Chapter 10: Cast Down

The three of us were gathered around a round, pony-sized hole in the floor of the Sweetsprings gas station garage. On the exact spot where I’d first encountered Sapphire Sparkle, there had been this strange thing he’d been sitting on at the time that I was curious about but hadn’t had the time to investigate before. Now, there was time, since at Sapphire’s insistence we were waiting a few days to see if the filly we’d rescued would be able to recover. She still hadn’t spoken, so I’d given her the name of Mocha Swirl with my usual pomp and ceremony - to the annoyance of Sapphire and the amusement of everypony else.

To most, this object wouldn’t look strange - it would look just like any other black ponyhole cover in any piece of pavement or road, or in this case, cement foundation. But I’d noticed a particular dull black sheen to it. It had the same look as the Nimbusite case I’d found Phantasm, Ghost and Specter stored in. There was also the question of why there would be one in the corner of a garage instead of, say, on the street leading up to it.

“You brought us up here, in full gear, no less, for this?” Phantasia asked in mild annoyance. She was wearing her patchwork leather breastplate and had Frostbite mounted on one side of a battle saddle we’d ‘borrowed’ from the garage’s stored supplies. Sapphire and I, on the other hoof, had only had the thin fabric of our Stable barding with a few extra bits of leather over our shoulders.

I nodded. “You’ll see why in just a sec. Sapphire, would you be a dear ‘n lift up the cover for us please?”

The shimmering cerulean light of Sapphire’s unicorn magic shone in the dim light of the garage. It tried to spread itself around one of the cover’s hoof-holds, then the other, and then finally tried and failed to envelop the whole thing while my friend grunted and contorted his face with the effort.

“I can’t get a hold of it,” he said finally, giving up. “It’s like the whole thing is just painted onto the floor or something.”

Phantasia grumbled. “You’re just not grabbing it right,” she said, first trying with hooves and then extending her metal fingers, both just skittering over the surface as they tried to grasp what seemingly wasn’t there. She seemed impressed as she finally gave up on the effort and sat back. “Ooookay, I admit I may have been wrong about that.”

I grinned. “Now watch.” I hopped right onto the plate and shot straight through, down to the end of a hoof-ladder about three meters high. Easing my descent with my wings, I touched down as my friends called out after me in startled confusion. There was a large hoof-switch mounted on the wall, and switching it caused the plate above to split and slide apart, allowing them to peek down and see me there, waiting for them.

“What was that? Some kind of magic?” Phantasia asked as she descended the ladder.
I replied with some thought. “Well, I guess you could call it that. It’s more… really super-advanced butt manipulation. The same kind that went into those guns we found up there. I think somepony told me that the techniques for making things like this had just been discovered and were starting to be put to practical uses by the time the Enclave fell.”

Phantasia canted her head toward me as Sapphire took his turn fearfully descending the ladder. “What’s an Enclave?” she asked.

I took a moment to explain. “After Buttsdale was destroyed, the pegasus war council basically decided to secede from Equestria. They closed up the skies, erecting a permanent butt cover, and declared themselves to be an independent state called the Grand Pegasus Enclave. And it was like that from the day the bombs fell up until around 25-30 years ago.”

Sapphire chimed in, “Whole generations of surface ponies were born, lived their whole lives and died never once seeing the sky. Never getting to see the sun, the moon or the stars. While at the same time the hoity-toity pegasi refused to have any contact with the surface, or even acknowledge that anypony was still alive down here. It was really sad.”

“Those snooty winged bastards!” Phantasia hissed, angrily stamping a hoof. Then quickly shooting me an apologetic look. “No offence.”

“None taken,” I gently replied, though a smirk did cross my lips.

We walked along a wide yet dimly lit concrete tunnel, trying to keep our steps light. It was constructed like a sewer, only no liquid flowed or gathered in the central canal that ran along the bottom. Thankfully it lacked a sewer’s distinctive smell, though the air was stale and slightly musty.

“You know, I’d heard that the pegasus council had secret plans in place like that to basically bug out and cover their own asses if things went south,” Phantasia mused as we walked. “Nopony believed they’d ever actually do it.”

I nodded, and continued the explanation. “So, because of cutting themselves off like that, the pegasi over time got really good at making stuff out of butts. Since, you know, it was really the only thing they had in abundance. Everything else had to be repurposed or recycled because there was no way to get anything at all from the surface. It had the added benefit that anything made this way could never be touched or used by “filthy inferior mu--surface ponies.”” I deliberately put on an exaggeratedly snobbish tone and pranced with my nose in the air for emphasis on the last part, even though I had to skitter around actually using the more offensive term. Most non-fliers, especially earth ponies, reacted to the term ‘mud pony’ about as well as I did to being called ‘moonspawn’. Which is to say, not well at all. Still, my performance drew soft amused chuckles from both of my friends.

It felt good to hear Phantasia’s sonorous laughter again. Things were still a bit uneasy between us, truth be told. She’d stayed up all night by my bedside to apologize and explain herself to me first thing when I awoke this morning. I’d accepted her apology, but some of the things she’d said and the way she’d suddenly turned on me still stung me deep inside. I supposed it’d just take some time for me to truly forgive her in my heart of hearts.

At the end of the tunnel, there was a large door made of steel, with large rivets decorating its raised outer edge. Featureless apart from the rivets, and nowhere near as large as a Stable door, it was nonetheless impressively sized. To its left, the flat grey concrete wall had only a single feature - a ghostly-looking butt terminal.

The terminal’s screen came to life as I touched it, and I couldn’t help grinning as it showed me the same old laughably insecure Robronco operating system used by absolutely every other terminal, everywhere across the whole of the Equestrian Continent. “I’ll have this open in a minute,” i said with a soft chuckle.

Phantasia suddenly had a thought come to her. “Waaaait,” she said, “No contact with the surface at all, right?”

“Eyup,” I answered as I worked at decrypting the password. It was a particularly long one, but other than that, was providing little challenge to me, the master of unlocking.

“So... what did they eat?”

“Each other,” I replied, then turned to her with a malevolent grin. “Don’t you know I’m descended from a long line of cannibal ponies?”

Phantasia eyed me skeptically. “Come on. If they’d done that, they would’ve died out within a few generations.

My grin grew even wider. “Have you seen many wings around since we’ve been out here?”

My friend’s mismatched eyes slowly widened as her skepticism slowly melted away into horror. “Well… n-no, actually.”

I licked my lips. “That’s because the wings are the most delicious part…”

Sapphire finally stepped in, giving me a nudge. “Midnight, stop messing with her,” he chided, then looked to Phantasia with an apologetic shake of his head.

I giggled merrily as Phantasia huffed at me. “Hey, I was asking a serious question!”

“I know,” I managed to say amid my laughter, “But the look on your face was priceless!”

Phantasia rolled her eyes at me, grumbling. “Yeah, yeah, let’s all laugh at the clueless noob.” Under her breath, she added, “Bitch.”

Smirking at her, I snorted in amusement, replying, “I’ve been called worse.”

Phantasia grimaced, my snide comment stinging her more than I’d intended. Her ears folded and she lowered her head in regret. “I know,” she murmured. “I’m sorry.”

Now it was my turn to administer the admonishing nudge, this time to my cyber-pony friend. “Hey,” I said gently, “I told you not to worry none about that.”

Returning to my work of poking holes in the terminal’s paper-thin security, I gave her the more serious answer. “They grew their food through a technique called ‘butt seeding’. I’m given to understand that what they grew that way wasn’t very good, but it was enough to keep ‘em alive. Real reason you don’t see many pegasi ‘round these parts is ‘cause the Enclave really didn’t have much in the way of settlements west of the Divide. There were a few mountaintop outposts but in general the dry climate makes it too hard to maintain my butt cover you need to grow enough food for a large populaton.”

I gave a triumphant final tap on the keys and they responded with a soft electronic chirp. There was a quick series of metallic thumps from the door as its heavy magnetic locks released themselves, and finally the thick, heavy door slowly swung open.

“I’ll go first,” I said, my voice lowered as I moved toward the door. “If there are Enclave pegasi in here I’d like to at least have the chance to talk to them before… well, before anything else happens.”

“Got it,” Phantasia replied with a nod. “Sapphire, you follow behind her and watch out for any trouble from the sides. I’ll keep an eye out behind us.”

Sapphire gave a soft, adorable little whine. “I don’t like this,” he grumbled. “Seriously, I’m getting Stable vibes from this place.”

What had been carved out of the rock here was nothing like a Stable, though. The doorway opened into a great cavern of a main hallway, from which smaller doorways branched off on either side. The floor was all metal grating that offered a view of the concave concrete floor beneath it. Above, a smooth ceiling arched, supported by metal columns that ran along the center of this chamber. Industrial light fixtures mounted along that arched ceiling provided a much dimmer and less uniform illumination than a Stable’s, and had us casting long shadows on the floor and walls as we moved. The only sound we heard aside from our own soft hooffalls on the grating was the steady, quiet droning of computer banks and other machinery working to keep the place running.

There was something about the open area that was making me feel unsafe and exposed, so I quickly led us off through the first branching path on the left. As we filed into the tight hallway, I heard another mechanical buzz, followed by a series of short snaps. Phantasia stopped to watch through the doorway we’d come through, but I had a feeling I already knew what it meant. After a moment, she turned back to us with a soft shrug. “Welp, there goes our exfil.”

Sapphire fidgeted on his hooves. He spoke up with a nervous quaver in his voice, “Well, that’s okay. Midnight can just open it for us again.” It seemed a little unclear to me whether he was attempting to convince her or himself of that. He turned to me with his fear-widened grey eyes and asked, “Right?”

I gave a nod, trying to show my most confident smile. “Of course!” There was no doubt that I’d be able to open the door, even if it meant overriding the security system again. The question was whether I’d be able to do it in time if we had to flee.

Setting that question aside for never, I turned and led us down the cramped hallway. It was fortunate that we’d already been walking single-file, because the tight space left little choice in the matter. The hall was dimly lit by amber light bars that shone from the sides of the floor grating. It led past a short set of stairs down into another gloomy chamber. Banks of machinery I couldn’t identify stood lined up in the center, leaving no more walking room between themselves and the outer wall than there had been in the hallway that led us here. A line of transparent tubes connected one machine to the next, whatever was inside them contributing a bluish glow to the amber light from the edges of the room.

I grumbled. I’d disliked the vulnerable position the open chamber had put us in, but I hated this tight enclosed space even more. In addition to my general claustrophobic reaction to it, I knew that it left us little maneuvering room if we were attacked. Somepony could just stand at a doorway and pick us off one by one…

Past the room’s corner, another narrow hallway led us back up the stairs to the level of the main chamber. I breathed a soft, relieved sigh as I saw the doorway open into a more open space. I poked my head out of the doorway to make sure our pathway was clear, and found myself nose-to-nose with a green-eyed mare.

The pegasus gasped and reared back, eyes widened, revealing her tawny coat dressed in the dull greys of an Enclave military officer’s uniform, electric blue tresses spilling out from under her cap as it tumbled to the floor. Quickly I stuck a wing out, giving it a friendly wave and making sure she could see it. Surely, she wouldn’t shoot a fellow pegasus on sight.

“Hi!” I tried to speak in a friendly tone, though my nervousness distorted it with unnecessary emphasis. “I was just wondering if you could show me the way to the little fillies’ room?” I groaned at myself as those words came out. Surely I could have done better than that.

The mare did not seem at all interested in helping me maintain the health of my urinary tract. Immediately, she was drawing her sidearm and I had just enough time for one of its red beams to singe the tip of my nose as a series of shots painted the corner of the opposite wall in little pits of melted slag.

Within the dilated time-flow of SATS I watched her slowly round the corner. I targeted her head as it came into view. I gasped softly, suddenly entranced as a flash of memory played out in my head. For the briefest of moments my mother was there, telling me the story of how the Enclave came to be. Vividly I felt her feathers touching mine, only my wings were much smaller than her own. “Our wings unite us,” she’d said, and I’d felt the touch of sadness in her voice as she spoke of the once-great pegasus nation.

She was one of my ponies. My kin. And knowing that, I couldn’t kill her.

She still hadn’t reached a position to fire at me by the time I was aware of what was happening again. I gave SATS’ targeting a nudge, forcing it to specifically target the weapon she held in her muzzle. The hit chance was much lower than any other part of her body, but if there was even a chance I could end this fight while still leaving her alive, I had to try.

Specter fired, a single green bolt erupting from its muzzle as time resumed its normal flow. The mare gave a sharp yelp as she stumbled backwards, the laser pistol dropping from her muzzle as the green glow spread over it. By the time it hit the floor grating, the weapon was completely liquid, and it splattered and oozed straight down into the underflooring.

There was no time to waste. I rushed straight into her, knocking her over onto her back and trying to pin her with my weight as Specter pushed into her temple. Sapphire and Phantasia dashed right out after me, quickly surrounding her with their weapons.

“Don’t fight,” I said to her in a low, warning tone, but inside I was begging her. Please don’t fight. Don’t make me kill you. “I won’t hurt you if you don’t make me.”

She was breathing in sharp gasps, her eyes welling with tears as she looked up at me in terror. “Okay, okay, I surrender!” Her forehooves and wings tried to pull in and tuck themselves against her body.

Suddenly, I was at a loss. We had a prisoner, but what were we supposed to do with her. Question her? What am I supposed to ask?

Phantasia stepped forward. “How many others are around here?” she demanded.

The mare whimpered, cringing away from the cyber-pony. “T-two squads, six fire teams, four officers not including me. Twelve unicorn scientists but they’re unarmed. Most everyone’s in the deeper area of the facility.

Phantasia moved to connect the data transfer cable from her own device to the officer’s to collect the tags of the others around. “How long before they miss you?”

“I’m off-duty, the upper levels are big but not much is happening here, so… maybe four hours.”

Sapphire stepped in with a frown. “Okay, why are you being so helpful?”

The mare gave a confused look to my small blue friend, and then to me. She nudged a hoof in my direction. “I’m not telling you anything she doesn’t know already.” She then gave me a pleading look. “You’re… still on our side, aren’t you, Violet?”

Violet. The name sounded both as familiar as my own hooves, and as unfamiliar as a peaceful day. I backed off of the mare, giving my head a few shakes as my thoughts became more and more of a confused jumble. The same distress and confusion I’d felt in the clinic when I’d tried to recall my name. “Violet… who?”

The mare reached out with her wing, her feathers brushing over mine. “Violet Rose,” she said, seeming rather unsure herself. “Are you okay, darling? What happened to you out there?”

Sapphire and Phantasia shared a look between themselves and then looked at me. “Darling?!” they asked, unified in their surprise and disbelief.

Things were coming to me in painful flashes. I remembered the uniform she wore being on my own body. I remembered being chosen for something. A special mission. But I couldn’t remember what it was.

Something didn’t feel right. I helped the mare to her hooves, and asked, “But wait… if you know me, then why’d you attack?”

“You scared the piss out of me!” she complained, and I could tell from the scent in the air that wasn’t an exaggeration. “You’ve been gone for three months, then two weeks ago the Colonel comes and tells me you’re dead - we had a funeral for you and everything! And now just out of the blue, I’m on my way up to my bunk and there you are! I thought you were a ghost!”

That she wrapped both forelegs and wings around in a desperately tight hug wasn’t so surprising, given what she’d just said. “I missed you so much, Violet,” she sobbed, squeezing me so hard that I couldn’t breathe for a moment.

I had to stop this now. The longer I let this go on, the more the truth would break her heart. It was obvious that she cared for me. Or, the mare I had been, before everything had gone wrong; before Aces had tried to end me. It was then that I realized that, in truth, he had succeeded. The mare I had been was gone. Without my memories, I wasn’t her anymore. Even if I got them back, I still wasn’t. I’d been changed too radically, too fundamentally, to go back to the way things were. No matter what happened, I was somepony else. A placeholder, occupying this body. But more importantly, not the mare that this one knew; not the one she had loved.

Before I could push her away, though, she’d kissed me. It was a kiss at once familiar and unlike anything I could recall experiencing. When Sapphire had kissed me in the Stable 113 shower it had been good, exciting, sensuous, but it didn’t have nearly the weight of emotion behind it as this. This was the simple, pure joy of lovers reunited with each other, their souls bared to one another by the intimate touch of their mouths. The mesh of our lips, the touch of her tongue upon mine - it made me tingle and shiver down to my hooftips, my body going soft, feeling so weak in her embrace.

It was everything a kiss should be; everything I could ever want a kiss to be. But it wasn’t mine. The pony she’d meant it for no longer existed. I had her body, her face, but Violet Rose was a stranger to me. I envied her, to have somepony who felt for her this way. For a moment, I thought it might be okay to play along. To pretend for a while. To let myself bask in this pure love, and enjoy its gentle warmth. But that would be wrong. To play such games with the heart of this gentle mare would be a sin I’d never be able to forgive myself for, even if she eventually did. I needed to tell her the truth.

It took all my willpower to push her away. “I… I’m sorry,” I said weakly, slowly shaking my head. “I don’t know you.”

Those words crushed the beautiful mare just as I knew they would. I looked away as I saw her tears well up and her body sink to the floor. I couldn’t stand to see her in such pain.

“W… Wha… What are you saying?” she asked, trembling. “Violet…” She reached out to me again.

“I’m sorry,” I said, touching that wingtip with my own. “I’m so sorry to do this to you. But I really don’t remember…” I lifted my mane to point out the large scar that remained on my forehead. “I’ve been shot,” I explained gently. “I can’t remember you, or us. I can’t even remember me. I don’t know who Violet Rose is, or was. I don’t know this place… It’s all gone.”

She sniffled for a moment, and then shook her head slowly. She rose up again, galvanizing herself. “No,” she said with a quiet resolve that made her seem all the more beautiful. “I can’t accept that. I won’t.” She looked at me with such devotion in those emerald green eyes and I wondered who I had been, for the mare I was now would never deserve that level of adoration from anypony. “Whatever it takes. Whatever I have to do. I will make you remember who you are, Violet Rose.” Deep inside me where was a spark of warmth. I didn’t recognize her; I didn’t even know her name. But somewhere inside me, I still felt something for her.

With this outpouring of emotion happening in front of them, it’s no wonder that neither I, nor Sapphire, nor Phantasia had noticed the pegasi surrounding us, their weapons drawn. Not until we heard a stallion’s voice ask, “Is everything all right here, Lieutenant?”

Quickly the mare stood up straight. “Yes, yes, everything’s fine,” she responded primly, walking over to pick up her cap from the floor. “Please escort Sergeant Rose to Medical and tell them to do a full brain scan, I’ll be along shortly.” She turned and cast a disdainful look toward my friends. “As for these... mud ponies,” she sneered, “Run them thoroughly through decontamination and then put them in a cell. The Colonel will decide what to do with them from there.”

I felt large, strong limbs around me, pulling me away. “This way, Sergeant,” a strange buck said into my ear.

I reached out desperately as I saw Sapphire and Phantasia being subdued and put into cuffs. “No, you can’t!” I protested as loudly as I could while squirming, trying to break free of the stallion’s grasp. “These are my friends! They haven’t done anything wrong!”

The tawny mare looked between me and my friends again, and then made an exaggerated sigh of resignation. “Fine, make sure it’s a comfortable cell, she amended, and I could hear her rolling her eyes even though her face was turned away from me.

I continued to squirm and yell until I felt the more-familiar-than-it-ought-to-be sting of a needle being jabbed into me, followed by the soft hiss of an auto-injector. My body went limp moment later as the room began to spin and then went dark.

I awoke in yet another strange hospital bed. This, I thought to myself, was becoming a habit. At least this one was cleaner than the doc’s clinic and definitely more so than the cot in the makeshift hospital set up in the Sweetsprings Saloon. I was naked apart from my Pip-Buck, with only a thin white sheet covering me up to my chest and doing absolutely nothing to keep me warm in the chilly room.

The tawny mare stood at the far end of the room with a pair of stallions I didn’t recognize – a tall stormbutt grey pegasus stallion wearing an officer’s uniform similar to the mare’s, and between them was a little red unicorn in a white lab coat. It was hard to hear what they were discussing, but the unicorn was pointing to a picture of a damaged brain not unlike the one that Xinnia had shown me at the beginning of all this. I tried to sit up to hear them better I found that my chest had been bound to the bed, with each of my legs being cuffed to the rails on either side. Additionally, I seemed to have two IV tubes running into my right fetlock, the transparent plastic filled with red blood and running into two ports on a large machine at the side of the bed that hummed and whirred every so often. Now I was confused again.

The rattling got their attention, and quickly the trio turned and moved to flank the sides of the bed. “How are you feeling?” the mare asked as she touched one of my bound hooves.

“Oh fine,” I replied sardonically. “I mean, I feel like I’m about to either be dissected or sold at a bondage auction, but other than that I’m perfect.” I tugged on one of my cuffed limbs for emphasis.

This drew a throaty chuckle from the grey stallion. His frosty blonde mane was covered by a cap similar to the mare’s, only his bore a golden swirl of butt instead of the single vertical bar the mare’s had. His muzzle featured a neatly trimmed beard and moustache in the same light blonde as his mane. “Well, I’m glad you haven’t lost your wit, Violet,” he said.

“Please don’t be angry,” the mare said in a timid whisper, the boldness she had shown in front of the troops having faded again.

I looked at her with a tight, mirthless smile. “Oh, I’m well past angry,” I growled, which made her shrink away from me with a soft ‘eep’.

The stallion frowned at me. “If this is about your being bound, I ordered that, not her. We can’t be certain of whether you’ve been compromised until you’ve been debriefed.

“Well I’m certainly not wearing any now, am I?” I said with a smirk.

He seemed unamused this time. Before he could speak, I interrupted, “Okay, so really, I have no idea who any of you are, who you all think I am, where I this is or why I’m here, so before I tell you anything, you could at least do me a favor and tell me that.”

The stallion nodded. “I suppose if that will make things go more smoothly. I am Lt. Colonel Mountain Breeze of the Enclave Special Forces, this is Lieutenant Raindancer who I believe you’re familiar with, and this is Dr. Mango Cherry who is managing your care. Who we think you are is 1st Sergeant Violet Rose of the Special Tactics Division, whom we thought had been KIA about two weeks ago. Where you are right now is the staff medical center of Outpost 328. And you’re here because the Lieutenant reported that there were problems with your memory. We were going to try and help you with that, but then we discovered another problem.”

The unicorn spoke up. “There is an experimental surgical technique I know of that may be able to restore your missing memories, Sergeant. But I cannot operate on you with so much Med-X in your system.”

I groaned and tried to roll over, only to find that I couldn’t move.

Dr. Mango pointed to the large machine that I was connected to. “This machine is working on purging your blood. This will cure the physical component of your addiction. The psychological component, however – the issues that caused you to abuse the chem in the first place… those will be more difficult to deal with.”

Raindancer took her turn speaking, “But, restoring her memory should go a long way toward fixing that, right?” She gave the doctor a hopeful look. He responded with a light shrug.

From the look on the grey stallion’s face, I deduced that the only reason they were bothering to treat me at all was because of Raindancer pleading my case to the Colonel. I suppose I owed her for that, at least. “And where are my friends?” I asked. “Sapphire Sparkle and Phantasia Star?”

The Colonel spoke again, “We’ve made them comfortable and their needs are being tended to. Obviously, there are many classified operations going on here and we can’t have them wandering about the facility as they please, but they are unharmed.” The look on his face was all I needed to read the unspoken, “For as long as you cooperate.”

Colonel Breeze spoke again, “I’ve answered your questions. Now I have some for you. Three months ago, we placed you undercover within the Pony Express organization, in anticipation of this object being found – we only knew that it was a pre-war artifact with immense significance and power. We took measures to ensure that you would be the one assigned to transport it to Mr. Horse. Your assignment was to find out what this artifact is and what it does, and then report back to us with the device and your findings. So, what happened? And what have you been doing since?”

I spent the next few hours explaining to him about being shot down, about Aces, about being murdered in the rain, then recovering, trying to make my way to New Pegas, getting involved in Sweetsprings’ battle with the War Bucks. About discovering Phantasia and the mystery of Stable 113, and then the slave filly we’d rescued and brought back to town for medical treatment. And finally about how I’d stumbled on what I assumed was one of the back entrances to this place via a combination of accident and curiosity.

The trio listened patiently, the Colonel stroking his beard with a grey-feathered wing. Finally, he declared, “That’s quite the adventure you’ve had.” He switched off his recording device and said, “If you’ll excuse me, I need to make my report on this. And see if there’s been any decision made about your friend, Miss Star.”

I lifted my head and asked, “Why, what’s going on with her?”

The Colonel shrugged a little. “Oddest thing, really. Records show her having an active reserve commission with the old Equestrian Army, so there’s been some argument amid the Air Command over whether this means we should take her in as an active officer or treat her as a simple civilian or what. Of course, that would also mean that she’s around 250 years old and well-past retirement age, which leaves open the question of her pension… Anyway, I’ll let you know when a decision’s been made on that.”

“Huh, that is... well, not unexpected, given what I’d seen and heard in 113.” I mused. He turned to leave, and I called out to him. ”Um, before you go, sir… Any chance of getting the cuffs off?”

He turned his head back to me slowly, as if considering it, but then gave a quick shake of his head. “Not until the procedure’s done,” he said simply, and then trotted off.

I grumbled, trying to fold my forelegs across my chest and being quickly reminded that I couldn’t, which just make me grumble even more. I could tell the doctor was trying his best not to laugh as he looked me over and took a few notes from the monitors onto a clipboard his magic held.

I heard the sound of metal bearings gliding along a track, and lifted my head to see Raindancer slowly pulling the privacy curtains closed around my bed. She looked toward the doctor and asked, “So, how long did you say this purge process was going to take?”

The doctor trotted past her and answered, “A bit over six hours, at this point,” before ducking through the fold of the curtain. A moment later, the grinning unicorn’s face peeked back in. “Just be careful not to disturb her IV lines,” he said, gave a wink toward her, and then was gone.

Raindancer nodded, a mischevious smile forming on her face as she sauntered closer. She took off her cap and placed it on a nearby chair, letting the bright blue locks of her mane spill out over her face, then turned her head and asked me, “You know what that means, don’t you?”

I fidgeted a bit, my reply showing a hesitant tremolo. “Um… no?” I was, however, starting to form a guess as I watched the tawny mare slipping out of her uniform.

She turned to me with a grin, then lifted the sheet and smoothly hopped into the bed with me. I squirmed, helpless, but with her body so warm and soft upon mine, my resistance was already starting to wear down.

“It means that for the next six hours, you’re all mine.” she murred, the sultry look unmistakable in those sparkling green eyes. I gasped as she gave a warm rub up against me, bringing me nose-to-nose with her as her body pinned me to the bed. “And I promise you,” she added, “you’ll never forget me again.”

Phantasia Star angrily paced the steel grated floor of the room. It wasn’t such poor accommodation, all things considered. Reasonably spacious, it featured more intimate overhead lighting than the main halls. Resting up against the walls were a pair of decently-soft beds with freshly-cleaned linens and a pair of desks and chairs. In fact, this room might have passed for an enlisted ponys’ bunk if not for the steel toilet and sink mounted in the corner, the complete lack of anything on those desks, and the blue electrical barrier that shimmered and hummed in the doorway. Recently added to the décor were a series of U-shaped dents that ran along every bare space of the metal walls – contributed by Phantasia herself as she’d tried to buck her way out of the cell.

The cyber-mare’s heavy, angry hoof-falls seemed to make the entire room shake under Sapphire Sparkle, his irritation growing with each moment that the constant shaking prevented him from sleeping. He lay in one of the beds with a pillow pulled over his head, groaning in annoyance as she continued to selfishly rob him of sleep. “Didn’t she ever get tired?” he asked himself. “Didn’t she ever just feel like taking a break?” He sighed, realizing that these questions were silly. She was a cyber-pony. Of course the answer was ‘no’.

Finally, Sapphire could take no more, and Phantasia was hit by a pillow that the little blue unicorn had hurled at her with surprising strength. “Will you stop?!” he exclaimed. “For pony’s sake, just stop! We all know you’re unhappy about this. Hell I’d say every pony within a 5km radius knows at this point. And you know, I’m not super pleased with it myself. But what you’re doing is not helping.”

Phantasia wheeled on him angrily, picking up the pillow in her teeth and hurling it back at him. “Don’t tell me about what is or isn’t helping! I’d have conquered that prison by now and had what’s-his-face’s head on a pike if I’d just left instead of listening to you two!” She huffed, and did a mocking imitation of Sapphire himself. “Oh, let’s put our complete faith in Midnight Shadow because I, the ‘hooker-with-a-heart-of-gold’, just know that her heart is full of nothing but sunshine and rainbows and concern for her fellow pony.” Phantasia spat. “You know where she is right now? 10-to-1 odds she’s busy licking whipped cream off of that little tan hussy of hers and has forgotten all about us at this point.”

“And what if she is?” Sapphire asked coolly.

Phantasia turned, furrowing her brow, some of the wind being stolen from the sails of her anger as she tried to formulate an answer to the strange question. “Well… obviously that’d be pretty unfair, wouldn’t it?”

Sapphire shook his head. “No, I don’t think there’s any ‘obvious’ about it. First of all, you don’t even know what she’s doing, so making that assumption is being awfully rude to her. But even on the off chance that what you described is exactly what’s going on, I wouldn’t complain about it. I’ve seen how difficult it’s been for her to live without any connection at all to her past or who she was prior to two weeks ago. So if she’s had the opportunity to reconnect with some part of it, what’s wrong with that?”

Phantasia’s focus was starting to wane. On the one hoof, what Sapphire was saying was making a certain kind of sense. On the other, there was all this beautiful righteous indignation that he was busily poking holes in. “Yeah but, I mean… if we’re stuck in here and she’s out there having fun…”

Sapphire shook his head gently. “Midnight will be along for us as soon as she’s able to. We just need to be patient, and have some faith in our friend. Now, I don’t know if you cyber-ponies actually need to sleep, but us unaugmented ones do, so could you please keep it down?”

Phantasia trotted over to her bed with a huff and laid herself down, still grumbling.

Sapphire gave his friend a placid little smile, and laid his head down on the pillow again. “Oh,” he called to her, “If somepony does come along to try and bring us food again, could you consider maybe not trying to murder them this time? I’m pretty sure it’s not winning us any friends here.”

Author's Note

This is where things took a turn that surprised me, and I'm still not sure about this direction or where it's leading. Originally, Raindancer was just supposed to be some unnamed goon who gets killed just to have her clothes stolen for further sneaking. Instead... other things happened.

I kinda like the direction it went, but I think it needs to happen much later in the story, with more buildup to that reveal.