"There are secrets to be told, and lies to be discovered."

"...That all leads to where I am now," Orion sighed looking down at his crossed fore-hooves to his chest, "A soldier telling his death story to a curious scientist mare who can somehow see me."

The chair squeaked softly as Flow moved side to side absentmindedly with her rear hoof swinging as she finished writing his tale on the clipboard with the pen. On her desk sat a small stack of paper with his tale written neatly on it.

"Tha-That's quite a tale Lt. Orion," the yellow mare stuttered out while her brain reprocessed the story as a whole. She clicks her pen and put the board and writing utensil on the desk next to the stack that had grown only by two pages. "I have some questions of course, if that's fine with you."

Orion nodded, "You may. Ask away," he said with a casual hoof wave.

She made a face at him, "You are really calm about your supposed 'death'."

He raised a brow at that observation, "Is that a bad thing?"

"O-oh no, no it's not. I'm just somewhat amazed at how controlled you seem to be."

Orion chuckled, "What? Should I be freaking out about being dead?"

"I most certainly would be," Flow said simply.

"And what would that accomplish?" he asked with a smirk.

Flow blushed softly in embarrassment at her own tiny mistake, "N-nothing." Orion was now laughing.

She cleared her throat as she choose a question from her mind, "You said you were from the Carmina Burana, right?"

He nods affirmative.

"So, when did you get assigned to it?" she asked.

"Hmm... I think it was like, one year ago. Might be a little more."

Flow nods at his answer as she thinks, "So, it was over a year when the ship finally got airborne. Did you hear anything about us? The Ut Bellum?"

Orion shrugged, "I don't think I cared at the time, I was, and still am, a cruel Lt. for the poor newbie troopers," he said with a light chuckle, "Though right now I'm being a bit more reserved if ya can't tell. Don't want to have the only pony that can see me despise me right?" he asked with a smirk.

"Heh, yea... So I recognized a name you said; Steel Rain was that one of them?"

"Yes. Centurion Steel Rain, he's the leader in the squad as well as the battleships' personal Centurion," he pointed out. "Where'd you hear about him from?" Flow opened her mouth to answer when Orion continued, "Unless he already did that thing, defeat almost an entire Equestrian assault on his own, that being around like 3,000 strong. Just about everypony knows that."

"Actually, he did that just a few months ago," Flow replied finally and then added with a face of curiosity and confusion, "I thought it was only a thousand Equestrians... Well, that's what I've heard."

He simply shrugged, "Honestly, I don't really know either. I never got around to ask him personally."

Flow hummed as she picked back up her clipboard and wrote some things down on before she opened her mouth to ask another question, when she was stopped by a knock on her door, the sound of steel on steel resonating through the room.

The odd sound made Orion tilt his head.

With a sigh she stood up and pressed the panel next the the door, opening it with a barely audible hiss.

"Sulfuric Flow," a distinctively female synthetic voice said her name as she looked at the silver bot.

"Yes?"

"Miss Flow, you are needed at lab-006 at this time, as requested by a staff member," it told her bluntly as its' azure blue eyes stared at her, waiting for a response from her.

"Very well. I'll be there in a bit, just..." she looked at Orion who had gotten up and was now looking at her expectantly, though more curiously at the bot at the door, "Give me a bit to get ready, ok?"

The bot stood still as it processed the question before making a silent nod and walking off. Flow stepped away from the door to grab her lab coat and button it to her along with cleaning her desk with her magic simultaneously with practiced skill.

"Well I'll be damned, never thought I would see one of those on this ship," commented Orion behind her.

Flow turned to see him peering outside towards the direction of the bots' travel. She made her way to him and around him, so to not make him feel unconformable with her passing through him. "Those bots? Yeah they're kinda new here," she began to walk down the hall opposite of where the bot was going, "Got a whole container of them from IPESC. Said they were a gift from a company that makes them."

"Really now?" he asked absently before turning to catch up with her quickly, "How many were in the container to begin with?"

Flow hummed in response before actually answering him, "I think like 20, that's what I've heard."

He grunted as he realized something from before, "Odd, we never encountered one on our travels."

Flow hummed softly in thought, "You said you all fell to the bottom levels right?" He nodded, "That's why then, the bots don't go down that far. They mostly stay from levels 25 and up," she looked up at a glowing yellow-orange sign that simply read: 'Laboratory D3.'

Orion too looked at the signs, but for a whole other reason. The sign with the Laboratory went straight ahead while two others split off oppositely; a ShipCom, apparently number 27, to the left, and a Guard Station to the right, also numbered 27. He noticed he was getting a bit behind from where Flow was and quickly trotted up to her side once more.

Flow smirked at him, "Enjoying the view, Lt.?" she asked as they began passing a window.

He blinked at her, with a slight bit of confusion and suddenness of the question, "Not really, kinda dull up he-" he trailed off once he came to view out into space, which was dotted with a canvas of stars, almost all a shining white, with a few red here and there.

Flows' smile grew greatly at his fallen voice, "How about now?" her grin was now achieving shit-eating rank.

"Well...Umm...mm... It looks beautiful, just stunning," he finally caught her grin and looked away from the view to cough into a armored hoof before clearing his throat and looking straight ahead, now in his soldierly-still state, "S-shall we continue?"

She giggled and began to move forward once more.

Orion couldn't help but break his stiff pose and chuckle a bit at her before following close behind her hooves.

"Here we are," Flow declared softly, more to herself than to Orion though, as the piston doors hissed open to the proclaimed Lab-006.

Lab-006 had large glass pens or containment rooms that held a usually one or two animals of the same type in them. There were a few ponies leading animals away from the pens to another one or one of the three large ones in the center-back part of the room. There was one team leading a bear! However the center pen of the large three was not in use for the animal testing. Instead, it had a group of ponies in labs coats gathered around it, with just about all of them chatting with one another.

When the trio approached them, well more so Flow did, they couldn't see Orion still, they went through the crowd without effort as they seemingly made a path for the yellow mare as she arrived at the door.

She was greeted by a deep blue mare in a lab coat who opened the door and gestured in, which Flow was taken aback by the offer, "Miss Flow, please enter the chamber," she asked.

"W-why me?"

The blue mare blinked at her in slight confusion, "Weren't you told you are to take part of this experiment?"

Flow shook her head rapidly, "All I got from the bot was to report here."

The mare swore under her breath and looked down in thought. Looking back up at the yellow mare she replied, "No matter. You're here now."

Flow blinked smartly before glancing at the mares' lab coat badge before frowning, "You're in ATR, why are you here?"

"Ma'm, the Headmaster of your Division told us to come here. Surely he told you, right?"

"H-he has not," Flow stuttered out. She saw Orion out of the corner of her eye looking at her curiously. She rubbed her nose with a hoof and sighed, "Alright then. I'll go inside...as the Headmaster orders."

She stepped inside of the chamber, Orion followed behind her as well. The reinforced glass door shut and locked behind her as the rest of them moved to the windows on the sides of the chamber, almost all of them with pens and boards.

In the middle of the chamber was a table with various medical tools and equipment placed in a neat, organized fashion. However, in the middle of it all, there was one syringe full of a pulsing sickly yellow fluid, with the occasional flashes of color in it.

It looked to be glowing, Orion noticed. He turned his head to look at the ponies outside as they all had eager faces or their emotion hidden well as any experienced trooper. There was also a certain orange and magenta pegasus pony, who was not in a lab coat, oddly enough, but in full trooper armor behind them.

He heard a sharp intake of pain from behind him and as he turned around. Some of the lab ponies started writing things down as well in response. Orion saw Flow holding the pulsing syringe in her magic as it pierced her left arm, right above her hoof, and started draining to her blood. She set the now empty syringe back on the table with the rest and stood there, as if waiting for something to happen.

Orion watched her stand still for a while before frowning and looking back at the scientists behind the glass, they were too frowning at her, though they looked more or less annoyed.

Finally, Flow slowly opened her eyes. Orion almost laughed at how dramatic she was being, but kept watching her as she checked herself over.

Flow sighed with disappointment and a small hint of relief, "Well, that was anti-climatic," she said as she looked at Orion

He couldn't help but nod in agreement at that.

"How are you feeling, Miss Flow? Any symptoms or pains you'd like to voice?" one of the lab ponies asked through the speaker.

Flow stood somewhat still as if to focus on any possible results that decided to pop up. She shook her head, "Nothing, feeling as good as I was when I got here," she stated simply to them.

The phantom and Flow both watched as the lab ponies turned and began chatting among themselves, with the occasional raising of hooves as if they were doing a vote. Orion also noticed the pegasus trooper again, leaning on the glass and looking back and forth between the ponies and them.

Orion turned his head, his armor clinking softly to him and Flow, "You sure you're alright?"

The yellow mare nodded before looking at him, "Yea I'm good. The dose was possibly purged by my body as soon as it recognized what it was," she paused to rub the bottom of her jaw in thought, "Or maybe it hasn't taken effect yet."

"I hope it's the former," he said.

"Me too."

"Ma'm, who are you talking to?" the pony on the speaker asked suddenly.

"N-nopony. Just talking to myself," Flow replied almost smoothly as she went stiff, "It helps me think better."

The voice sounded skeptical as it responded, "Alright. We'll be opening the door in a sec, so please wait a bit longer."

Flow stood there as Orion made a small motion to message her that he was going to walk through the door. She nodded in silent understanding, as she rubbed absentmindedly at her left arm. By now the ponies had stopped chatting about her and had moved off to a nearby console that scanned the room and were now chatting around there.

The pegasus mare stood almost stock still in a attention very soldierly-like fashion, staring straight ahead at a wall. Orion stood in front of the trooper mare and studied her. Her armor chest plate had the Sargent markings on it. One of her shoulder pads had the 197th Erogos Flyers on it too he noted; and mentally added with a bit of curiosity as to why, and how, there was a pegasus in the 197th. The said symbol pad had the number in the middle under a griffin head with its' beak open as if trying to eat the number whole and twin long rifles out to the side of the head.

Orion moved around her and couldn't find any name tag on her and came back around the front with a frown. The mare's' name evading him and plaguing his mind for possibly the future, much to his displeasure. However, if he can find a computer-

"Sargent Scootaloo."

Salvation from complete insanity!

Scootaloo turned her head smoothly to the caller of her name: a amber griffin in semi-light trooper armor. A Corporal, Orion noticed.

"What do you need Corporal? Did someone take your fish again?"

The griffin blanched at that and shook his head, "No, ma'm. Just a letter," he pulled out a slip of paper and gave it to Scootaloo.

The orange mare looked at it and kept her face flat. She looked at the griffin standing there and folded the paper back up before giving it back to him. "I'll make my way there now," she stated simply and got a nod from the Corporal in return.

As the griffin walked off, Scootaloo first went to the lab ponies to tell them that she's leaving them. From Orions' view, she just walked up and said a few muted words and got two nods in return, before leaving through the circular door. He turned back around to head back inside with Flow, deciding he was done from outside. From behind him, the lab ponies were beginning to go berserk. In being in a massive panic that was attracting the others working on other projects.

Phasing through the door once more, what he saw in greeting, floored him. Flow was nowhere to be found, everything was still the way it was before only that everything was oddly...calm.

Orion felt a mild case of Deja Vu as he scanned the room from what and where he couldn't pinpoint, but he knew that feeling well enough of course to figure out what it was exactly. He began to notice that everything was starting to get fuzzy and blurred, with the sounds now being droned out, but still audible. He turned his head somewhat sluggishly towards the containment entrance, as if time had slowed and the air was water, slowing his reactions-

Blood splattering the walls and floor.

Screams of terror and agony.

Gunfire echoing across the halls.

Alarms blaring deafeningly and blazing red.

Orion stumbled to his knees as he lost balance, suddenly losing feeling. He barely got up to take a few more steps before falling flat on his stomach again, only this time for good as his vision blurred further as it began to fade. Screaming out in pure fear, he was never afraid of the dark before till now-

Darkness.

Author's Note

Erogos and the 197th Erogos Flyers: The city name and army it is named after, sits between the IPE controlled Vanhoover and the Equestrian owned Tall Tale. The city is rather small and is a primarily a griffin population, that and it is the home of some of the biggest trees on the continent, next to Everfree. The Erogos Flyers came to be during the 3rd year of the Second Division War as a call to arms after being raided by Equestrian soldiers who thought that the city was within IPE borders. The city joined the IPE with it's outstanding griffin Marksmen who were highly prized by the Empress. Ponies in this regiment were mostly pegasi and were rare.

Let me know if there is a mistake or if you are interested in being a proofreader for me.