open the plaque. Once unscrewed, a slight hum came out of the inside. The inside was bathed with a bizarre bluish light.

“You’ve found the core?” Admin asked shyly.

“Yeah, I think I got it,” I mumbled, struggling with my hoof inside the machine, trying to avoid breaking a wire loose.

I rolled over, pulling on a cylinder inside, forced on its locks, wobbled on my sides and… I heard a sharp sound. I drew out of the opening a glowing piece of junk, a long and heavy rectangle piece of shiny metal. The compound was built with a slit on its side, closed by a thick tainted glass. A strange liquid was flushing inside.

Admin raged in front of the electrical panel, kicking with his hoof over the box like an old TV screen, hoping energy would burst the screen back to life. To no avail. He looked at me, a frown cast on his face and his eyes screwed at me.

“Vault, I was doing a data override,” he bleated with a large pout.

“Ain’t your job. We don’t do industrial spying. I know your talent makes you naturally curious, but it’s not an excuse for taking apart things to find out what their purpose is. You remember the last time we had to check a megaspell rocket?” I grinned. “Glad Applejack was here to save your ass from the Morale’s agents.”

He frowned at me. Yeah, having a cutie mark making you able to point out any flaw or irregularities within whatever you get your hooves onto was a benediction for the TAD. However, it made Admin being quite of the holier-than-thou kind of unicorn. I wondered if his talent worked on ponies. I never wanted to know, it was creepy as zebra’s shit.

He was our own little replicate of Prince Blueblood. But his talent was also a part of his genius. We had no breakdown since the TAD had him recruited, four years ago. I glanced at the cylinder in my hooves, still glowing. The liquid I could see through the open slit was hovering inside the tube. Admin gazed at it with a weird and titillated expression. He tapped the rad counter on his torso which clicked in return. He confirmed it was the source of the radioactive leak. Taking a look closer, we found out a crack in the cylinder from with minuscule drop of glittering blue fell between us.

“Stable-Tec will have to handle quality control.” He screwed his eyes, I knew he was ‘talenting’ again. “They probably wanted to lower the production costs. Too bad it was also concerning the radiation protection. The MWT might want to audit Stable-Tec. for such fraudulent practices. Yet, I’m still troubled. When Stable-Tech builds something, it’s built to last.”

He looked at me with a perplexed look, always showing off this tiny screw of his upper left lips when he had a question worrying him.

“Do you think it could be a sabotage? I’ll have to report this.”

I shrugged. If he wanted to go through administrative papers, I wasn’t going to stop him. But I’d quit as soon as he’d have started.

“Well, have you finished?” Rusty’s voice crackled in the room’s speaker.

I nearly dropped the glass cylinder. It bounced around between my hooves before I caught and stabilized it.

“Yeah, just a second. Are you in a hurry?” I shouted.

“Somepony wants to see you, Vault. Guy’s name is Balloon.”Again, I nearly broke the radioactive cylinder.

I might have made a bit too much of a mess listening to Rusty. His voice was not neutral anymore, expressing a paternal worry for me.

“Everything’s alright?”

“He… He’s just from the Ministry of Morale. It was scheduled,” I explained. “Sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

I heard him grunt, unpleased. Everypony who wasn’t part of the Ministry of Morale hated it. Some of us hated Pinkie Pie even more, her bulged eyes looking over us at every corner of every street, her posters glued everywhere, and thus, forever. With Admin, I put the broken cylinder in a leaded box and stored it in one of the sealed lockers displayed inside the room Fourteen. The Hazard Services would come at the end of the week to take it out. Then we put the air filters in a machine shaped as a funnel and switched the mechanism on. A ‘ting’ popped from the rad-counter, mentioning the radioactivity had begun to drop, the air was flowing in the purifier.

We walked back inside the decontamination chamber and once we had closed the door behind us, a warm demineralized water blend with many chemicals showered my whole body. The jets were strong, tickling. I threw away my goggles and my mask, letting the water blasting on my rump and face. It lasted for five minutes. A hot shower was never long enough.

When the shower ended, Admin and I found ourselves trapped into a mist of white steam. He unzipped his suit and put it in a near container with my own equipment. The Hazard Services will take care of it too, it wasn’t our job after all. A loud suction initiated and the steam vanished into a pipe located above us. I sighed. The cold was back again, lashing my flanks.

I had tried to get rid of the angst dwelling in my heart. But it had kept growing nonetheless. Everypony knew now Balloon was here and they would all ask questions. If not to me directly, they would come to Admin. I was doomed. I had always managed to separate my work from my private life. Only Admin had been an exception to this rule, with the enmities that went with. When I walked out of the antechamber, I saw Chrome, her eyes red with dried tears and her mouth creased. Oh, she wasn’t happy. In all the stares I saw anxiousness. I guessed many thought I had committed some awful and unforgivable deed in the Ministry of Morale’s eyes. Having an agent at one’s workplace was nothing but good. And because everypony was ignorant of the truth, I knew the tension was far more pregnant that it should have been. I took a deep breath and patted Chrome now disheveled white mane.

Rusty looked at me, a sad expression in his eyes. He swallowed his saliva.

“You want some help,” he asked in a whisper, knowing ponies were listening. “I have relations…”

“No. It’s not what you think,” I answered with a smile. “It’s concerning me and only me.”

Rusty looked at Admin, seeking for an answer. The grey unicorn drifted his eyes away, making Rusty frown. The old buck grunted and turned back at me.

“Okay.” He paused. “Just call me if you need help.”

“No worry,” I assured him. “Where is he?”

He sighed and looked at one of the warehouse’s doors.

“I gave him the fifth… Or to be honest, he asked me this one. He’s waiting inside.”

I gulped as I looked at the number, stamped in dark red on the nearest metallic door. The fifth room was the only one that had no contact with the exterior. No camera, no interphone… Only one door to go in, only one door to go out. I needed to brace myself for this encounter. Balloon had left his mark on me, a blend of terror and admiration.

“I’m just going to the toilets,” I told Rusty before creeping toward the mares’ privates.

He shrugged, rambling over the help he could offer me. Again, I denied his tended hoof. I needed calm above anything else. My hooves trembling to a small extent, I locked the door of the toilets. The privates were relatively large place where four closets were aligned on the left, separated by tiled walls and closed by wooden doors. The right side of the place was reserved for the sinks and a large mirror. I hopped toward the first sink on my right and nearly stumbled, how clumsy I was, wasn’t I?

I turned on the tap and splashed my face with a stream of cold water. I looked at myself, my ghoulish beige face with dark rings under the eyes. How ponies could stand me as a co-workers? I ransacked my saddlebag for a moment. Then, wiping my cheek, I sank my head in the sink, stayed a few seconds under the water, holding my breath. I rose my head again and… Balloon looked at me in the mirror.

I jumped on my hind legs, yapping like a scared dog, swiveled, plunged my eyes in his and fell back, hitting my head hard on the sink. My vision dizzied violently, my pounding heart hurting my temples. I put my hooves on my face, warmth rushing up my brain. My knees and heels shook with the spike of adrenaline I just suffered.

“Are you okay,” he asked, a frown on his face.

“Don’t do it, ever again,” I jerked with my raspy voice.

I looked deep in his eyes and I saw the flame burning beneath, he was angry. Was it aimed at me? I whimpered, seeking a hideout under the aluminum sink, still rubbing my head. A tear foreshadowed on my left eye. Now that a bruise sat on the back of my head, numbness dampened my concentration, forcing me to wobble back and forth in my fetal position. I couldn’t relieve myself from the pain completely.

“How long have you’ve been drinking?” he spat at me.

“I don’t,” I replied with a sob. “I haven’t…”

I shrieked when he pulled my mane and dragged me down the floor, spreading the content of my saddlebag on the linoleum. I hear the clatter of empty bottles. Balloon smirked.

“The scent may be not strong enough for your coworkers, but I can smell it. You reek,” he scowled at me in disgust.

I lied to you, again. As I had lied to me that day. From the shelves in my kitchen I hadn’t taken sparkle cola, as I had always done before. I had gone for a more… sophisticated and heady beverage, a cheap decoction of alcoholic potato.

Balloon pushed me against a wall, trying to stare at me. And always avoiding his eyes, I broke into tears. My legs would have failed me if he wasn’t here to maintain me on my febrile hooves. Whimpering I tried to flee from him like a child would from a punition. I tried to punch him. A useless attempt… I would have only made his brown mane slightly messier, curled his blue fur a bit more and maybe thrown his glasses away. Perhaps I should have aimed to his horn, but I had no strength at the moment, likely drained of it all.

“Everypony is the same,” Balloon criticized, nearly spitting at me. “Begging for everything to go away, like sheep.”

He let me fall on the ground. Shaken, I tried to crawl toward the entry, felling my guts growling with all the alcohol I had drunk without really noticing it. Why was it that agent the one who had to know how I was feeling? It was unfair.

“Amethyst has been buried earlier than scheduled, one hour ago,” he announced without a pinch of concern in his voice.

I blinked at him. He did what? Stoic I glanced at him, an emotionless expression. My rage rushed out of my lungs. I screamed, aiming at his throat with my bare hooves. He blocked me with his magic and grabbed my neck, making my upper body hover over the ground while I was gasping for air. Balloon had blocked my scream on his way up to my vocal cords. His magic was a closed gate inside my throat. I gasped, jerked, kicked.

While he was holding me in the air, he searched through his bag and drew out a strangely shaped item. A black tiara, which sides were flattened plaques that would cover a pony’s temples and even cheeks if he or she was small enough. Coughing for a breath of air, I looked at the inside of the tiara, inexorably floating in my direction, glimmering in Balloon’s magic. It showed five to ten rows of small screws, each separated with a larger one retracted on the exterior of the plaques.

Revelation struck me, I knew the item’s name. I had seen one passing by the TAD and Rusty had instantly refused to look at it, ‘the devil’s work’ he had spat out. It was a long time ago. It was nothing but a recollector, a terror-inducing item for those who knew the Ministry of Morale’s true ways. I tried to back away from Balloon, kicking in the air between my hooves and the ground. My back bumped into the brick wall opposed to the exit door as Balloon moved me like a puppeteer.

“Your growing mental disorder is a matter the Ministry of Morale is taking seriously. Through our mental mapping process, we found out you could become an unpredictable and socially violent mare,” he stated with a sigh, seemingly pissed off by my behavior. “It has been decided the memory of your daughter and everything that is related to her shall be erased, ensuring the well-being of the ponies close to you. As long as ensuring your continuation as the healthy and hard-working mare you are.”

My heart failed me and I cried, hoping I could melt inside the wall and get away from his grasp. The clutch around my neck tightened painfully and a heat wave rushed to my head. I was asphyxiating. My vision blurred and phosphenes popped through my vision. My hooves grated on my skin as I tried to rip an invisible rope off my neck. He rammed the recollector onto my head. The screws sliced my epidermis and cut off some clumps of my mane. One of my ears folded and I felt a tiny piece of skin being torn away. Blood flowed on my face, cheeks and eyes. I was wearing a dark and thorny crown that was going to break me apart.

My vision went red. I saw the healing potion in Balloon’s hoof, ready to clean the infamy he had printed on my face once his job done: a casual work that would cut through my memories like a knife through a cake, taking the best slices out first. I screamed, sobbed… and gave in. I lowered my head. Sparks flew in front of my eyes. A screech slithered in my ears like a hundred needles biting my eardrums. My temples and upper-cheeks burst in pain and the warmth plaguing my face drew back little by little, chased away by some kind of coldness numbing the skin. It was tickling, penetrating, violent, eerie, frightening… horrible. Sparks gave space to a magic mist orbiting around my head. I closed my eyes, feeling for the first time magic running through my veins. I cried and hiccupped, hoping for a black-out to end my misery as soon as possible.

Instead, Balloon sat next to me.

“You’ll see. It hurts just a second,” he explained with a cheerful smile. “When you’ll wake up, you’ll feel better. You’ll be better.”

I answered with a broken blabber as tears ran down my red and watery cheeks. He shook his head.

“Hell, what did you think?” he laughed dryly, sweeping the bloody tears off my cheeks and nose. “I was not a knight in shining armor coming for you. You thought I could come and end your pain, giving you some love.”

I nodded weakly, butterflies running through my veins as an anesthetic wave started in my tips, slowly crawling toward my chest and head. He laughed at me.

“I might do the first thing. But the second…” He shook his head.

I wanted to shrink in a corner and disappear under my shame. I wanted to forget, to be forgotten. I wanted my suffering to go away. I was hesitated. Maybe he was right in the end. I finally met his stare, birthing shudders along my backbone. He looked like a predator, eyeing his prey before the last deadly and life-ending leap. A charming predator who was creeping me out. I jerked away and failed to escape.

The grip on my neck came back stronger this time, my scream kept muffled again. Balloon pushed me violently on the ground, and his magic flew again around the recollector, the screws biting deeper into my skin and then, my flesh. He shut me up as I was going to cry out for help. I jolted. Trying to flee away, I only grated my back against a wall. He steadied me with his hooves, standing over me. He sighed as he neared his horn toward my forehead and the recollector. In my peripheral vision, I saw a black orb floating. A memory orb.

“Why mares have always to be that messy?” he asked rhetorically.

He smirked and looked straight down in my eyes, and his neutral face slowly scarred with a monstrous grin growing from ear to ear. I blinked, drifting away from reality, my ears low and defeated. All this was deeply wrong but I couldn’t struggle back. An urge to vomit craved my stomach as I lost contact with reality. I couldn’t focus, couldn’t think. That grin… I…

I felt violated, raped.