Chapter Two: Reveal
“Open your eyes, little colt!~”

There I sat, staring up at a large terminal screen with sorted files resting all over the place. Of course it would be a giant terminal, and that song, well that song was coming from a music box that rested on a desk, right next to a… dead, blackened skeleton, wearing a big white, lab coat.

“Oh… It was just a computer.” I told myself. “Never thought I’d see one in a place like this, especially one that was working.”
Passing by the desk on my way to the massive terminal, I quickly shut the music box that was resting on the skeleton's desk to keep the tension of creepiness at bay. Once again, cute song, but not for a place like this. Setting the shovel down against the terminal, I than got a good look at the screen and saw that everything was labeled under test subjects, patients, and outbreaks…

“What exactly broke out?”

I asked myself just as I began to use the pad, navigating all the different files in search of clues for any type of information, maybe this place had something about me on here. Interesting, a few audio files could be found on the terminal in the file locations. At the moment I was under test subjects, seeing everything labeled as error, error, error, and a single file marked as “success.”

“I can’t believe what has happened here, Dr. Red Heart should’ve never given her son the position. Because of her, this entire building is no longer a place to help cure those infected by the war. His sick, twisted thoughts are unholy. I was skeptical about his ideas of turning this place into an Institute for mental ponies, but it seemed reasonable… The state our soldiers were in was beyond horrifying, constantly mumbling to themselves as they were pulled back, some so damaged by this war that their minds completely snapped. Chewing the very flesh from their limbs in an attempt to kill themselves, some even chewing their tongues off. What the hell happened to them out there? In my entire life of work, I have never seen more damaged ponies in my life, not only physically, but mentally. Dr. Silver Heart is an excellent doctor, but I feel like his goals are… disturbing... He speaks of surgical construction, taking damaged brain tissue and replacing it with tissue from another host, performing what he calls the Stein implant. I should have knew it would lead to something horrifying. The first experiment was a success… in his words, yes. In reality, it was a creation from another world. The patient, screamed and rolled his eyes into his head, shouting things about smiles and eating ponies with chocolate… Fear, has never been more real than in a world such as this. I begged him to discontinue his monstrous experiment, but he insisted that a few minor tweaks could be made before the subject was completely cured, and back in the line of battle. That was two weeks ago, now… he forbids us from going into his lab and is constantly requesting patients to be taken into his lab, possibly for further examination... or so he says. I’m thinking of leaving before things get really ugly here; this is no longer an institute to help ponies… this is an insane asylum. Log ending for the last time. Hopefully Rainbow Dash shuts this place down... Lt. Rumbles, out.”

There I sat, staring up at the terminal, even more lost than ever. What? Are you telling me there was a war that happened here in Equestria? H-how could that be!? What happened to Equestria that− Wait, there is another audio log here.

Distorted static was all that could be heard along with screams coming off in the background.

“We need back up, the patients have es−”

*static*-

“This is the second outbreak this−”

*static*-

Bang, bang, bang. Gunshots, gunshots is all that could be heard, screaming ponies, crying, and… laughing. It then went quite for a long while, to the point I felt the need to almost exit out of the log, only to suddenly stop as the log began to play sounds of clanking cans and stuff being knocked over.

“Damn them. Damn all of them! How could they do this to me, my research, my institute, and my patients… all gone! I hope they eat all of them alive! They don’t understand… heh, heh, HA, HA, HA! They never will. This needs to be done, to save Equestria~ what was that? Oh yes, yes, yes I knooow~ Nobody knows what has happened here, and if that is so. Patients, heh, heh, heh. Lovely subjects will still be sent here, and I can continue my research. Only… I will have to work twice as hard, because I am alone~ all alone, heh, heh. Won’t mother be so proud? That I get to help ponies “smile~”.

What. The. fuck?

Things weren’t making sense, but were becoming disturbing super-fast. How could some pony do such a thing? Violently experiment on others, in attempts of curing their war sickness. What could they have possibly had? PTSD? I don’t think brain surgery is required for troops with such a problem… Unless everything this Doctor did was unrequested and in the silence of this asylum… If I woke up here, does that mean I was also a patient?

Rattling my head, I quickly smacked myself out of it. What? No way, I can’t be. Other than just talking to myself, I feel practically fine. Confused on what the hell is going on, but fine none the less. Scanning through the rest of the files, I than began scrolling through the archives of what DIDN’T have an error labeled over it, scrolling through, I saw a single, audio log, Perhaps the last one, clicking on it, I than braced myself for possibly more disturbing things that needed to be said.

“Somethings... happened to me… There was a sudden blast, off in the distance, and everything went white. When I woke up, every part of my body was different… chunks were falling off... heh, I can almost not feel it. My mane was burnt off, doesn’t matter; all I know... is my work isn’t done. Whatever’s happened out there, between the ponies and Zebras no longer has concern with me… I. Need. More test subjects. Even if I have to go out and drag them here by force… I checked all the cells and the subjects were gone, all that was left of them were ashes, pink glowing goo, which kind of burns the nostrils, and skeletons. I wonder how long I was out... No matter… All my patients are gone, and I need more. There are a few new experiments I want to try~ heh, heh.”

“Sweet Celestia; what has happened?”

I asked myself only to scroll down, passing by a batch of video files one labeled "Recent Test".

In the name of all that is holy, did I really want to see this video, as well as others? Audio by themselves sounded horrifying, would a video be all that different, except worst…? Well, not like I had that many options. So I clicked on the one labeled, "Recent".

There was a grey pony with a blue mane and single red streak running down both his mane and tail, a unicorn to be exact, panting heavily in a glass room, a small one, almost like a cell... and it looked like someone was filming him, moving side to side recording him.

“Please… Don’t hurt my family, I beg of you. We did nothing wrong! We were on our way to New Pegas, and I−“

The grey unicorn said just before being cut off.

“SHUT! Your god damn! Mouth! ~ Heh, heh, hah, hah, hah! You look so saaaaad, like your about to cry. LOOK AT ME WHEN I’M TALKING TO YOU! Huh, huh. You know what you need~ A smiiiile. So does your family.”

A disturbing familiar voice spoke out just before the camera was quickly turned to a mare and filly strapped down to bloody surgical tables struggling and crying.

“Big brother, I want to go home!”

The young filly cried out to her brother that was sealed in the glass cell.

“Don’t worry. I’ll get you out of here… You bastard! LET THEM GO! THEY’VE DONE NOTHING TO YOU!”

The stallion yelled out just before jumping and slamming his front hooves on the glass, attempting to break through. The doctor jumped back a bit at that, and watched as the unicorn stallion began using magic as a form of punching, swinging flashes of light back and forth, attempting to punch his way through, but with no luck. What also caught the attention, was a Pipbuck on the lower forearm of the stallion… This was, me… I had a family, a mother, and sister.

“Oh ho, ho, hoooo~ jumpy one aren’t ya? You see, I was thinking of making my way to New Pegasus, and then realized. Hey, heh, if I goooo, I should celebrate by performing one last experiment, and ding, ding, ding! You all are the lucky winners! Yaaaaay, give yourselves a round of applause. No one gets to be this lucky! Let’s set this down for a second, we are wasting time, and I should have left an hour ago, but you are quite the fighter, young stallion. Such a good son, taking care of mummy and lil sister this whole way~ now, it is time for me to take care of them.”

The doctor said just before setting the camera down next to the glass cell, positioning it so that it captures both the locked stallion and the two surgical tables.

“Please don’t hurt her, I beg you!” The mare cried out in hope the doctor would show some kind of heart to not hurt her child.
From the angle the camera was at, all it showed was the zombie like pony in a lab coat, making his way over to the filly and older mare.

“awww~ you have your mothers eye's, sweet heart… Too bad I have to rip them out of you.”

The doctor said softly just before the grey stallion let out a tearful yell. The camera showed the doctor holding a scalpel above the filly from a distance, about to stab it down, and suddenly the video went black, static running along before it cut to a scene of the same room, except dark. A red light bulb swinging back and forth, showing two disfigured bodies on two surgical table off in the distance, and a grey stallion laying completely still, whimpering and with his back towards the horrific scene. It also showed the doctor drawing bloody smiley faces all along the glass cell.

“Don’t worry, I’ll cut the memory right out of you~ you won’t remember a thing, but; I will do my best not to make you a vegetable either, and you will see. I will make your mother and sister aaall better. They will smile like no tomorrow, and they will listen… like no tomorrow~”
Everything cut to static and the video ended. All of a sudden the entire terminal began sparking up, shooting small bolts of electricity, crashing and breaking as I was stabbing and smashing the shovel into it, beating it over and over again as tears ran down my cheeks. I panted, snorted, and whimpered as the terminal was pulverized into shattering blast of electricity, glass, and scrap metal. Taking a step back I quickly dropped the shovel, baring my teeth and crying. I was angry, scared, and dying on the inside as most of my world came crashing down on me in a matter of minutes. My mother…my sister… were gone, and I was forced to forget them, until now. That… that song... it was my sisters music box. I stood up and made my way over to the desk. and just before reaching out for it, I stopped myself, setting my hoof down, and began focusing as hard as I could until the small object was covered in a red ray of magic and slowly hovering its way to me. I whipped the tears from my face and set the music box in one of the coat pockets. If I was leaving, I wasn’t going to leave you behind, you will always be in my heart... Rest in peace.

How do I get out of here? Windows were designed so that no pony could break through them, and everything around just seemed… broken. I got little bits of information about myself, but everything was still a blank. I don’t know my name, and I don’t know where this New Pegasus was. One hour has passed since I woke up and so far, this has been the worst hour of my life. I… I… I don’t know what to do, what do I do from here on out?

More tears ran down my face and at this point, I was just walking aimlessly into the dark void of halls that filled the asylum. Suddenly, I found myself stopping, standing completely still as I began to pant heavily, almost growling with each batch of air that escaped my lungs. More and more tears running down my face as I began baring and clenching my teeth, to the point they felt like shattering straight from my jaw.

“I’m! ... I’m going to …grr… I’m going to kill him!”

I grunted from the fire and painful feeling that filled me, sadness, loneliness, ANGER, and best of all… fear. I have no idea what my purpose is in this world, but I swear, I SWEAR, that I will make that pony wish he was never fucking born!

Using my magic to form a red glow around my shovel, I turned to my left, and faced the wall. Taking a deep breath, I then began stabbing and bashing the sharp razor tip into the wall, over, and over, and over, and OVER again! Using my magic to tear chunks off the wall. I need to get out of here! Even if that means I have to rip my way out of this asylum, one piece at a time!

It went on like this for a long while, brick after brick being impressively torn apart by my very shovel. I had to admit that it wasn’t the world’s sharpest shovel, but because of how it was designed it could withstand far worse than tearing down a wall… I think.

Finally, with a single strong stab of my shovel, a batch of bricks came tumbling down, landing in dirt that caused the air around me to fill up with both dust and dirt; blinding me for a moment as well as almost suffocating me.
Cough! Cough, cough!

I inhaled slowly, quickly swatting the dirty air away with my hoof, finally able to get a fresh smell of… even… worse air.
Rubbing my eyes for a moment, the entire land seemed much brighter, but not from the sun. If anything, it was only bright because of how much the sun beamed in through the grey sky.

“Oh my Celestia…”

There I stood, shocked at what lied outside the asylum. An entire wasteland, which was barley inhabited by any pony. Miles and miles of pure dirt, almost like a desert with buildings half buried, some destroyed and some barley standing. Here is the part where I would gasp and stare in shock… but a part of me knew, this is what it was from the beginning. I was born in this, I just had memories of it carved out of my head is all…

I began walking, I don’t know where but I just began walking. A tactical shovel strapped to my back, a music box of dead memories in my pocket, a large duster over coat, and a straitjacket. I was one of a kind, built to withstand this world… Hah, I wish. Not even ten seconds, and a strange massive cockroach jumped on top of me from out of nowhere, making me shriek and jump, landing flat on my back with a loud squish… Oh great, now I got bug jam all over me now. Celestia damn it...

“Damn it, now my Pipbuck is making that click, click, click noise again!”

This was not good. Clicking,meant radiation, radiation, meant sickness, and sickness, meant death. I can’t have that now…
I did my best, but quickly began whipping it off, using my magic as a way to pull the remains of the dead, giant cockroach from my back. When I lifted it up, there was a sudden soft beep noise that came from my Pipbuck. Lifting it up, I examined it and noticed something was added to my inventory, Radroach Meat? What the hell? I quickly took the guts and tossed them aside. No way I’m eating that! I scrolled along the screen and also noticed that literately everything I owned was in here. in fact, everything was separately divided into its own personal tab. Old Duster and Stained Straitjacket under clothing, Rumble's Trusty Shovel under weapons, and Lucky Music Box under misc, also known as miscellaneous. Scanning through the Pipbuck, I noticed that there was a whole stack of things useful on here. Stats, something called Vats, inventory, and a map! Oh thank Celestia a map, aaaaand with no locations on it at all, except for… Red Heart Asylum… did the doctor erase things off of here? Because I find it hard to believe that I would be heading to a place with no location of it, like New Pegas. Damn! He probably di− a RADIO, I have a fucking radio!?

“Hell Yeaaaah, finally, something to work with~”

There were a few stations, most of them labeled under error codes, playing nothing but static. DjPon3, Error, Enclave radio, Error, New Appleloosa, error, New Pegasus Radio, connecting…

What came out… was absolutely nothing! At this point, I was truly questioning the purpose of this thing. I felt stupid, almost brain dead, that I couldn’t figure such a thing out, why did I even have this thing with me?

I then quickly paused, noticing something sticking out of one of the slot ports that was hidden to the side of the screen. Using my magic, I gently took a hold of it, and saw that it was the all mighty EAR PIECE! HUZZAH! Hah, who said I wasn’t a smart pony? I quickly placed the little ear bud in my ear and heard an array of fancy music, kind of like Pop Lounge styled music, singing about gambling your sorrows away on a big stormy day.

“Gambling, your sorrows away; on a big, stormy day! When life gets you down, just turn it around, and wear it like a crooooown! ~”
I had to admit, the music was up lifting. The kind of music that didn’t make you feel so… alone out here, and so far, seemed the only thing keeping me sane for the moment. Even then, all I knew was that I needed to find my way to New Pegasus, to find this butchering maniac and put an end to him,...and all of it... began with a first step.

Which direction was I going? I don’t know. I asked myself with every step I took. Eventually I would come across something, some pony, or some place... Right? For now, all I had were these radio broadcast tunes, a shovel, and a mission.
There I walked, passing by broken structures, large cement bridges that went up on one side and broke half way on the other, old buildings, flipped wagons... gulp… blood stains, old decayed corpses, and−

I was cut off by the sound of hooves galloping behind me but before I could turn, something thin but hard smacked against the back of my skull, causing me to fly downwards, face first into the ground. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t get up. Oh Celestia, was I Paralyzed? I could feel my hooves but… warmness ran down my head, onto my muzzle, and soon my vision was becoming blurry… What just happened?
“Heheh, we got another one boss! We got another one!”

A screeching voice chanted from out of my field of vision...not that I could fucking see anyways…

“Good boy~ now take him back with the others! We got dinner to prepare!”

Another said, having a deeper voice than the other, replying almost as if he was in charge of whatever this was. I was about to reach out but before I could, I saw a shadow come in front of me and stop, quickly slamming their hooves down on my face causing everything to go black…

Footnote: level up!
New Perk: Bloody Mess- +5% overall damage; more violent death animations.

Author's Note

Yay, Chapter 2 is done~ enjoy!