Alicorn Song

Alicorn song

Prologue

Cuffs trotted through the dark corridor that led towards his workplace for what felt like the thousands time by now. It was boring work, but the Earthpony stallion did not complain. After all, the job at least paid good. Nowhere else could a Pony with almost no qualifications make more than a banker for simply sitting on their rump most of the time.

Turning a corner, he began to reflected on that fact. It was truly a mystery. His entire job composed of sitting in his small office and watching a giant, steel door. He had never been told who, or what, lay behind it.  His only clue to what hid behind those doors was that, three times a day, other Ponies would come by, pushing lunch carts. These were the only times when it was acceptable to open this door. And the one he was guarding was, by far, not the only one of its kind.

Other guards had told him as much during break, when they would all gather in the small cafeteria the company had provided them with. The food there was by no means good, in Cuffs opinion, but it was at least free.

Sighing, he turned the last corner, expecting to see the giant door to be closed as usual around this time. He stopped at what he actually saw...

His co-worker, whom he had come to relief, lay in a pool of his own blood, or at least his head did. Its broken eyes stared up at Cuffs, and the former warden suddenly got the distinct feeling that it was a good idea to run away.

        “Screw the fucking alarm!” he thought, as he saw the rest of Donuts body slumped against the far wall of the corridor. Right beside... that door. It was open, and in the semi darkness that lay beyond, Cuffs could make out the shape of a mare.

For a moment, he just stood there, looking into her face as if he was hypnotized. There was something strange about her, that was for sure. Had she been his charge from the very beginning? Was this place, in fact, one giant prison? But if so, then what was this mares crime, and why had she been kept behind such solid doors? Surely, no Unicorn was powerful enough to break such doors down...

        “But then again, no Unicorn should have been powerful enough to rip a stallions head clean off...” and that thought brought him back to the situation at hoof. He was in danger. This strange Unicorn mare had killed Donuts, and was now staring at him. Should he run? Raise the alarm? He didn't know. Nopony had ever thought to tell him what to do in a situation like this. Hay, there wasn't even a protocol for an attempted outbreak that he knew of!

All this soon slipped his mind, as the unusually long horn on the mares head began to glow faintly, and she spread her wings. Driven by pure instinct, Cuffs drew his firearm from its holster on his left foreleg and opened fire on the thing. This was no normal Unicorn, and neither was it a Pegasus. This was a monster of sorts.

Shot after shot rang out through the otherwise silent corridor until the red stallion had expended his only magazine. In the semi darkness, he could see the six bullets float in the air in front of the mare. The magical glow illuminated her face for the first time, and Cuffs saw that she was wearing some kind of metal mask that covered her head and most of her horn.

The mare was a dark purple in color and...

Before Cuffs could observe any more, the bullets he had just fired were thrown back at him. They were so fast that each one broke the sound barrier, before turning his head into so much strawberry jam against the wall.

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The mare trotted forward calmly, her hooves stepping through the blood of the two Ponies she had just killed. She felt no remorse for doing so. In fact, she didn't feel anything as she walked past her last victim. No sorrow, no hate. Just nothing. They had been obstacles who stood in her way.

She had been brought to this facility when she was barely a filly, getting separated from the only Pony she had ever cared for. For years these Ponies had used the contraption they had put on her to suppress her powers and put her to sleep before somepony brought in her meals.

For years after she had been brought here, she had raged inside her prison, begged them to let her go, and even apologized for being the way she was. She would have done much more, just to see that one Pony again. To be allowed to bath in the warm light of the sun, or the cool rays of the Moon...

But then, the experiments had started, driving her almost insane. They had poisoned her several times, shot her and even deprived her of sleep and food, just to see how her body could handle it. She had survived all of it, much to her tormentors surprise. After about ten years of that, they had made a mistake. During one of the experiments, Luna, as the mare called herself, had just feinted to be asleep. As a result, the scientists who were experimenting on her had let their guard down around her.

They had gotten what they had deserved. Every single one of them had been torn to pieces by her magic. It wasn't as strong as it could have been, due to the helmet they had put on her, but still strong enough. It had taken twenty Unicorns to put her to sleep again, and even then she had only been dozing.

After all, there was something these Ponies did not know. Something she herself had not known until recently. An Alicorns power increased with each year of their life, and they had never thought about giving her a stronger suppressive helmet...

Then, finally, tonight the guard who had been keeping the door to her prison closed had not been able to resist her calls and his curiosity. The stallion had usually slept on the job, and Luna had used her strengthening magic to manipulate his dreams. After a few months of this, the Pegasus stallion had wanted nothing more than to see what he was guarding each night.

Of course, he had been no different from all the others. As soon as he had lain eyes on her, panic had grabbed a hold of him, and he had tried to shoot her. Grabbing his head before he could actually bite down on his weapons handle had been easy. Without the slumber spell in place, she could concentrate quite easily after all.

The stallions head had come off with almost disappointing ease. Her real challenge after that had been to float his obese body over to the hoofreader next to the door. Killing the guard and getting out of her bonds were, after all, to different kinds of horse shoes.

Once the magical chains that held her had been released, she literally blew them apart with one swift blast of her magic. It had felt good to be able to move freely for the first time in years. After killing those scientists, these Ponies had just locked her up and not brought her out anymore.

It was a shame, really. Had they just treated her better, she might just have cooperated. Even in the experiments.

        “T'is funny...” she thought to herself as she stepped into the elevator to the upper floors of her prison, “... what one will do to be loved...”

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The alarms were blaring all around Sandy Dune, as she tried to figure out what the hay was going on. She was just a simple secretary, responsible for boring paperwork. In the twenty years that she had been working here, there had never been an alarm like that.

Due to this, the simple minded mare was slightly confused as she strolled towards the main guard station near the entrance to the facility. Ever guard on here, and even some soldiers who had been hired some years back, were rushing there as well. None of them was paying her any attention as they checked their weapons on the run, clearly expecting to use them pretty soon.

Sandy looked after them as they rushed past her, and couldn't help to think that she wouldn't mind getting into close “combat” with or two of them. She had always had a soft spot for those big muscles. Literally...

Shaking her head vigorously, Sandy continued on her way. There was shouting up ahead. A voice she knew only too well. Her boss, an Unicorn buck by the name of Textbook, was shouting at the guards to take position.

        “Is this some kind of drill? But for what?” she wondered as she stepped into the entrance lobby. There were more Ponies there than she had seen in a very long while, and it made her slightly uncomfortable. It gave her the feeling as if something bad was about to happen, and she was the only last one to know about it.

        “Excuse me...” she muttered, as she squeezed in between two soldiers to get through to her boss. Surely he would know what was going on, and could tell her what she had to do.

        “What do you mean she broke through the spell shields on sub-level 2? This is insane! A hundred Unicorns created those shields. Are they sleeping on the job again?” her boss shouted. There was the faint crackle of a radio, followed by a stunned silence all around her. Sandy had been unable to hear what the mare on the other end had said, but her tone had sounded... panicked?

The ping of an elevator sounded through the lobby as Sandy finally broke through. The shock of suddenly not having to push through a mass of bodies made her stumble forwards slightly, and her glasses slipped out of her shirts pocket. Everypony, including her boss, was looking at her as she stood in front of the elevator doors. She had actually gone into the wrong direction!

Turning around and bending down to pick up her glasses, the Pegasus mare saw the horrified look on her boss's face. A moment later, she could hear the door of the elevator slide open behind her. Just what was the matter? Why was everypony raising their weapons towards her?

Sandy Dune felt very uncomfortable, and tried to process the fact that about a hundred pistols and rifles were pointing right at her, as she felt a gentle tug on the pocket of her shirt. Looking down, she saw that one of her pencils was surrounded by a silvery glow of magic and moving on its own. So somepony wanted to burrow a pencil? But that was no reason to hold her at gun point, now, was it? The Gray mare just wanted to open her mouth to protest this, as the pencil spun around in her pocket, and shot towards her eyeball...

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        “What are you waiting for! FIRE!” Textbook shouted, horrified by the dead body of his secretary. As soon as the first shot was fired, Sandy Dunes body was enveloped in a faint magical glow that lifted it off the floor, and in front of the mare that was trying to escape.

This subject, Textbook remembered, had always been a troublemaker. It was one of the reasons he had ordered his Ponies to keep her isolated at all times. Only one guard was assigned to guard her cell, and nopony should have been stupid enough to open that door. But then again, his company operated on a need to know basis. Maybe one of the guards had simply been curious what he was guarding? If so, Textbook decided, he would have to rethink his business model pretty soon...

The bullets did absolutely nothing to subject number ninety-five, since she was using Sandys body as a shield to protect herself. Not one of them penetrated, and soon the guards and soldiers had to reload the weapons.

In this brief moment, the body of his secretary was thrown to the side and a true massacre ensued. Every Pony that tried to stop the mare was crushed by her magic in an instant. One of the soldiers, who had rushed forward to try and stop her in close quarters, had been thrown back by a blast of magic from her horn. The impact of the wall had killed him instantly, yet she had not stopped pressing down on his corpse. Instead, she looked directly at him as her magic flung his guards around like ragdolls.

        “Cease fire! Let her pass! Don't attack!” he shouted, and his subordinates were happy to comply. No other Pony died from then on, as the mare stepped towards the entrance to the facility slowly. As she passed him, the Unicorn stallion thought that he heard her whisper something, but he was not quite sure that he hadn't imagined it. No matter the which one was the case, it still made him shudder. The sheer sincerity in her voice was something he had not expected from such a monster.

        “I'm sorry. She wouldn't have had to die.” was what he thought she had said before passing him. She only stopped once after that. The armored gate to the facility was closed, as was usual. The mare looked back over her shoulder at him, tilting her head as if asking a question. Then, her horn began to glow ever so faintly again.

        “O...Open the door!” he ordered, understanding what she wanted almost instinctively. Once the armored gate had rolled aside, the subject stepped out into the night. Textbook grit his teeth as he thought about the disaster just one of these things could unleash upon the world. He could not allow her to leave the island. There just had to be a way to stop her!

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Luna stood on the edge of a cliff, watching the moon rise for the first time in years. She didn't see it with her eyes so much as with her magical senses though. That mask they had put on her prevented her from opening her real eyes. It was something she would have to try to take care of sooner or later.

For now, she just enjoyed the feeling of the moons gentle rays on her coat. While doing so, she thought about what she wanted to do next. Surely that other Pony was still alive somewhere. Maybe in a similar facility to this one? If so, she would have to travel. Not impossible, but her wings and horn would make her draw unwanted attention to herself...

A quick illusion spell later, and her wings were no longer visible to anypony but herself. Luna had decided that it would be much easier to hide her wings, than her magic. She wasn't used to pick things up with her hooves or teeth after all.

Then, something struck her in the head. It was such a strong impact, that the hinges on her helmet shattered into a million pieces, before her large body fell into the ocean below...