"Alright this is colony 25." Professor Spritehoof announced as two other ponies followed. For the past six months, Professor Spritehoof had been working on a way to genetically engineer a parasprite to eat something other than fruits or vegetable which lower the chance of food shortages in cities all over Equestria.
"Well, this looks interesting," one of the two ponies said as the professor led them to a giant, bigger than the earlier colony cages he had showed them before. The two ponies looked through the glass with wide eyes as they watched a colony of 40 to 50 parasprites buzzing around, their large eyes glowing in the forestry habitat they called home.
"Want to take a closer look?" the professor asked. The two gave each other a quick glance and eventually nodded their heads. As they started to walk inside, the professor asked, "What are your names by chance?" The two were startled by the question, but answered calmly.
"Im Lyra and this is my friend, Bon Bon."
The professor grinned as Lyra and Bon Bon walked inside. The two smiled as they looked at the little insects buzzing around them, but their enjoyment was short-lived. To their horror the door behind them had been locked shut.
Bon Bon felt sharp pain in her leg. When she looked down she saw that a group of parasprites started to feed on her. Both started to panic and started banging on the door, hoping to get the professor's attention. But their efforts were meaningless as the parasprites started to enter a feeding frenzy as they swarmed on both Lyra and Bon Bon. Screams turned into blood choking gargles before the cage finally fell deadly silent. The only sound was a quiet crunch as the parasprites worked on the bones of the corpses. The professor opened the door to reveal two mutilated corpses as he gagged slightly at the sight of them. Lyra's body had intestines and other organs spilled all over the ground while Bon Bon's had ribs jutting out of her sides and half of her face had been eaten while the lower half of her body had been separated and dragged to a far corner in the cage and was still being fed on by the swarm.
The professor started to drag the blood-soaked bodies outside, leaving behind a trail of blood. He then threw them into the river below and smiled to himself feeling like he has done something amazing. As he walked back inside, he stared at the cage that had claimed two more innocent lives and felt a tint of sorrow. He walked towards the window to see that the swarm had stopped feeding on the separated half of Bon Bon. Since he didn't want anyone to ask him questions on why there was half of Bon Bon's body in a cage he decided to go and drag it out.
Before he opened the door, he hesitated. A few weeks back he had tricked another pair of citizens to come to his facility, only to be fed to his parasprites like Bon Bon and Lyra. After all, the world could do with one less cello player and one less blue haired DJ. As he had been retrieved the bodies, he had a near death experience. The experience had left a bite wound on his neck. He paused for a few moments, thinking, and decided to make run for it.
He opened the door and sprinted to the corpse. The door made an ominous click when it shut behind him. He immediatly turned around, and tried to open the door. Locked from the outside. He pounded on the door. Someone would have to hear it, and they’d let him out before it was too late. He turned around to look at the parasprites. They were already advancing on him. He banged on the door one last time, and then backs away from the oncoming swarm.
He backed himself into a corner between two viewing panels. He looked out them, hoping that someone had heard him. There was one pony there an orange stallion in a lab coat. The professor pounded on the window, trying to gain his attention.
The stallion looked. And he smiled. The professor looked back to the parasprite swarm. They we’re close. He hits the window, pleading for his life. The stallion shook his head.
The professor felt the first bite on his leg. The stallion walked up close to the window for a better view,demented smile still on his face. He felt a second bit on his right forehoof. A third on his chest. A forth on his muzzle. He screamed in pain.
The parasprites make slow work of him, eating him slowly. He looks down, and sees the large pool of blood underneath him. He raises one bloody hoof, and places it on the window. It slowly slides down the glass with a squelching noise, leaving a blood smear behind. The professors screams slowly fade into moans of pain. He feels the teeth of one parasprite bite through a hip joint. He has the pleasure of feeling muscle and tendon being torn from each other as the parasprites rip his leg off. He knows he won’t last long now. And he welcomes death, grateful for the relief from the pain. The moans slowly fade to silence. The last thing he sees is the unhinged smile of the stallion outside the glass. The stallion stands there, watching his comrade being eaten alive by his own creation. They’ve claimed their next victim. His soul must have been eaten away, just as the bodies of those consumed were eaten away. He smiles, hums a tune, and walks away.
3 days later
Applejack looks up at the tall, imposing building in front of her. “Well, ah hope ah got thuh righ’ place,” she says to herself. She walks up to the front door, and knocked. She stood there for a few moments, wondering if she got the address wrong. The door opens seemingly of it’s own accord, admitting her entrance. She walks in, and is greeted by a large orange stallion.
“Well hello there!” the stallion says with a wide smile. He seems to have a heavily repressed southern accent. “What’s a beautiful mare like yourself doing in this part of town?” The stallion asks in a disarming way.
Applejack hesitates to answer. She’s still unsure if this is the right address, let alone the right part of town. “I received thisy here invitation yesterday mornin' and ah was wonderin if this here was the righ place”
The stallion’s eyes suddenly widen in dark amusement, and what seems like recognition. Applejack doesn’t notice. “Ah, yes. You are miss Applejack, correct?”
“Ah sure am,” she says with her best smile under the circumstances. She extends a hoof. “What did ya say yer name was, stranger?”
“You may call me, Professor,” he says, shaking the extended hoof. He leads Applejack inside the building, the door closing with a solid thunk. Applejack suddenly wishes that she had stayed home, instead of following the mysterious invitation. “So, I will assume that you know of the parasprites, correct?” the Professor asks her as they walk down an industrial steel hall. A faint insectoid chittering can be heard throughout the building.
“Ah sure do! After all, we did stop them when they came to Ponyville.”
“Good, good,” the stallion began, “what we’re doing here is selectively breeding them so that they consume other food sources, and then release them back into the wild so they breed with the wild parasprites, thus eliminating them as a threat.”
“Ah’m not sure ah followed.”
“Where breeding them to be safe again.” The professor smiles.
“Wonderful! Then me and mah brother Big Mac won’t have to worry about them eating our apple orchard up.”
“Your brother?” Something seems to struggle beneath the mask that the stallion wears. “Tell me about him.”
“He’s a right big fella. Doesn’t speak all that much. He’s a hard worker, and honest. After all, I am the Element of Harmony, and he is my brother.”
“Element of Harmony?”
“You don’t get out all that much, do you?” Applejack laughs.
The stallion gets an annoyed look, but he hides it before she can notice. “No, I don’t. This facility requires all of my time and energy. I get all my news from visitor’s such as yourself, and it’s been a while since we invited someone in. But we’ll have plenty of time to talk about that later. We are ready to begin the tour of our facilities.” He leads her through another steel door. This door opens up into a slightly more comfortable hallway, but not by much. All the floors and walls are still steel, just painted a depressing grey. “These are our living quarters”
A green mare earth pony walks out of a door, and slightly jumps at seeing the professor. She regains her composure. “Hello, sir. May I ask who the visitor is?”
“Howdy! Mah name’s”-
The professor cut’s her off. “Her name is Applejack. She is our next visitor,” he says clinically. He turns to Applejack. “Her name is Glaze” He starts to move on again. Glaze and Applejack make brief eye contact. Applejack is surprised by the look on Glaze’s face. She has an impassive mask on, but in her eyes is a certain madness, and almost a hunger. Applejack tries to ignore her as she takes a step forward.
“Sir, may I speak to you for a moment?” Glaze says to the Professor.
“Of course. Applejack, wait in the hall and don’t wander off,” he says sharply. The two walk into an adjacent room. Applejack catches a glimpse of a steel panelled, empty room. The design is very spartan, only holding the bare basics needed to sustain a life, along with a computer terminal. Then the door shuts, sealing her out.
Glaze and the Professor look at each other. The Professor is a few inches taller then Glaze, and looks down at her with a hard expression. Glaze looks up at him with her blood thirsty gaze.
“What do you want?” he asks her.
“Is she the next one?” She asks him quietly.
“She is. They’re getting hungry. Their feeding rate is increasing. Soon we may reach one pony each day. And this is all for the master plan, remember that”
Applejack presses her ear to the door, but the door must be sound proofed. She can’t hear anything.
“Are you sure you can do this?”
“Are you questioning my competence? I have run this facility for much longer than you’ve been here. I have watched their feeding habits. I have recorded over one hundred feedings now, and six feedings that where... necessary.”
“You mean assassinations; knocking out anyone who questioned your authority.”
He gives her a harder look. “Are you willing to be the seventh?”
“Not yet. I’m just wondering if you have the strength to throw her in there and watch them eat her.”
“As I have previously stated, I have over a hundred recorded feedings”
“Alright. That is all”
“Is the plan coming along well?”
“Yes. We are near release capacity. Soon they shall all kneel before us. The”-
“Enough” He cuts her off. “How is our little rebel? Is he still looking for a way out?”
“Yes. He believes that if he makes a run for it while we’re feeding the parasprites, he can just walk out the front door.”
“He should know that there is no escape, especially with how much he knows. Are we close to purifying the complex?”
“Yes. I’ll be feeding them to the parasprites soon.”
“Good. I shall entertain our guest for awhile longer before we begin the feeding process.” The two ponies went their separate ways as the professor opened the door to see Applejack with a very suspicious look on her face.
“Wha' was that all 'bout,” Applejack asked. The professor ignored her question and proceeded down the hallway with Applejack close behind.
“What's he hiding,” Applejack asked herself quietly. Applejack continued following the professor until they came to a small room with metal poles surrounding the entrance. Applejack walked inside confused why would the professor lead them to a dead end. Applejack suddenly felt a sharp pain on the back of her neck as she fell face first on the hard floor. Applejack rolled over to see the professor with one of the metal rods in his hooves as he giggled with psychotic excitement.
“Ouch that looked like it hurt,” he giggled as he smacked Applejack with pole again but this time with more force the impact caused Applejack’s nose to bleed.
“Wait hold on, that looked like it hurt a lot more. Now tell me what hurts more, A or B?”
He mercilessly swings the pole around, hitting her in the back of the head again.
“Forehoof?”
He winds up another slammer, and let’s it fly at her, hitting her in the muzzle. She can feel a couple loose teeth.
“Or Backhoof?”
Applejack groaned in pain as blood flowed from her nose and mouth. She mumbles something quietly. The professor stops mid-swing, and bends down to hear her better.
“Heh. A little louder, lambchop, I think you may have a collapsed lung or maybe you're just choking on your own blood.” Applejack then turned her head and spat blood at the professors face. The professor then slammed Applejack’s face on to the stone floor in anger.
Applejack looks up into the demented face of her torturer. She sees a demented grin, and fierce joy at having so much power over somepony. But beneath that, she catches a glimmer of huge sorrow. The rage and joy seem to be very unstable, but there’s something about the sadness she see’s that seems real. He does his best to hide it, and then gives her another unhinged smile. His face, a foot away from hers. A smear of blood on one side, that damn demented grin, and eyes that seem to glow with an internal fire.
“Now that was rude. The last two visitors that came here at least had some manners.” Applejack laughed, mocking him.
The professor took a deep sigh and said, “I guess I’m going to have to teach you how to follow in their footsteps… Naa. I'm just going to keep beating you with this metal pole.” Applejack took five more lighter strikes from the pole until the professor stopped and made his way to the entrance of the room.
“Alright, kiddie. I got to do a few things for a while. You just be a good girl and stay here, alright?” the professor said as if too a child who stepped out of line. The door slammed shut. Applejack looked around the room trying desperately to find a way out. She can hardly think. Her vision is fuzzy from the pounding. She almost definitely has a concussion.
As she looked back towards the door she noticed that door wasn’t completely shut. She saw the hallway that she had taken down here through the small crack that was shown from the door. Applejack crawled in pain towards the door, inching closer closer with every passing second. As she reached the door, she reached for the handle to help her get to her feet. She groaned in pain as she pulled herself up off the floor. She got to her feet, then slipped on something. She hit the door as she fell, forcing it to close and lock with a fatal click. She looks down to see what she slipped on. Her own blood.
She looks around the room, looking for an escape route. If she was a pegasus, she could fly up to the vent near the ceiling. With an escape route impossible, she searches for a weapon. She picks up one of the metal poles in her mouth, testing it’s weight and size. She takes a test swing with it. She has good control over it. Applejack backs into a corner away from the door, and stands there, awaiting her captors return.
The professor walks down the hallway. The familiar feeling of disquiet stirs within him. He squashes that feeling down. That part of him is dead. He can kill anyone, no matter what their relationship is to him. He knows exactly where he has to go.
A blue pegasus sits on his bed, looking out his window. He’s tired. Too many late nights in a row. He tries not to sleep, even though he isn’t scheduled for duty yet. Dreams only show him what he’s done, the crimes he’s committed. He’s possibly the only pony left in this compound that still has something that resembles a soul. His eyes drift shut, and his head slides down onto a pillow. He starts to snore lightly. He suddenly jumps up. Despite the fact that they’re dead, he can still hear the echoes of their screams. He feels the weight of every life he’s taken, as if the corpses are piled on his back. 73. He’s feels the weight of 73 bodies. He sees the latest victim. An orange mare. He feels like he should do something to save her, but that would be at the sacrifice of his own life. After all, she is his ticket to freedom. Although he knows he’ll never be free of the scars he’s attained here. He remembers how it took a while to get used to causing so much pain. He was in charge of preparing the pegasi for feeding. He had to tear their wings off, so they couldn’t fly above the parasprites. Then he saw what he was doing. His escape plan has been in development for almost a year now. One more orange mare won’t stop that. He looks out the window, looking at the sky, the clouds. Once you get in here, there is no way out. He’s forgotten what it’s like to smell a flower, to feel the sunshine on him.
The professor walks down the final hall, kicking a door open. A blue pegasus jumps, startled out of his thoughts. The blue pegasus recognizes the professor, and stands up. He tries not to look worried. “Can I help you, sir?”
“Yes, you can. Follow me” He says, hiding his anger.
The professor walks out the door, and the blue pegasus follows. He takes one last longing look out the window, and follows the professor down one of the depressing metal halls. He leads him down through a series of metal hallways. He knows where he’s being taken. He tries not to look nervous. With every second his chance at a life outside these walls. He looks behind him. The main doors are just behind them.
“Don’t even think about it” the professor says.
The blue pegasus snaps his head forward. “Think about what, sir?” He tries playing dumb.
“Escaping. Don’t play dumb. I know you’ve been plotting an escape, Biological Technicalities”
He looks forward, neither denying or accepting his accusation. He still follows the professor, though. He feels crushed by being so close to freedom, only to fail in the last hour.
“I thought you, out of all of us, would understand” the professor says.
“What?” The pegasus asks, snapped out of his thoughts.
“I thought you would understand that once you where in here, there is no escape. Especially with what you know, and what you’ve done”
“I only did what I had to do” Bio says defensively.
“We’re here” the professor says. He points at the door in front of him. Bio looks at the door, then unlocks it.
Applejack hears the click of the door being unlocked. She spreads her hooves, getting a better balance, and prepares to brain whoever walks through the door.
The professor walks up behind Bio, and brutally hits him on the back of the head. Bio utters a little groan, and slumps to the ground, seemingly dead. The professor picks the body up, and walks through the door.
Applejack watches the door open, and a body fall through it. She winds back on the pole. The professor walks through the door, carrying a blue pegasus. She swings the pole, aiming for the professors head.
The professor sees a metallic blur flying through the air at him. With lightning like reflexes, he drops the body. He blocks the pole with his forehoof.
The pole is nearly torn from Applejack’s mouth. Somehow, the insane professor raised his right forehoof fast enough to block her swing.
The professor grabs the pole with his own mouth. The taste of blood fills his mouth. He looks down at the pole. It’s the same one he used to beat her with, and he’s got the bloody end. He doesn’t mind though, as he likes the taste.
Applejack and the professor have a brief and one-sided tug-of-war with the pole. The professor tears the pole away from her. He swings the pole at her back left leg. It connects with a satisfying crack.
Applejack falls to the ground. She grits her teeth, determined not to cry out in pain. She looks up at the professor standing over her. His face is contorted in savage glee. Then she sees a blue shadow rise up behind him.
The professor smiles, preparing to swing at the weak little excuse for a pony cowering below him. She looks up, and he sees the fear in her face. He smiles, preparing to deliver a fatal blow to the back of her neck. An emotion he hasn’t felt in a long time stirs deep within him, making him stall. He represses it, and raises the pole for the fatal blow. He swings down.
Bio slowly gets up on his feet. He has a massive, head pounding migraine. The professor is standing over that orange mare, swinging a metal pole at her. He hears a sickening crack when he hits her in the leg. She falls. He raises the pole up. Bio knows that he’s the only one who can stop him. The professor swings the pole down, after hesitating for a moment. There’s only one way to save her now.
Bio knows that he doesn’t have a chance at freedom now. No matter what, he’s going to die here. But he knows he can still choose how he goes. He dives past the professor. He closes his eyes. There’s no turning back now.
Applejack sees a blue blur, and then a soft thud of a body landing against her, not the hard bite of a steel pole.
Bio feels the sharp edge of the pole cut into his side. His body is near the breaking point. It’s taken such a beating already. He tries to fight against the blackness creeping in on the edges of his vision. He’s not done yet. He focuses on the pain.
Applejack looks at the blue pegasus that took the blow for her. He grits his teeth, and start to stand up. Theres a bloody hole in his side where the pole struck him.
The professor looks at Bio in surprise. “Still got some fight in ya yet, huh Bio?” Bio gets up, and looks at the professor in anger. “I’ll just have to fix that” He swings the pole in his mouth at Bio, and it lands with a solid thunk.
Bio tries to fight the pain. He has to make his death count. He falls to the ground. His vision starts to fade. He growls deep in his throat, trying to hang on.
“Still not down. I’m impressed” the professor says genuinely. “Too bad” He swings the pole on last time at Bio.
Bio grits his teeth, knowing another blow is coming. He feels a muffled hit to the back of his neck, and then he surrenders to oblivion.
The professor grabs a mic from his lab coat pocket. “Glaze, darling, could you offer me a hand? I’m at storage room A. We’ve got some unruly packages”
He stands there, watching Applejack. “So how do you like the tour so for?”
Applejack gets to her feet slowly due to her broken leg.. “Your a monster” She says vehemently.
The professor laughs. “Am I? Tell me, what do you know about the Three Race War?”
Applejack gives him a dumbfounded look.
He chuckles. “So, who doesn’t get out much?” He smiles for a moment at her. “Long before you or I where around, there was a war between the Pegasi, the Unicorns, and us. We were the underpowered ones. We couldn’t fly or use magic. All we had where numbers. We died by the millions. Then the Alicorns came along, and forced peace on us. But once again, we were the ones who got cut short on the deal”
“So all this is to get centuries old revenge?” Applejack asks in confusion.
“No. This is more personal. I got others that thought like I did, and we started this. We disguised it as a research project. How foolish of the Alicorns to let us do this. As I said, this is personal” His eyes seem to burn of a self-possessed fire. “You see, my mother was a Pegasus, my father was a Unicorn. All my siblings were one of the two. I was the odd one out” He says.
“Why do I care about what your parents were like?”
“You should care about your grandparents, Applejack” He says darkly.
“What do-” Then it hits her.
The door opens again. Glaze walks in.
“You got your sedative?” The professor asks her.
“Right here. I’ll do the honors” Before Applejack can respond, Glaze lunges forward and jabs a needle into her shoulder. She’s out before she can protest.
The professor picks up Bio, and Glaze picks up Applejack.
“We’ll dump them in Feeding Block Alpha” the professor tells her. The two walk down a series of hallways.
They walk in silence, the professor always looking ahead, and Glaze glancing at him every so often. Applejack and Bio’s bodies seemed lifeless as they carried them to the feeding block. As they continued down the hallway they came to a large room with two giant windows that were smeared with dry blood and dried up organs that lined the floor. Before the professor could open the door he noticed out of the corner of his eye that Applejack was recovering from the sedative and waking up. He was surprised he had never had any of his kidnapped subjects recover this fast. Applejack opens her eyes her vision is fuzzy and all she can see is two blurry objects over her and behind them seemed like a door to another room.
“Well this is interesting” The professor said with a dark demented grin. He leaned closer to Applejack
“Well since your vision is still cloudy it seems I’ll fill you in more about me, you see-” he was cut off as Applejack pushed him towards the door behind him. As he fell backwards he pushed open the door and fell into the Feeding Block. In the block was 30-50 parasprites and instantly they advanced at him. Applejack, though her vision was cloudy, was able to quickly make her way to the professor and drag him out of danger and close the door in time. As she did that the professor got up with a furious look on his face.
“Now... Why? Why? WHY would you do that? Newsflash, sweety, I’m the one trying to KILL YOU!” he glanced at Glaze and suddenly grabbed her and threw her into the room and did the same to Bio. He quickly shut the door and locked it leaving behind screams of agony and death. He faced Applejack with a smile on his face seeming pleased with himself.
The professor stands in front of the window, a smile on his face. Applejack runs to the door, wanting to open it and save them.
“No, no, no. We wouldn’t want the parasprites to escape now, would we?” The professor asks.
Applejack runs to the window, and pounds on the glass, trying to get Bio’s attention. He can’t be one of them, can he?
Glaze pounds on the door. “Very funny, professor” She stands there, waiting for the door to open. “Professor?” He doesn’t answer. “PROFESSOR!” She screams. She turns around, and watches the oncoming pack of parasprites.
Bio edges around the outside of the room. The swarm is distracted by Glazes screaming. An idea forms in his head. “Glaze! Over here, I have a plan”
Glaze looks at him. At first she doesn’t believe him, but she decides to trust him against the swarm. “Yes? How do we get out?” She asks in a panicked voice.
Bio kicks her back left leg. The crack reverberates around the room. She falls to the ground, surprised and in pain. “You don’t. You’re just buying me time” He kicks her other leg, bruising it badly. He knows he should move before the swarm arrives, but he can’t resist. He kicks her once more in the chest. At least three ribs broke.
“YOU LITTLE -”
Bio kicks her again in the head. For a moment he hopes he didn’t kill her, but then he thinks of all the others he’s killed. One more won’t make more of a difference.
He sees Applejack on the other side of the window. She’s gesturing to the door. He runs to the door, and pushes on it with all of his insubstantial strength. He can only hope that Applejack is doing the same. But it doesn’t move.
He looks behind him. The swarm is feeding on the dead or knocked out body of Glaze. Too bad she can’t feel the pain of being eaten alive. But he’ll make sure that the professor can.
Applejack looks through the window. The swarm is feeding on the body of Glaze. There’s so many of them she can’t even see the body. At least she can’t feel the pain of being eaten alive. No one deserves that, not even them.
The professor watches Applejack struggling with the door. A coy smile slips onto his face. She doesn’t know that he remotely locked the door.
Bio gives up hope of ever escaping. But it’s just not fair. He laid his plans months ago, only for them to be thwarted at the last moment. He walks to the window, and stares darkly at the professor. If only he wasn’t a pegasus, and had some magic to throw at him... An idea forms in his head. He flies to the top of the room. He’s only seen this pulled off once, and she had a lot more room to build of speed then he does.
Applejack gives up on the door. She trots to the door, only to see Bio flying to the top of the room. Through some type of intuition, she knows what hes trying to do.
The professor watches the scene play out before him. He questions whether he should tell dear Applejack who Bio is, and what he’s done. It would make things more interesting, to say the least. “Applejack, darling” He says, trying to get her attention. It doesn’t work. So he might as well wait then. Who knows? Maybe he’ll succeed at whatever crazy scheme he’s got.
Bio hovers at the top of the room. He’s only got one chance at this. The swarm is already getting interested in him. He takes a deep breath in, and let’s it out. He flaps down hard. He’s already half way there, and not nearly fast enough. He puts both hooves out in front of him, and braces for impact.
Applejack watches his speedy descent. As he puts his two front hooves out, a light shockwave appears in front of him. Then he dives into the swarm. she can’t see him.
Bio can’t see a thing. He’s moving fast enough that the parasprites can’t get a bite out of him, but he’s flying blind. A pressure builds in front of him. He pushes himself harder. He’s so close.
The professor watches the pegasus fly into the swarm. He can’t help but laugh a little. A bass boom shocks him out of his mirth. He looks into the room to see a green and blue ring emanating from a point near the ground. The swarm has been blown away, stunned. But Bio is nowhere to be seen...
Applejack sees the telltale disk of color. The swarm is blown away by the force of it in a contained area. The built up pressure cracks the windows slightly, but not enough for the swarm to escape. She looks around for Bio...
Bio feels concussive blast of breaking the sound barrier. He looks up from his dive for a moment to appreciate the green and blue disk, and the multicolored paraspites proceeding it. The windows issue a sharp crack. He looks back down. It’s too late to pull up. The cement is only feet away. Time seems to slow down for him. He knows this is his last few moments. His only comfort is his hope that he somehow saved that mares life. In his last millisecond of life, he feels his front hooves completely shattering. That shattering moves all the way up his arms. He’s still moving too fast to survive. He feels the bones in his muzzle shatter. And then he doesn’t feel anymore.
The professor smiles. “There he his” He says to himself. He’s spotted bloody green and blue mess.
Applejack gasps. She thought he was aiming for the window, as a last ditch escape. Turns out his target was the swarm. She tries to look anywhere except for the mangled corpse. She turns to the professor, tears in her eyes. “Monster” is all she can say.
“Those were two very… VERY bad ponies. The things they’ve done... You really don’t want to know. Why, that pegasus, did you know his name?”
“It don matter no more. You killed him”
“But how many did he kill?” He chokes back manic laughter. “47! He’s killed 47, just like I killed him. We’ve killed hundreds. They deserved death - Just... Like... Me” he started to laugh hysterically. Applejack stood in front of him, her vision still not recovered from the sedative. As she stood in front of the professor, only hearing the crunch of the parasprites feeding and his laugh ringing in her ears.
Something else registers in her hearing. Glaze has awaken. The two of them go to the window. She reaches out a bloody hoof to them. The professor watches on impassively, and Applejack looks at her with a mixture of pity and hatred. She screams something unintelligible. She drags herself forward. And that’s when they see it.
She wakes up feeling a slight tingling near her abdomen. That tingling turns into a burning pain. She looks out the window, her vision fuzzy with pain. She can just make out the forms of the mare and the professor. She reaches out a bloody hoof to them, wanting the pain to end. The professor smiles at her pain. She tries standing up, but she can’t feel her legs. She screams in frustration at everything. She drags herself forward with her front hooves, and she feels a sickly sliding feeling. She looks behind her, and she can’t comprehend what she sees. Her hind legs and a part of her stomach are there, ten feet away. A trail of organs connect her to it. She passes out from the sight.
Applejack turns away, not able to bear the sight.
The professor watches, and laughs with a demonic smile on his face.
But she started to hear something odd as the entrance to the feeding block fell silent. That blood curdling laugh started to turn into a depressing sob as if the professor was crying. Applejack looks at the professor, and that demonic smile has been replaced with a visage of pure misery. Applejack slowly grabbed a piece of glass that was by the window and walked toward the professor and stood in front of him.
“What… What do you want” he asked not seeming interested in her.
“I want answers, how yall know my grandparents” Applejack asked sharply. The professor didn’t answer. Applejack leaned closer with determination in her eyes. She quickly grabbed the professor and rammed him against the wall with the shard of glass across his neck. “I won’t ask again”
The professor quickly retaliated and pushed her back and gave her a punch to the face. She drops the glass. Applejack fell to the ground spitting out blood. The professor stood over Applejack dumbfounded as if he thought that Applejack should’ve already known the answer.
His face goes blank. “Element of Honesty my ass. You're more like the Element of Stupidity. I mean the answer to your foolish question is so clear that I bet the stupidest pony in all of Equestria could figure it out. My mom and dad were YOUR grandparents which means” He looked at her awaiting an answer.
“Does that mean that you’re my father”
“Ding Ding Ding! We have a winner!” He says madly. “Yes my dear Applejack I am your amazing and well dressed father” Applejack got up and punched the professor in the muzzle. The professor rubbed his forehoof across his face with disappointment in his eyes.
“Well, not the reaction I was hoping for” He says lightly.
“What did yall think I was gonna give you a big hug and forget about what yall did to me just because you're my father”
“Well… yes” He says innocently.
There was a long pause Applejack didn’t know what to think, on one hoof this was her father and she would love to bring him back home if they got back home but on the other hoof who’s to say he wouldn't take his chances and feed her to his murderous creations. But no. This isn’t her father. The creature before her is a monster. “You’re not mah father. Youre ah monster”
His face twists with anger. “How dare you say that!” He takes a powerful step toward her, and grabs one of her legs. Applejack tries to get out of his grasp, but he puts her into a headlock. He drags her to the door, and it swings open in his presence. He knew remote open was a good idea. He throws Applejack in. As the door comes to a slamming shut Applejack goes towards the window and starts begging the professor to let her out. The professor stood there with a dark blank face.
“I… I understand you had a chance to let me die and you didn’t take it. Oh I bet right now you’re wishing you had… Well, I wish I could stick around and see you perish but I have presents to pack, mistletoe to hang and about 2 million parasprites to release before sunrise. Ciao!” The professor ran off with his demonic laugh ringing on his way out.
Applejack evaluates her situation. The swarm seems to be occupied with the large mess that used to be Bio, and the smaller mess that’s Glaze. She looks at the windows. Despite the fact that they’re severely cracked, there still standing up right. She limps over to one of them on her broken leg. Applejack hits the glass with a forehoof. With a shriek, the glass cracks a little more. She hopes no doors to the outside world are open.
The Professor walks along the halls, a skip in his step. His plans are almost finished. If his breeding program worked correctly, then she should survive. No. He can’t let himself think like that. He’s spent years disconnecting himself from his family. More then years. Decades. Decades of solitude. Just because his daughter is in the building doesn’t mean his shell will crack. He’s slipped up enough today. If the parasprites don’t kill her, he will himself.
He looks up from his thoughts. The control center is up ahead. He walks up to the door, and it swings open. Two ponies are sitting in chairs on the side of a main console.
“Bring up video cameras on feeding block A” He commands them.
The large screen in the room flickers on, displaying the room with the parasprites, and the mess.
“Sir. Permission to ask a question?” The red earth pony to the right asks.
“Permission granted” The professor asks.
“Is that Glaze?”
“It is indeed. Due to her... unfortunate accident, there is now a new position to be filled. Now, how did the purification go?” He asks the yellow mare to his left.
“All 13 Others are accounted for”
“Good. Are we ready for deployment?”
“We are” The two get busy, hitting various switches.
“Hold on. This looks interesting, watch”
The three of them stare at the large screen. An orange equine figure seems to be trying to break the window...
Applejack turns around, and tries bucking the cracked window. Her left leg connects solidly, but her broken right leg buckles under the pressure. She grits her teeth, and bucks again. The window cracks a little more. “Once more” She mutters to herself. The parasprites are starting to look at her.
The three of them watch on the screen.
“She has a broken leg, so she won’t get very far” The Professor tells them.
“Who is she?” The mare asks.
“Just a test subject” And now, she finally is just another victim in his mind.
Applejack tenses all her formidable strength, and then kicks at the window with all her strength. It completely shatters. Fragments of glass rain around her. She walks through the empty frame, limping on her hind right leg.
“IMPOSSIBLE!” The professor roars. He pulls a gun he keeps on the inside of his lab coat out. “Sorry, you weren’t nominated for the promotion” He shoots the red stallion. The yellow mare jumps at the retort. She backs up to the door. The professor smiles. He likes this power, the power of a god. Deciding who lives and who dies. He advances on the yellow mare. She backs up, scared of the professor, and his temper.
“Sir, please stop” She begs. She’s almost to the door. The professor quickly pulls the trigger and fires. The bullet hits the mare in her foreleg. He takes another shot and hits her other leg. She falls to the ground, slipping in a pool of her own blood. The professor walks slowly to her with determination in his eyes. He noticed that the mare was still able to look up at him, begging for mercy.
“Aww, did I hurt your leg? How about a broken neck to go with it” he then leaned forward and grabbed her neck and slammed her against the wall with his gun pointed at her head.
“Sir, why me?”
The professor laughs darkly. One of those few laughs that is an actual laugh, not demented giggling. “Oh, you. Oh silly, loyal, you. I’m about to kill you, and you show me respect by calling me sir. You know, I might just show some mercy”. The mare looks relieved. The professor frowns. “But that’s exactly the reaction you where counting on. You show that you’re loyal to me no matter what, and in return I give you your life, and you rise to second in command. Too bad” The professor pins the mare to the wall with his hoof on her neck. “In fact, I’m going to do the exact opposite” He drops the gun. He punches her in the face. Her muzzle cracks. She cries out in pain. She tries to push him away, but he’s an immovable mountain. She strains against his hoof on her throat, gasping for breath.
The professor punches her again, almost flattening her face. She goes limp in his grip. The professor checks her breathing to see if he still needs to finish her off. He does.
“Finish her!” He growls. He puts a hoof around her back, then punches her in the face. He’s almost certain that if she wasn’t dead, he would’ve just broken her neck. Her head rolls back onto limp shoulders. “Fatality!” He shouts.
He looks at the dead body. “Too bad I couldn’t let you live. You were slightly attractive”
Applejack walks on broken glass, limping on her hind right leg. She doesn’t know what to expect. Only that she has minutes to live. What do you do in a situation like this?
The professor walks down the halls. Halfway to his destination, he realizes he forgot his gun. Oh well. His death is quickly coming. The parasprites will get him. HE just has one goal.
The doors are right in front of him. He punches them opening. But he misjudges his strength, and the door goes flying off it’s hinges into the room. He picks up a convenient metal pole that was laying around.
Applejack jumps when the doors in front of her go flying off the hinges. Her deranged father walks in, and picks up a metal pole that was not there five seconds ago. Without any prelude, he takes a swing. He completely misses, and the pole rips out of his mouth, and goes flying across the room.
The professor grabs applejack, and throws her on the ground. Applejack groans in pain, she doesn’t have much left in her and she knows it. she starts to crawl away slowly from the professor, trying to get to the metal pole at the other side of the room. The professor starts toying with her by shoving her down every few seconds, giggling with pity at the useless mare that was her daughter. Applejack inched ever so closer to the pole but as she reached for it the professor mockingly kicked it far out of her reach. Her head then falls to the floor as she lets out a loud cry for help. But the only pony there was her sadistic father who leaned in and grabbed the back of her head and lifted her up with little effort and throws her against the wall. Applejack slowly falls to the floor as her back is against the wall. Her head droops down as blood floods from below her left eye and right cheek. She then looks up at the professor who is sitting just two feet from her staring at her, intent on making sure she won't make it out alive. She stare at him uncomprehendingly.
“I’ll break yall in two” she says weakly but boldly. The professor chuckles and scoots closer and puts a hoof on her cheek.
“Oh Applejack if you had time for that kind of fun you would’ve done that hours ago… Still I bet you would. I don’t blame you I mean I abandoned you when your lil sis was born and now look we’re now reunited in a very special it’s like we were destined to be in this exact moment. am i right?” he looks at her with curiosity awaiting an answer.
Applejack looks at the professor, her fuzzy mind not making sense of what he said. She looks up at him with blank eyes. Deep in the corner of her brain, she feels something rise, and grow.
The professor walks in circles in front of her. “Now, how should I dispatch you? Any ideas, darling?” He looks at Applejack.
Applejack stands, ignoring the pain of her broken leg. She stares at the professor. This feeling that she’s never felt before drives her, guides her. This urge to kill. She may already be about to die, but she’s dragging this fucker with her. She lunges at him with full force as they both collapse on the floor. Applejack starts punching the professor with all the rest of her strength. She then bites his neck with full force, blood spewing in her mouth. She tries not to gag on the thick coppery taste. The professor cries in pain as he throws Applejack off of him. Applejack spits the blood out of her mouth.
“ Why you little ignorant piece of shit… All this… This rage thrown at me and for what” The professor staggers, feeling uneasy, as he starts to hyperventilate. Applejack stares him down intently waiting to land another strike. Blood drips from her mouth as she creeps closer ready for the killing strike. The professor is now on his knees, vulnerable and helpless. He’s bleeding uncontrollably from the neck as he groans in pain. Applejack lunges forward and clamps down on his neck again as the professor starts to gag for air. He squirms, trying to get free until he finally he lays still. Applejack drops him. His eyes start to dilate. Applejack sits down with tears coming down her eyes and blood oozing from her mouth. She can’t handle that she had just killed her father in the most grisly way she could.
She had escaped death and now all her thoughts were fixed on home as she slowly limps her way to the exit. But as she made her way out she heard a loud buzzing sound. She turns around to see a swarm of twenty five parasprites slowly stalking her. Applejack looks at them with disbelief.
“So… Who’s next” the parasprites now turn their attention to the dead professor and start to feed on corpse which buys Applejack time. She quickly makes a break for it running down hallway after hallway, not giving up. She limps on her broken foot.
A buzzing comes from around the next corner. She bolts down a side corridor, and runs into a door. She opens it, and slams it shut.
She looks around. There are three large screens on one wall, and two dead ponies. She tries to ignore the bodies as she looks for another door. The only door in the room is the one she came in. She can hear the buzzing behind here. And she can hear them chewing on the steel of the door.
She opens the door, and looks at the multicolored swarm before her. She runs through them, as fast as she can with a broken foot. She enters the swarm.
It’s like stepping into a really thick fog. All you can see are the things immediately in front of you. A few parasprites bounce of her before she feels the first bite. It’s on her front left shoulder. Normally that would have slowed her down, but her veins were filled adrenaline, and she hardly felt it. Another bite appeared on the back of her neck.
She opens her mouth, panting from running. She sees a particularly bright green parasprite directly in front of her. She runs, distracted by another red one.
Something large flies into her mouth. She continues running, knowing that to stop would mean death. The large object in her mouth feels hairy. She tries to spit it out, but it pushes towards the back of her throat. She swallows before she realizes what she’s doing. She feels it slide down her throat, into her stomach.
And just like that, she’s out of the swarm. But the swarm is inside her, and she’s doomed.
A sharp pain forms in her stomach. She falls to her knees, clutching her stomach. She knows what’s about to happen. The pain moves up towards her throat, and intensifies a thousand fold. She coughs, and her mouth is filled with the metallic taste of blood. She spits it out, and starts coughing more. More blood comes up.
She can feel it now, the parasprite gorging itself on her insides. The pain moves back down to her lungs. Her vision starts to fade. The pain intensifies as it chews on her ribs. She surrenders to the blackness, knowing it will be a nicer fate then staying awake through it all.
Her vision fades to black. She looks forward to seeing her mother.
Author's Note
Thanks you guys for reading i can't wait to finish the sequel
