(11) Eleventh Chapter - New Intern

Monday the 21st, 11 a.m.

Something felt cold. That’s what woke Luna from her sleep. It was like she woke up from a deep slumber, but instead of being restful it was foggy and disturbed. It was like she had been hit on the head and then slept through a feverish nightmare.

Her surroundings only slowly made sense to her. The cold thing that woke Luna was the floor she was lying on. It was hard and silvery – like metal. Looking around she saw that the whole room was made out of it.

She was in a round room with a diameter of about fifteen feet. To her bewilderment there wasn’t a single opening on the walls or ceiling, not even the smallest crevice. Neither was there anything else on the walls around her, but the room still was completely lit.

After Luna got up with a quick jump she almost fell over again. She had a searing headache. Had somepony actually hit her on her head? She couldn’t remember how she got in this situation at the first place, but she slowly felt around her skull looking for any bruises or other injuries.

When her hoof landed behind her right ear she stopped with a shock. It slightly hurt touching it and parts of her coat were missing. There was a long scar following the base of her ear, but it seemed like it was old. Luna’s hoof quickly raced to her left ear where she found the same strange scar.

She couldn’t remember ever having had surgery and the last time she looked into a mirror there also hadn’t been any gaps in her coat, but still those scars felt like they were years old. Everything was completely healed.

Luna tried to make sense of her situation, but she had a hard time doing so and her throbbing head wasn’t helping any. Before she could think straight she had to get rid of this headache. It felt like her brain wanted to escape her head. There was a huge pressure inside her skull.

No matter how much she rubbed her temples or pressed her hooves against her forehead the pain wouldn’t go away. Instead of keeping that up, she decided to check her body for other strange things.

The first thing she found was her stomach. Her whole belly felt off. Like her head it felt stuffed and heavier than it should be. Luna immediately stuck her head between her front legs to look down on herself. What she saw made her squeak in shock again. Like behind her ears there was a long scar along her belly – all healed up properly.

After she saw this she got frantic. In a rush she turned her head around again and looked over the rest of her body. On her back was the next thing. There were three round sockets right on her spine. Each right above a single vertebrae spaced out along her whole length evenly.

Those sockets were just small round shapes with a little hole in the center. They looked like they were made out of metal, but other than the walls around her they had a dark color – almost black.

Luna thought this couldn’t be real. She probably just got ill and was now in some kind of feverish dream, but still everything around her felt real. Luna was the one pony able to touch into the fabric of the dreamworld – she should have been able to tell with certainty what a dream was and what wasn’t, but in this moment she didn’t trust herself. The situation she was in had to be a dream – it just had to be – but still it didn’t feel like one.

Out of sudden fear and anxiety Luna attempted to teleport out of wherever she was right now. She imagined her bedchambers as her destination and fired her horn. Instead of the usual zap nothing happened, though. The magic did discharge from her horn like it should have, but Luna hadn't moved an inch from where she stood.

She immediately reached for her horn, but couldn’t feel it. It was still where it should have been, but instead of her horn she felt cold smooth metal. There was a thing strapped over it covering it completely. She couldn’t see it, but the thing even had her name engraved on its base: “Luna #002”.

For a short moment she forgot her fear and just felt numb. Her whole life seemed to have been for naught. She had failed – again. This truly was a dream after all – a nightmare that had become reality.

After she stood there for a while, just contemplating in her own self pity, the room around her came alive. A robotic arm came out of the ceiling right above Luna’s head. On its end was a big metal ring about twice the size of her throat in diameter.

At the same time two similar rings emerged from the floor below her. Then the ring at her top got pulled over her head and rested against her shoulders embracing her throat. The other two opened up on the top and moved around her body.

Luna didn’t even fight this intrusion. She already had given up. She was a failure. She had been unable to fight her own abduction. How would she be able to save any of her subjects? Her life now was just worthless to her – like it had been for the most part.

All three rings then did something solid metal shouldn’t be able to do – they contracted and got smaller until they were tightly fitted around her body. The first one was now snuggly around Luna’s throat like a collar. It wasn’t too tight, but she could feel it with every breath she took.

The other two rings were fit around her torso. One right behind her front legs slightly squeezing her chest and the other one close to her hind legs hugging her abdomen.

In a last fit of survival instinct Luna tried to move out of her restraints, but even as she had all four of her legs disconnected from the floor her body didn’t move. The rings could hold her up even without the help of her hooves. She felt like letting her head down, but was even unable to do that. The only thing she was still able to do was flailing her legs and wiggling her belly.

For a short moment there was silence again, but then something else moved in Luna’s room. Three wires were dropped from the ceiling above her back. Each one had a strange looking plug on its end.

One after the other, the wires slowly moved down to her back – where she found three strange sockets earlier. The moment the first one made contact with Luna and attached to her socket she could feel a warmth emerging from her back.

This warmth wasn’t just heat. It felt like the embrace of a mother, a warmth from inside – even though it clearly came from the socket on her back.

With every new wire attaching to her the feeling of comfort only increased. As the third one was fixed to her spine, Luna had forgotten her distraught from before completely. The only thing mattering now was the comfort she got. Even though she knew something bad was about to happen, deep inside she felt like everything was going to be alright.

Nevertheless she still had a searing headache, though. It felt as though it had even gotten stronger than before. Her skull definitely wasn’t big enough to contain her brain anymore.

Before she had time to concentrate on her pained head again there was new movement. Simultaneously to her left and to her right two poles emerged from the floor. Both rose until they were exactly at the height of her head. Then each pole sprouted a thin metal pin on one of its sides – pointed directly at her temples.

Looking to her sides only with her eyes – her head still held by the ring around her throat – Luna could see that each pin had a slightly tapered tip – and they moved towards her. She was still too comforted to feel any fear though. The only thing going through her head was that those pins might help release her pain.

When the pins had grown enough to touch her skin they didn’t stop. Instead their sharp ends were just enough to penetrate her flesh. The same way she didn’t feel fear Luna also didn’t feel pain. These pins were going to help her – deep within she knew that.

Still moving into her the pins only stopped after they reached into Luna’s bone. She could feel them attach to her skull and with that Luna couldn’t even wriggle her head fractions of an inch anymore. She still didn’t fear what was happening to her, though and the only pain she felt was that of her ever pounding head.

Only seconds after her head got fixed there was still another sound in the room. Luna was unable to look, but she could hear a whirring sound. At first the sound reminded her of a dentist's drill, but as it came closer to her it sounded more like a small saw.

Then she could feel something pressing against the back of her had. It was a strange feeling. It didn’t only press against her it also tugged on her skin and mane. A moment later there was another feeling. It felt like she had a warm shower, but the top of her head didn’t get wet at all, only the parts below this strange sensation of pressing and tugging.

After this touch had moved around her whole head once, the sensations stopped and the whirring sound got fainter and fainter as the arm holding the surgical saw moved away from her again.

* * *

Celestia couldn’t believe her eyes. She had just witnessed how her sister's head had been cut open. The worst part was that Luna hadn’t even flinched. She had had a happy smile on her face the whole time and now there was another arm moving towards her.

This one was aimed straight for the top of Luna’s head and had another tapered pin on its end. It pressed against Luna’s scalp and attached to the bone inside. Then it lifted it up until Celestia couldn’t see the piece of her sister’s head on her monitor any longer.

What she saw instead was her younger siblings brain. And it didn’t look like it should have, instead there were several things inside of it. They almost looked like tiny machines. Some of them even had small lights blinking on and off in all different colors, but all of those things were either silvery or black.

Then two new metal arms slowly moved towards Luna’s head. Those two had three small claws on their ends. Each claw almost as thin and delicate as wire.

* * *

The pain had stopped. Like Luna knew they would do, they had made her headache go away. Instead she now could feel some of the warmth leaving her. Her head felt like it got cold from the inside, but she thought cold is better than pain.

Luna mentally was preparing to be freed, now that her pain had been eased, but instead she could feel something tugging at her head. It didn't really tug at her head, but at the insides of her skull and even though her head was still fixed by the bolts in her temples and the ring around her throat she felt like it had gotten lighter. It was like being drunk. Her head just had lost a lot of weight.

Then she felt a funny sensation. It was like a buzzing within her. It was inside her whole body, but originated right inside her head, or what she thought would be inside. At first it felt like her whole body was falling asleep like a leg would. Then it got colder. Luna felt like she should be shivering, but her body didn’t react.

What Luna couldn’t see were several small metallic arms that had emerged from the ceiling. Each one had a small ring attached on its end and had this ring put around every single nerve and vein still connecting her brain with her body. Meanwhile her brain had been lifted out of her skull by the clawed arms.

The moment the rings cut down on the connections to her body the coldness overcame Luna completely. Her eyes went dark and she couldn’t feel anything. At first she felt completely alone inside her mind, but then slowly from the inside the warmth returned to her.

Luna knew she had to be dead now. She was so stunned from the sudden deprivation of any sensations that she didn’t even realize dead ponies can’t think.

* * *

Celestia almost fainted as she saw what happened to her beloved sister. Her brain – with all those strange blinking things attached to it – had been lifted out of her head and separated completely. Then it got moved into the ceiling following all those other arms that had mutilated her so bad.

* * *

After being completely on her own for several minutes Luna was able to see again with a sudden jolt of warmth. It didn't feel right though. She didn’t see like she was used to, instead of eyes her vision felt more like a presence. She felt more than seeing. The childish part of her brain told her she was a ghost now.

Luna felt rooms. Several of them. Each room was different like in a giant patchwork, but for some reason Luna could feel them like if they were part of her body – part of herself. Some of the rooms had ponies in them, others strange beings she never had seen before and others were just empty waiting for something to happen within them. Every living thing Luna sensed felt uneasy. No one was inside her rooms by their own will.

Before concentrating on what she saw any more, she decided to get an impression of her body, but instead of having any control or seeing her limbs, her vision was moved to a specific room. Inside this room were several glass tanks in all kinds of different sizes – some even bigger than her old body. Each one had wires reaching into its top and was filled with a strange gooey substance.

Her vision centered on one of those tanks and then she could feel herself, but not really herself. Instead she felt the container and the walls around it until she noticed what was inside of it: her brain. Several wires and small tubes connected to it.

Seeing – more feeling – her own brain inside this tank, she finally realized what had happened to her. They took her body away from her and now she was forced to helplessly look on to what they did to her subjects. She was now a part of this alien ship. Luna thought she deserved this punishment for her failure to save her subjects.

After her initial shock subsided and she fell back to her melancholy about her failure, Luna found interest in taking closer looks at the rooms that now were her body. She just needed to know if there had been anypony abducted she knew.

The first room her senses wandered to was a small rectangular one. Inside she could feel Rarity. The unicorn looked miserable. Several parts of her body had been replaced with robotic implants. She only had one leg made out of flesh left and both of her eyes had several yellow glowing dots in them.

Luna couldn’t bring it over herself to look at poor Rarity any longer, so she searched for other ponies she knew. For a while she didn’t find any, but there were a lot she didn’t know. Even several young fillies and colts. The children didn’t even all have their cutie marks yet.

With a broken heart her vision moved to an entirely other part of the ship. In this part she couldn’t see any ponies, but the creatures she saw still were all abused in similar ways. Luna was unable to discern the species of those creatures though. They still seemed to all be sentient.

Some had similar shapes to ponies, others were completely different. She saw creatures without a coat or a tail, but still a mane. She saw creatures that consisted completely of viney limbs. For once she was sure none of those creatures came out of her realm, but still they were all held here and tortured the same way her subjects were.

After a while of looking through different rooms with different creatures Luna’s attention was drawn to one in particular. Even before her senses fully reached it she knew she had strong connections to the pony inside.

When her perception grasped the room she could see her sister. She was lying on a bunk made out of the same material as the room. Luna could feel her lying on it like the bunk was an extension of her new body.

Looking further at her sister Luna could see that Celestia’s belly was swollen obscenely. She looked like she was pregnant with two foals. There also was something silvery coming out of Celestia’s privates. Luna could feel the insides of her sister.

Instead of being worried about her own demise Celestia looked at something in front of her, though. This something was a monitor. Luna had no idea why she knew that, but for some reason she knew what it was.

On this monitor Luna could see her old lifeless body. A robotic arm – she could feel that arm – was about to put something into her head where her brain had been. Then several smaller arms connected wires to the body’s nerves.

The last thing was her scalp being dropped down again. It got sewed up with a laser coming out of the ceiling. Luna again had no idea why she knew what a laser was, but she even knew how to build one like she always had known it.

After that, her brainless body gave a ripple and moved out of the room. Its movements at first were stiff but before it left the view it moved like a regal princess would. Then the monitor shut off. Luna could feel Celestia cry.