Hatoful Ponyfriend - Bad Ponies Love

Rarity arrives at the cottage just as I'm about to go out to find her. Without a word, she walks to the kitchen table and sits down. She stares straight ahead for a good ten minutes or so until Fluttershy asks her what happened. It takes some time, but we get the story out. Sisters... And what was it Zecora had said?

"What did she mean, find her down below?" I ask. "She doesn't expect us to look through every basement in Ponyville or dig until we find her, does she?"

"Of course not," Fluttershy shakes her head. "But maybe..."

"Yes?"

"It's a long shot, no. It won't work."

"What is it?" The pegasus can't be turning back to her timid self now of all times, can she?

She looks up at me and taps her chin thoughtfully. "I was looking through my documents. They mentioned when the Amore Group's medical center was destroyed, the town bakery was deserted shortly after. Is that a coincidence?"

I look at Rarity, who gives no sign that she heard anything. "I don't know," I continue. "We don't have any other leads, though, so we'd best be going."

"Go on without me." Rarity says softly. "I'd... I'd rather stay here for a while longer."

As much as I don't want to leave the cottage alone, I feel like Rarity should have some time to grieve.

It's not easy to find the bakery, but I don't run into the monster on my way. The windows are all boarded up and the door is locked. It's still dark outside, but a couple more street lamps have been lit, just enough to see by. It's going to be nearly impossible to look around inside, though. With a few kicks, I break down the door and step inside. There are moldy, stale cookies and cakes in the display windows. I can't even bear to look at the atrocities that once were muffins.

Despite the situation, I can't help but chuckle just a tiny bit, if only in a feeble attempt to lighten the mood. I only have the light from the street lamps to look by and there could be anything waiting in the shadows. I'm looking for a passage, though. Where would a secret passage be? As silly as it is, I go to look at the bookshelf behind the counter, full of dessert recipes of every shape and size. I pull on the bookshelf itself first, but it doesn't just fall over. I can't find any hidden levers, so I start pulling out books one by one. Maybe there's a switch behind one, or maybe the book is the switch.

I glance at the spines as I pull each book down. No two are exactly alike, they differ in shape, size, and color. I can't even believe there are this many books on baking. The bottom shelf is different from the others, though. The books are all the same. I take them off the shelf, one by one, and they seem to be a list of every food and ingredient in existence.

The sixth book is not like the others. I turn it over in my hooves and it's not a part of the series at all. Wait. The missing book in the library. Could this be it? I open it and look inside but there's no use, I can't read in this light.

Taking the book under my wing, I decide to head out and go back to the library. I can read by the candle light there and maybe Twilight Sparkle will know something.

I can see the tree-house-library from here. It's a blotchy, tree-shaped silhouette against the complete blackness of the dome covering Ponyville. It's a quiet walk, strangely enough. There is still no sign of the monster. Is it gone for good?

"Twilight Sparkle?" I call out as I walk into the library.

"Please be quiet in the library," I hear her say from one of the corners. She doesn't look up from her book. "What do you want this time?"

"I found out some things," I say, not even bothered by her response. "There are some things I'd like to ask about the town, and about you."

Twilight Sparkle raises her eyes to me and heaves a deep sigh. She stares at me for ten seconds or so, as if hoping I would leave, before closing the book and standing up. With a tilt of her head, she notices the encyclopedia under my wing.

"What is that? Where did you find that?" she asks, a faint hint of curiosity in her voice.

"It was in the bakery," I reply, walking forward and giving her the book. "Do you know about it?"

"I knew a lot of things," Twilight Sparkle replies as she begins pacing. "I can't quite remember it all."

I take a deep breath and try to remember all of the questions I have for her. "Did you really die here a long time ago?"

"I did." She stops to nod at me, then continues walking in circles. "I didn't just die in the accident in the basement. I was the accident. I destroyed it, I destroyed myself. I can never leave this place."

My breath catches in my throat. "You-"

"But why did I?" I'm interrupted. She doesn't seem to be talking to me, but to herself at this point. "Something to hide? Something to end? The books..."

"Wait," I say, "If you died in the Amore group's basement, why are you here in the Library?"

The purple unicorn shrugs and turns to the shelf with the encyclopedias on them. "I don't know yet." She runs her hooves along the spines of the books slowly, thoughtfully, before pulling out one of the volume nines.

"Read this." Her horn glows purple and she levitates the book to me.

I open the book, but it's not what I expected. The pages are glued together and the inside is hollowed out like a box. Inside the box are papers and files, just like the ones that Rarity and I found at Fluttershy's cottage. I move closer to one of the candles to go through the papers one by one, careful not to burn the precious evidence.

"Did you do this?" I ask, looking up at Twilight Sparkle, who is pacing again.

"Maybe." She comes over to me and stands at my shoulder. "What does it say?"

I begin reading the first page. It uses a lot of complex, science-y words that I don't understand, but there is enough to get the idea of it. They wanted to create a new disease, like the one before, that would be able to exterminate the dragons. They would send ponies to the dragons to spread it. The ponies would be the carriers.

The next few pages are labeled "Subject 07" and are mostly dates with the same notes beside them.

March 5: No progress has been made.

March 6: No progress has been made.

March 7: No progress has been made.

March 8: No progress has been made.

On the next page, something more is written.

March 15: We have isolated strains of Equidae Influenza from Twilight Sparkle. It has proven to be lethal to young dragons, we wait for results on older test subjects. It has been named Exodus Virus and research will continue.

I look at Twilight Sparkle to see if she remembers anything.

"They always brought young dragons to me underground. They would get very sick very quickly..." she walks away and begins pacing again. "They did things. The scientists did things to me, with me. They wouldn't let me leave, I stole the papers and hid them. I had to destroy the virus. I had to tell my family. My family? Did I have a family?"

I let her continue for a little bit until she begins asking the same questions again. Before I can stop her, though, she turns to me and looks me in the eyes. There's an intensity in her gaze.

"I remember now."

"Many, many years ago, I lived in an orphanage in Canterlot. Many of the other ponies I lived with had suffered family losses from the war. I understood their hatred for them, but I didn't feel it myself. I was young, it was home. That was how I grew up.

"One day, we heard screaming outside and we all ran to see what was going on. There were two brilliant lights outside, one golden-yellow, one fiery red,, clashing into each other with malicious intent. Ponies were panicking and there were dragons in the sky, setting rooftops alight.

"Just as we got back inside, one of the dragons ripped off the roof of the house. It reached inside and ate my siblings one by one, uncovering every hiding place with a single sweep of its claws. Just as it reached me, there were shouts and a roar followed by a loud crash outside. Ponies galloped into the house and found my hiding place. As we walked outside, I saw the body of the dragon collapsed beside the house.

"One of my siblings had survived. She had been running errands during the attack. The two of us lived together in a small house that we could barely afford. She worked as a part-time hoofmaiden at Canterlot Castle.

"That was when I got the invitation. I received a letter one day that invited me to an institution where I "would receive the finest training and care that can be provided to a young pony" such as myself. I didn't want to leave my sister, but she said that it would be good for me to have friends. It was true that she spent most of her day at work and I was usually alone, but I just liked knowing that she would come home. Secretly, though, I knew that I was holding her back. I wanted the best for her. I was sent here. It would one day become Ponyville.

"It wasn't until I arrived that I realized that it wasn't a school. It was worse than a prison. It was an underground facility dedicated to utterly wiping out all of dragonkind. Apparently, I had something that other ponies didn't have. They fed me, they gave me books to read, but there were always tests to be done. They would inject something into me, or remove something from my body. They would bring dragons into my room, as large as they could fit, and I would watch them die, simply by being in my presence.

"I heard them talking about trouble one day. About shutting down the facility, about needing to lie low for a while. Maybe this would be the end. I would be able to go home and live with my sister again.

"Of course, that was not the case. Instead, I was preserved, body and mind, with an ancient spell that froze me in time. My body was kept in one of the giant freezers while I was trapped within my own mind, blind, deaf, and mute. I tried to remember the happy days back in Canterlot, but I could only remember the deaths of the dragons I had caused during my time at the facility. I relived them for ten years, then twenty, fifty, a hundred, five hundred, until I lost count.

"I was awoken by a new pony, but she had still wanted to continue what the last ones had started. I couldn't let them do that. Dragons may have killed everyone I knew and loved, but it wasn't right. I felt myself dying with them, bit by bit. I took the papers on their research, hid them, and returned to the facility.

"The laboratory in the basement was where most of the experiments were conducted on me. That was where I disappeared. I had read books about magic and I never forgot them. I started the fire and I burned."

I stare at her, dumbstruck. It seems so incredible and so impossible, yet here I am talking to a ghost. "Could..." I speak slowly, just in case she has anything else to say, "Could that disease be the one that killed Spike?"

"That's impossible," Twilight Sparkle replies, much too quickly. "There is no trace of the disease left. The Exodus Virus died with me."

The rest of the notes don't seem to have any useful information, but there's a map of Ponyville at the bottom of the stack.

"Didn't you say that the facility existed before Ponyville?" Even as I ask the question, I notice that something's wrong with the map. No matter which way I turn it, there's no way it could be Ponyville. There are certain similarities, but not many.

"That's not a map of Ponyville," I hear Twilight Sparkle say softly. When I give her a confused look, she walks to my other shoulder and points at where the library would be. "This is the basement."

I stand up, sending papers flying. None of them hit any candles, thank goodness. "You're amazing!" I put the papers back into the encyclopedia and tuck it under my wing again. "Do you know how to get down there?"

"I do not." The unicorn shakes her head, "But I wish you good luck."

As I turn to leave, I hear her say, "Say hello to Spike for me."

I spin around. "What?! He's down there?"

But she's gone.