School Field Trips Suck

I was awoken to the weight of another pony bouncing up and down on me. I looked up to see a bright eyed Scootaloo standing over me.

"We need to hurry before the school chariots leave," Scootaloo told me while bouncing up and down on my bed. She looked as if she had been ready since last nice.

"Why are you in a hurry, I thought you hated school," I asked her while getting out of my bed. My mind cried as I Ieft my rather my warm blanket. I eventually caved into my thoughts and shoved my blanket into my saddle bag.

"I do, but if it gives me a chance to hang out with my friends and not learn about how Cheerilee's mane style when she was a filly," she told me as we left my bedroom quickly running out the front door of the orphanage, and down to the schoolhouse. We rounded the corner and I saw the chariots getting loaded, but it was Diamond Tiara's group that was boarding currently. At worst we would get a lecture from Ms. Cheerilee about not being late because blah blah blah, but I would block it out. Somehow. I slowed to a walk as I reached our group. Apple Bloom looked as if she were about to fill Sweetie Belle's mouth with an apple over how much Sweetie Belle was talking about the trip.

"Hey girls," Scootaloo called out, waving to her friends. The other two waved back, but Sweetie Belle was still chatting off Apple Bloom's ear. I studied the ponies in group one and two, noticing that a few ponies weren't there, such as Button Mash and Twilight Sparkle's adopted foal. By the time we were in the carriage and in the air, Apple Bloom had already asked Sweetie Belle to calm down, for her to only calm down a sliver of what she was doing. We couldn't tell her to stop, as she was passionate about this stuff. I spotted the lab from my spot, which was right next to the door. We had fought over who had the door seat, whoever won got it, which was bad for me as I had a terrible fear of height, but everypony had to play rock, paper, scissors to get it.

"Hey, Pencil, what are you wanting to learn while we're here," Sweetie Belle asked me, finally shutting up after 25 minutes. Apple Bloom audibly sighed from the relaxing silence, gaining a look from Sweetie Belle that made Apple Bloom move over to the wall of the carriage.

"Um... I'm wanting to learn about how a... uh... nerve regenerates after being destroyed," I told her, not expecting the question. She accepted it and went back to talking everyponies ears off. We landed outside the lab, getting out and following Ms. Cheerilee inside.

"Hello, colts and fillies," a scientist announced when both groups were inside. "There is a lot of you, but today we're going to be giving your groups a tour of our labs and facilities while explaining about how regeneration works in ponies and how regeneration works in other and how that differs between animals and animal families, group two will be with me and my brother will take group one."

"Hello, my brother was rude and didn't introduce himself nor myself, my name is Dusky Scar and this is my brother Shadow Scar, my brother works on the seventh floor and I work on the fourth floor as a mechanical engineer and repair technician for the machinery. I'll be showing around floor one through four and my brother will show off floor five and six," Dusky told the groups. We were group two so we got to see the lower floors, but my mind was confused on why he didn't describe what his brother did and why we weren't going to the seventh floor. The groups once again separated and we made our way to the stairs, while group one stayed in the lobby. We passed the fifth floor and went onto the sixth floor. The floor was directly a hallway with glass containers holding animals.

"So this is our testing floor, we have several medical ponies that test on the animals with different cures and vaccines for dangerous diseases," he told us. He pointed at a glass window and inside was a dog that was laying in the corner and getting a needle pushed into his neck. "This poor guy is sadly not going to make it, he was brought here by some lovely couple that say they saw him in the street. They said the owner had left him there, after beating him mercilessly. We tried to help him but sadly we couldn't help him, his wounds were just too great."

"What are they injecting him with," Snips asked.

"We're running one last experiment to see if we could help him, but if this test fails we will have to put him to sleep," he  told the group. Fluttershy would have a field day with this place, and when she left there would be no lab. The lights suddenly cut out and the scientist sighed. "Stay calm, the lights should come back on in a minute, the lights have been failing frequently now and we can't figure out why."

I suddenly heard what sounded like tearing, and I believe the scientist heard it as well as we continued on down the hallway. When we had stopped the lights turned back on.

"What was that tearing noise back there," I asked him.

"That was the dog chewing on a bone," he told us. I didn't believe him since the dog could barely stand up let alone chew a bone. "Now in this container, we have a lizard that surgically lost a leg, and we have been trying to figure out why they regenerate lost limbs, as well as octopuses, which we have a few of."

The lights once again flicked off and the scientist quietly swore. I jumped and would like to imagine that the rest of the group jumped as well, when some glass shattered from down the hallway, I heard growling and backed slowly into the group.

"Sweetie Belle do you know a light spell," I asked her. She didn't respond but quickly lit up her horn and the hallway quickly became illuminated. We saw broken glass lying on the floor. The tour guide walked over there slowly to check out what happened. One of the scientists ran out of the window and tackled him to the ground by one of the scientist's and was fighting with him. The tour guide tried to push the stallion off but was getting nowhere. I made a rather stupid decision on my part and ran over and tackled the pony off of him. I looked him in the eyes and noticed that they were bleeding heavily. His skin was rotting under his fur, causing his fur to fall out. I backed off him the sick pony, catching a quick glimpse inside the cell I saw a blood scene, the dog was eating the other scientist while the mare was eating the dog, ripping chunks from the dog's legs, some parts even showing bone. I looked back to notice the infected stallion was gone. I walked over to the tour guide and stared at the bite wound in his neck. I walked back to the group and sat down.

"What are we going to do," Apple Bloom asked me. I wanted to yell at her for even asking me what to do as I wasn't the leader type. I couldn't lead a group of two across the street. Except I had to take control, as our tour guide was now dead, and if I let Snips or snails lead we would end up dead quicker than with me leading, and if Apple Bloom, Scootaloo or Sweetie Belle lead they would probably snap. I stood up and walked over to the stairs and pushed the door to take us up, except it didn't move, not even budge.

"We need to find a way out of here is what we need to do, and survive long enough to do so," I told them. I turned around noticing the tour guide staring at me with hunger in his eyes, and to make it worse the dog and mare were out in the hall. "But first we need to ditch them."

We quickly ran down a side hallway and towards what looked like a janitor closet. Apple Bloom got there first and threw the door open and ran inside, I was the last one with the dog right on my tail. I slammed the door shut and sighed. Safe. I suddenly felt a thump on the back of my head and watched the world turn black.