Prologue
There were only four of us on this scavenging job, Weldon, Viper, Klepto, and myself. We heard through a grapevine of ponies that this place held an underground facility containing Ministry of Awesome technology. The area we were in was less than desirable though. The scavenger Ratchet would have our heads if he caught us digging in his territory, that's why nopony else has come here yet. Lucky for us he was trading with the ponies in Tenpony Tower today.
We were outside the facility and we were trying to get the door open now. A thick steel door held closed by a terminal and metal bolts. Weldon was using his magic to see if he could cut the hydraulic bolts off the door, Klepto was hacking the terminal, and I was trying to find the hydraulic mechanisms to cut them from there. Viper was just barking orders as usual, she always saw herself as the boss.
"How's the search going Digger?" Viper asked me in her usual tone of authority which was all she knew.
"I'm starting to think the manual Hydraulic release is on the other side of the door. That makes no sense though."
"My cutting spell isn't doing anything to this door. It must be magically enhanced." Weldon said as he stopped trying to cut through the door bolts.
"Klepto? You having any success?" I asked her in hope she had a different answer from ours.
She said nothing and just kept pushing keys on the terminal. With a final push, she hit the enter button. The bolts on the door released and it swung open, "That is how it's done." Klepto said proudly.
"Good work. Now lets see if there is anything that is still salvageable." Viper said as we picked up our bags and entered the facility.
"The Door." Weldon said sarcastically.
We all laughed at the humor of that comment. As we entered the first room of the facility It was obvious that it was the room that monitored all other systems. It was freezing. Ice was on the walls, and coming down from the ceiling. Only one of the terminals in here was still active. I moved over to it and accessed it, no password. Among the other functions it had a journal entry one dated two months before the Megaspells hit.
This is Dr. Bolt giving my final report. We got our orders from Ms. Dash, this facility is being shut down and it's scientists are being reassigned to other Ministries. But Rainbow Dash was very clear that she did not want this facility or it's project to be destroyed. All non-essential power save for this terminal will be shut down to help preserve the subject. I will be coming by every few months to check on the facility to make sure it is still functional. I've programmed a Handy Bot to run maintenance routines on the facility to keep it fictional as well. It also knows I am the only one supposed to be in here, everypony else except for Rainbow Dash will be shot on sight.
"I don't think he ever got the chance to come back down here." I said. Everypony had been reading the same thing from over my shoulder.
"You think that is the Handy bot he was talking about?" Weldon pointed to a shorted out Handy bot on the floor in the corner of the room.
"Yeah probably. See if you can get the heat turned on." Viper requested with a slight visible shiver.
I pulled up something labeled 'X-One Cold Storage' and turned the heat on. It was probably the thing making the ice, i'm sure tuning it off will be fine. Then I found the facilities power and turned the lights on with the heat for the rest of the facility, "There, we should be feeling the heat in a few minutes."
"Good." Viper moved over to what looked like a map of the facility, "Weldon, Klepto, you two go down and start on the lower floors. Digger and I will start here and well meet on sub-level three."
That is exactly what we did for several hours we pulled out scrap from the walls and out of anything that looked expensive. We collected it all in that first room. Weldon found a completely untouched Armory, all the weapons were old and rusted on the outside but the ammo was still good. Viper Found a lot of medical supplies on the second floor. Klepto found a kitchen fully stocked. I had gotten some nice items from a small robotics lab. We were now all in the kitchen on the fourth sub-level eating some of the (kinda) fresh food there and discussing what to do next. It was also nice and warm now, small puddles of water were all that's left.
"It should be getting close to morning, we should do one more sweep." Weldon said after swallowing a small mouth full of Sugar Apple Bombs.
"I agree. We can make sure we got all the good stuff from this place." Viper concurred, then took one last swig from her Sparkle Cola.
"Speaking of good stuff. I found a file of what they were working on here, thought you all might be interested." Klepto started digging through her saddlebags.
"What's it say?" I asked in a curious tone.
She pulled out a file from her saddlebag and laid it open on the table, "Say's here they were creating their own dragons to combat the Zebra's dragons. They tried everything; Robotics, Cloning, Two Hundred Twenty failed attempts to make a dragon. They could never wake the things up. Their brains would always either give out, or they would go berserk and they'd have to kill it."
"They never succeeded." Weldon said in an intrigued tone of voice.
"They did. On the two hundred twenty first try, they succeeded in making one, and only one. It was a combination of all their research; Genetic Splicing, Cloning, Cybernetics, Enchantment, Alchemy, even Memory Implanting. Every avenue of science and magic was used to make this one creature." Klepto explained.
"You said Genetic Splicing. What does that mean?" Viper asked.
"They combined the dragon with, Gryphon, Zebra, and Pony genes. Something about it being easier to control if it was closer to our kind." Klepto said confirming what she said from the file.
"How did they control it?" I asked.
"Not sure. That part of the file seems to be missing." She showed me the part of the file were that piece of information would have been.
There was a loud bang like metal bending and breaking coming from deeper in the facility. I suddenly had a horrifying idea. "What kind of dragon did they use?" I asked not really wanting to know the answer.
"An Ice Dragon. Why?" Klepto asked, she already knew what I was gonna say.
I looked to my companions, "We shut of the thing keeping it on ice..." as if to prove my point a roar came the lower levels "We woke it up, without the controller." Realizing the gravity of the grim situation we were in we drew our weapons. We all had shotguns. I felt silly with it since this was a dragon we were facing.
"We need to get to the door to close and lock it inside here. MOVE!" Viper ordered. We ran for the stairwell up. But Weldon had picked up his saddlebag before running, the rest of us were already through.
"Come on hurry!" Klepto call after him.
Just as Weldon was about to start running, he slipped on a puddle and the dragon made his presence known. It tackled Weldon sliding behind the counter and proceeded to rip him apart. Screaming, blood, bits of flesh, and a limb were our ques to run and not look back. Before long we made it to Sub-Level two with one flight of stairs to go before the top floor and the big mechanized door. Klepto was beside me running and Viper was ahead of us. As we got to the center of the hallway I heard growling and hears Klepto's scream. I looked back without stopping to see with the Dragon's jaws around Klepto's head ripping it from her body with some of the spine still attached, the Dragon's red eyes were that of a Demon. I jerked my head away at the sight. Finally the door. Viper went straight for the terminal. I stood behind her with my shotgun trained on the open door.
"Dammit. I have to reenter the password." Viper said as she started.
I took my eyes off the door, I stole a glance at her, "Hurry!"
"There!" She said hopeful. The door proceeded to close. The hydraulic locks slammed with a triumphant hiss.
"Glad That's over." I said. I felt a sharp pain in my back and chest, looking down I saw what looked like a spear protruding from mt chest. I heard a scream from Viper and a shotgun blast coming form the same direction. She shotgun blast must have done something at least semi-effective because the spear threw me against a wall. For some reason I couldn't feel pain, I felt cold, and I couldn't move. I could see the dragon from where I lied, it was staggered Viper was fleeing not bothering with anything else. Last thing I saw was The dragon asking the air "Where am I? What am I?" Everything went dark as I let out a breath.
