Zero Escape: Chambers of Nightmares

by Jumpitydude

Rating: mature
Tags: Cozy Glow, Profanity, Crossover, Death, Young Six, Gore, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, My Little Pony Comic, Other, Silverstream, Mystery
Length: 53651

Nine students wake up in a world full of terror, death, and math. With only nine hours to escape, will they all make it out with their sanity intact? Or their bodies, for that matter?

Silverstream wakes up in an unusual room and realizes quickly that something is wrong. First, it's not her room in Mt. Aris or the school. Second, the door to the room has a huge number 5 on it. Third, she's wearing a bracelet with the number 5 on it. Fourth, the room is about to kill her.

Surviving is not just about escaping this room. It's about working with the other eight students to escape from this world made of nightmares. If they can't escape within nine hours, they will be trapped in this world for the rest of their lives. But one question sits on all of their minds.

Who is Zero?

Crossover with the Zero Escape series.

Published 2019-02-09 18:00:01 UTC
Last updated 2019-06-08 12:15:42 UTC

Hour Zero: Awakening

...

Nothing.

I'm floating in nothing.

This sensation...

Is familiar to me.

It's the moment just before I wake up. My dream has ended, and I'm about to open my eyes and start a new day.

But when did my last day end? The last thing I remember... That's right!

"What are you doing?"

"Dragon. Strange magical cave. What do you think I'm doing?"

I followed her into the cave, touched the ground, and... nothing. I don't remember anything after that.

Well, only one way to find out what's happening. Time to open my eyes.

I'm laying on my back on a bed. My bed? I don't remember there being a ceiling above my bed, though. Or that note. I grab it and read it.

"Do not try to remove your bracelet. Doing so will result in... DEATH?"

I look at my wrist. There is a bracelet there, similar to the one we used in the Spellvenger Hunt we did a while back. Instead of a radar on it, though, there's the number 5 on it. I instinctively reach for it, but remember the note in time. It's probably best if I just leave it there for now.

"Wait..." If I don't remember how I got here, what else did I forget? Why didn't I think of that earlier? Do I remember my name? Do I remember my family? Do I have a family?

I clutch my head and close my eyes. Think... think... Right! I do remember!

"I am Silverstream. I'm a Hippogriff from Mt. Aris. Or Seaquestria. Whichever you prefer. I have my parents and a brother who should still be there. I went to Princess Twilight Sparkle's School of Friendship as the representative of the Hippogriffs. We're about to have a big test, but I think the Princess will let me miss it over a death threat."

Right. That's out of the way. Now, where am I?

It's... a bedroom? It's not mine. This one has an armoire, shelves, a closet, a trash can, a desk, something on the desk with a timer on it, this bed I'm on, a chair- Wait. Go back a bit.

I take another look at the thing with the timer. It's made of metal and has plenty of wires on it. The timer on it is at fourteen and a half minutes and is counting down.

Did that note mention something about this? Time to take another look.

"Bracelet... death... The thing on the desk is a bomb. It will go off when the timer hits zero. If you do not escape before then, you won't be the only one to pay."

...

...

...

OH FUCK! I NEED TO GET OUT!

Door door door- THERE! I run over and yank on the handle!

And again.

And again.

...

I should have known it wouldn't be that easy. Time to look at the door. First thing I see; big number 5. Pretty obvious. Right next to the door is an odd device. It has a display, two lights, a lever, and an odd slit. Oh! It's a card reader! They used those at... where do they use those? No! Not the time! I need to find something to use with the card reader! Fast!

TIME TO SEARCH!

I immediately dart over to the shelves. They're almost empty, aside from a red briefcase and... Terramar? There's a photo of my brother sitting on top, for some reason. Are they taunting me? The briefcase has a combination lock and a keyhole. Won't be opening that up yet. It's a small keyhole, though. Where would I hide a small key?

The trash can? I look inside, but it's empty. Wait. I pull the bag out, and... Ah ha! They did what I do! They hid the key under the bag! And a note? What's this say?

"You see those you love from the front. Now's the time to stop that."

... What?

I look at the picture of Terramar. It shows him from the front. Are they saying to look at the back? Only one way to find out. I remove the back of the frame the picture is in. Oh? A key popped out. There's something on the back of the picture as well. A set of triangles and squares with numbers next to them. A decoder? Will this be for the combination lock? I don't have a code yet, though.

I look at the key that came out of the photo. It's bigger than the key from the trash can. Taking another look, the photo key is green, and the trash key is blue. I don't see a green or blue briefcase, though. The one I have is red. Hmm... Ah! The Armoire is green! I try the photo key on it... It opened!

There's a blue briefcase and a photo of... Mom. Huh. I look at the back. There are two red symbols, two blue symbols, and an arrow below them that's red below the red symbols and blue below the blue symbols. Is that important? I found pictures of mom and Terramar, but none of dad. And no sign of a red key. I should look around a bit more... Oh, that's a bunk bed? NO! BAD SILVER! NOT NOW!

Looking around, I realize I haven't checked the closet yet. Opening it up, there are shelves full of... nothing? That can't be right. I hop up on the shelves to see the upper ones. Ah ha! The red key and the picture of dad! I climb down and look at the bomb.

OH SHIT! WHERE DID THE TIME GO? I ONLY HAVE FOUR MINUTES!

I quickly check the back of dad's photo and see the same kind of code as the back of mom's photo, though the colors are reversed from mom's. I quickly use the decoder on Terramar's photo to figure out which numbers are which. I put the numbers from mom's photo into the lock for the blue briefcase, stick the blue key into the lock, and turn it. It failed. The red briefcase? No. What's going-

Oh. The colors are important. I quickly fold the pictures of my parents in half and connect the red numbers. Putting that number into the red briefcase, I turn the key. It opened! There are three cards inside, each with a different number: 5, 6, and 7. I quickly head to the reader, swipe the 5 card, and press the button. It buzzed at me. I'll try all three. Nope, another buzz.

I shoot back over to the photos and flip them over, putting the number into the blue briefcase. The key turns and opens the briefcase, giving me three more cards: 1, 2, and 3. Oh? There's also a note.

"Digital roots? To find the digital root of a number, you must add the digits of the number together until there's only one digit. For example, 2+4+5+7+8=26. 2+6=8. Thus, the digital root of 24578 is 8. To unlock the door to the room, you must figure out how to make the number on the door from the cards you have.

"Hint: The number 9 does not ever change the digital root. If you have 9 or two numbers that add up to a 9 in a number, you can ignore them. In the example above, it boils down to 9(2+7)+9(4+5)+8, and the digital root is 8."

Okay then. I look at the cards I have. 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7. I have to make 5. The easiest way would be to make 14 (9+5). That would be the 5 card and two that add up to 9... 3+6! I take the three cards-

OH, FUCK I HAVE THIRTY SECONDS! I quickly swipe the three cards and press the button. As soon as it dings, I rip open the door and turn left- DEAD END! TURN AROUND FAST! I fly to the end, not even thinking. As soon as I open the door at the end of the hall-

*BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BANG!*

The nine booms were from explosions. The bang was my head hitting the wall the explosions propelled me into.

...

...

...

...

...

"I... am..."

It sounds so distant.

"I... can... talk?"

My head is ringing. I rub it by impulse.

"She's waking up!"

That voice. I open my eyes to see eight other students. Six about my age, two clearly younger. I recognize five of them right off the bat, but one of the other three is also familiar.

The blue griffon shoots towards me, grabbing me in a hug. "You're alive! You're alive!"

"What? I... What?"

A young pegasus was flittering her wings in the air. "Are you okay? You were out cold."

I continue rubbing my head. "I'm fine, but... what happened?"

The orange dragon shrugs. "You tell us."

The earth pony is rubbing one leg with the other. "We heard a string of explosions, ran over here, and found you unconscious on the floor."

"I..." I'm trying to remember, but... "Oh, yeah. I made it out of the room with less than thirty seconds left. I must've barely gotten away from the explosions."

The changeling shakes her head. "No, you got caught by them, you just got far enough away that it wasn't lethal."

"May I make a suggestion?" The young deer raises his hoof in the air. "Should we use code names?"

The yak smiles. "Code names sound like fun!"

The deer shies back. "No, I mean, we don't want our kidnapper to know who we are, right?"

The dragon nods. "We don't even know why we were kidnapped. They could have just picked a bunch of random students-"

"And happened upon seven from the same school?" The griffon has seated himself next to me. "I'm not buying that. It's way too much of a coincidence."

The changeling is tapping her chin. "Maybe they were going for non-pony creatures?"

The earth pony starts waving his hoof around. "Uh, hello? Two ponies in the group?"

Static suddenly fills the air. I look around, and it doesn't take me long to find the monitor in the room. The image became clear, showing a creature wearing a hood and a gas mask. "Hello, students." Their voice is heavily distorted, making impossible to recognize. "Welcome to my school."

"Hey!" The griffon is snarling at the monitor. "Who are you?"

"I am Zero, the headmaster of this school. I've already given you all an example of what the lesson plan will be like, with puzzles, digital roots... and death traps."

The yak is growling. "Let us out!"

"If you wish to graduate, you have to play along with my game. Let's call it the Nonary Game. If you don't, you can simply rot away where you are now, with no one outside knowing of your fate."

The deer just backed up into me. I wrap my claws around him to comfort him. He's so young... The rest of us are looking around with confusion and worry.

"In order to graduate, you must pass through the final door before nine hours pass starting with the first chime of the bell. In order to reach the final door, you must pass through several numbered doors. Each of your rooms had information about digital roots. That will be vital to passing through the numbered doors, such as the two on the wall opposite this monitor."

I look at my bracelet. "That's what the numbers are for."

"The Recognition Device, or RED, will read your bracelets. If the digital root is correct, the door will open, and you can pass through. Otherwise, you will receive an error and have to try again. Once through the door, you will have to find the Deactivation Device, or DEAD, to turn off the timer on your bracelet. If you fail to do that, the bombs inside of you will go off, killing you."

Excuse me? Bomb? Do I have a bomb inside of me?

"What the hell?" The dragon sounds just as shocked and scared as I am. "You shoved bombs inside of us?"

"Solve the puzzles in the rooms to get through. Find the number 9 doors to find the way out. I'll be interested to see who graduates." Static is filling the screen again.

"Hey! Wait!" The griffon just ran past me and is headed to the monitor. "Damnit! OW!" Why did he kick the wall?

The colt is looking at the doors, biting his lip. "So we need to go through those doors to get out?"

The changeling is biting her hoof. "And they're full of death traps?"

The yak is scratching her head. "But how? Yak left cards in room."

The filly is hugging herself. "So did I. And all the rooms got blown up."

I'd wonder if they were all idiots, but I'm pretty sure they're just panicking. I hold up my left claw, the one with the bracelet on it. "That's what these are for. See how mine has a 5 on it? It's to open those doors."

"Oh. See." The... girl? I'm not sure what she is. Anyway, she looked at my bracelet, then at her's, and is now looking at the doors. "We add bracelet numbers for digital roots to open doors."

The griffon raised his eyebrow. I think he's confused by her word choice. "Uh, Equish, please."

The changeling sighed. "You remember the cards we used to escape the exploding rooms? Replace those with the bracelets, and we have a way to open the door. Though I'm a little shocked that Silver's the one to figure that out first."

The deer is suddenly shaking. "Hey! What about-"

"Didn't I make this clear?" The griffon's glare has turned to the deer. "We weren't grabbed at random. We were chosen for this specifically. They already know who we are."

"Then we should share our numbers and, uh..." The dragon looked from the deer to the other creature. "Introduce ourselves to the two we don't know."

I guess now is the best time to go over what I remember about the ones I do know, make sure I haven't forgotten anything about them.

"Then yak start! Yak is Number 1!" The Yak is named Yona. She's very physically strong but requires a good bit of help with her homework. From what I'm catching of her introduction, she's still all about how yaks are the best at everything.

"Even math?" The griffon verbally jabs at her.

"Quiet." Yeah, that hit a nerve. She was never good at math in particular, and now we know we're going to need math a good bit.

"Since we started with one, why don't we go in numerical order." The colt is looking at his bracelet. "So we'd go 2, then 3, then 4, and so on."

"Sounds good." The dragon is looking around. "So who's number 2?"

"Me."

Well, it looks like I'll be finding out what that creature is sooner than I thought. "Okay, who, and what, are you?"

"My name... Rain Kiss. My... race is kirin."

Kirin? I've heard of them, but only in passing. She honestly looks like the result of Professor Rarity designing a creature. She looks like a light blue pony, but she has dark blue scales on her forehead and back, a dark horn that more resembles a tree branch with ribbons wrapped around it, and her grey mane wraps around her neck. It also looks like the fleshy part of her tail is longer and the hair of it is just hanging off.

"Kirin?" The colt is scratching his head. "Never heard of one before."

The filly noticed something else. "What's wrong with your voice?"

"Kirin... took dive in spring of silence. I spoke two years... and never again."

The griffon's eyes narrow. "So how are you talking now?"

Rain Kiss shrugged. "Don't know. Shouldn't be able to."

The dragon sighs. "We can work on your speech patterns later."

Yona tilts her head. "What wrong with speech pattern?"

The filly's face just went deadpan. "Oh yeah. We've got Yona."

Rain suddenly had a big smile on her face. "More reason to fix my speech!"

"Hey!"

What is this? Everyone pick on Yona day?

The colt's cough catches my attention. "We should continue."

"Right! Who's number 3?" I look around.

The colt looks annoyed. "I'm 3. That's why I spoke up."

Oh. Oops. I cut him off.

Sandbar. The earth pony from Ponyville. He's... probably the most average among us. There's almost nothing notable about him. But he's still my friend. Even if he seems super high at times.

"I guess I'm next."

We look at the changeling. "So that means..."

"Yeah. I'm 4." Ocellus. A rather timid changeling who's been opening up more and more. She's definitely a lot more confident around her friends. As long as we don't put her on the spot. Thinking about it, she's also the most intelligent of us, so she's probably going to be invaluable right now.

I look around. "So who's next." ... Huh? Why are they staring at me? Hey, why did they start laughing? Did someone- "Oh. Oops."

"Silver." The griffon is barely keeping himself together. "You're 5. You showed us earlier."

I giggle and introduce myself to Rain Kiss and the deer, who both are giving me sympathetic smiles.

"Welp, I'm 6, so I'm next." Gallus the griffon. An abrasive guy, but very nice once you get to know him. He's also very unlucky since he lived most of his life without anyone to care about him. He's not very smart, but he's oddly amazing with math.

He's also very soft and has a nice butt.

"SILVER!"

"Huh?"

"YOU JUST SAID THAT OUT LOUD!"

... Oops. They're laughing at me again. Except for Gallus, who's just red in the face, the deer, who's giving me another sympathetic smile, and the dragon, who just put her face in her palm.

Sandbar's waving his hoof around. "Okay, okay. Who's next."

...

No one?

"Huh? Oh, sorry. I was just... processing that. I'm 7." Smolder the dragon. She's a very rough and tough girl, but she does have a soft side. She just doesn't like others seeing it. She's also our class clown and tends to make things a bit of a mess for some of the teachers. Professor Applejack and Professor Pinkie Pie tend to have very amusing reactions.

That only leaves the youngest two of the nine. The deer and the pegasus.

"Um... I'm number 8." The deer looks very nervous. As if he might fall apart if you look at him the wrong way. "My name is Bramble. I'm from the deer tribe that lives in the Everfree forest. We don't have schools. We learn what we need to from our elders."

Ocellus has that look again. The one she gets when she's running through her textbooks in her head. "Deer don't usually socialize with other creatures. Maybe there were plans to send you to the School of Friendship?"

"No. King Aspen would have let me know as soon as he knew." ... He's so precious!

"That leaves Cozy Glow." Hearing that makes me look at the filly.

"Yeah. It's pretty obvious, but I'm 9." Cozy Glow. The youngest of our classmates, but also the smartest at times. She tends to be very helpful, but... I can't help but feel as if something's... off about her. Like she did something that makes her untrustworthy. But I can't think of anything she did that-

"Miss Silver?" Huh? Why does she look worried? "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"It's your bracelet." Gallus is wrong, but I'm not about to correct him.

"What? Why would my-"

*DING*

There it is. The bell.

At this point, we have nine hours to escape from this place. If we can't, then this becomes our new life.

I don't want that to happen.

I have to escape.

Hour Three: A crazy choice...

"Alright. We'll meet back here in an hour." With that, Ocellus leaves. Most of us follow her, leaving me with Smolder and Gallus.

"You could have at least made me feel better."

I look at Smolder. "Well, it's not like my opinion would have mattered at that point."

"I know. That's why I'm upset at you. How about making it up to me by going through one of these doors right now?"

Gallus shakes his head. "We can't. 5, 6, and 7 make 18, which is 9. We'd need one of the others, and the only one we could reasonably convince is Cozy Glow."

"Ugh. Fine. Grab Cozy Glow and we can go through door 3 without Gallus."

I look at Gallus. He's making an 8 with his claws behind Smolder's back. Hm... I think I know what to do. "Sure. Just give me a second."

Smolder grunts as Gallus heads over to the part of the infirmary with the drugs. "Just get her and get back!"

I nod and make my way to the door out of the infirmary. I look around for a bit before heading down one of the hallways. I happen across Bramble and Yona.

Bramble notices me first. "Oh, hey Miss Silver."

I put on my sweetest smile. "Hey, Bramble. Could you help us? Gallus says he found something, but we can't reach it. We think your smaller size would help."

"Oh, sure! I'll help-"

Yona sticks her hoof out in front of Bramble while glaring at me. "What you planning?"

... She's suspicious? Of me? There's no way she could know what I'm planning.

Bramble pushes her hoof down. "It's alright, Miss Yona. I trust her."

Yona looks at him, then at me. "... Fine. Yak let deer go. But if you hurt him... I will crush you."

That has to be the scariest I've seen Yona. She wasn't even talking how she normally does. "Don't worry. I don't plan on hurting him."

Bramble walks past me, so I turn around and follow him back to the infirmary. As soon as we're inside, I close the doors.

Beramble backs into me. "What the-"

"Oh, hey." Gallus is standing over Smolder's unconscious body. "Didn't expect you to be back so soon."

"M-Mister Gallus? Why is Miss-"

"Don't ask." I grab him and dart over to door 1. I force his hoof onto the RED, then put my claw on it.

"HELP!"

Gallus reaches past me and puts his claw on the RED before pulling the lever. As soon as the door is open, I rush through, Bramble still tightly in my grasp.

"Guys?" That's Cozy's voice. "What's going on in here?"

"Sorry, but we can't wait forever." With that, Gallus closes the door.

The DEAD is in our line of sight already. I rush over, force Bramble's hoof to it, then drop him. I scan my bracelet in, then Gallus scans his in before pulling the lever.

"HELP!" Bramble is banging on the door we came through. "GET ME OUT OF HERE!"

"Hey, Bramble?" Oh, he's scared of me. "Hey, I'm not going to hurt you. I just wanted to help everyone. We don't know what's going to happen going forward."

"S-stay away."

"Hey, it's okay." I move to pet him. "Just-"

"STAY AWAY!" !!! He moved so fast I didn't even see him.

"Bramble!"

*BANG BANG BANG* "SILVERSTREAM!"

Uh oh. That's Yona.

"I WILL NOT FORGIVE YOU FOR THIS! GET OUT HERE THIS INSTANT!"

Gallus hits his claw on the door. "We can't! The rules don't allow it!"

"GALLUS!"

"See you on the other side!" He takes my claw. "Come on. Let's go."

Wow. I got so distracted by the DEAD and Bramble, I did not realize how tight the area around the door is. Gallus leads me to the end of the wall opposite the door leading in here. It looks like there are a few metal tubes with computers next to them. There are a bunch of boxes everywhere with numbers on the front. There's a door to the side... Wait.

"Where's Bramble?"

"Oh, he's in that middle tube."

"The one with all the padlocks on it?"

"Yup."

I tap on it. "You okay in there?"

"Better than I would be out there!"

... I get the feeling he's upset at me.

Though, now that I think about it, I'm not entirely sure why I did this. It wasn't to be with Bramble or Gallus, I know that much. I think I was trying to protect Smolder... Wait, what? What am I thinking? I'm not keeping anyone safe by going through a specific door! It's not like she would have died by going through this door in particular! They all have death traps in them! What the heck was I thinking?

"You okay, Silver?"

"Yeah, I'm just facing some internal conflict."

"Eh, that's fair. You can argue with yourself inside your head while we work out the puzzles."

TIME TO SEARCH!

Well, the puzzle here is rather obvious. Er, hold on. It looks like a small panel slid open on the computer next to the tube Bramble is in. I look in the panel.

"Find something?"

"Yeah, a key." I hold it up. "It has a weird symbol on it."

"We should probably keep an eye out for that symbol. Otherwise, let's get to the puzzle."

I nod and make my way to one of the boxes. There are numbers and symbols on the front.

[+}(-]{x)
721
<><

Um... Hmm... I wish I had a notepad or something. "Hey, Gallus? Is there anything to write on?"

"Uh, I think there are a notepad and pen next to one of the tubes."

"Thanks." I look at the tubes again. Sure enough, the left one has a notepad and a pen next to it. I pick them up and head back to the box.

"Any idea what those symbols mean?"

I tap the pen to my beak. "Well, three of the symbols are mathematical, but I'm sure you knew that already. The other symbols appear to be paired brackets." I draw the brackets on the notepad. "I think that means the math symbols between each pair of brackets mean something." I draw the symbols in between the brackets they're between on the box.

+-
{x+}

"But the question is how this relates to the numbers on the box."

"Ah, that's what I was missing."

"Really?" I hand him the pen. "Can you show me what I'm missing?"

He takes the pen. "You see the lock on the box, right?"

"Yeah, it's like the ones on those padlocks. The twisty dial."

He chuckles. I can't blame him. "It's called a combination lock. You turn it one way to one number, then the other way to the next number, then repeat until it unlocks. If you mess up, you just spin it a bunch to reset it, then try again."

"So what's the combination?"

He holds up the paper he was writing on. "This."

[7+2-1]=8
(7-2x1)=5
{7x2+1}=15

"So, judging by the arrows below the numbers..." He puts his claw on the dial. "... first, we turn it this way to 8..." He turns it counterclockwise to 8. "... then we go this way..." He turns it clockwise to 5. "... and we finish going this way..." He turns it counterclockwise again until he gets to 15. "... and now..." He lifts the lid like it wasn't ever locked. "... presto."

I look in the box. There's another key inside, this one significantly less detailed than the other one. "Hey, do you think that fancy key from earlier is the key to the door out?"

"Maybe, but it will probably do something to Bramble if we use it before letting him out." He hands me the notepad and pen. "You probably need this more than me. I can crunch the numbers in my head."

I'm confused. He's... not the best academically. Oh, that's a big word. Academically.

"It's because Grandpa Gruff had me working at a store so I wasn't doing nothing with my life. I learned a lot about numbers there. About the only thing I learned in Griffonstone, too."

I take the pen and notepad. "So, when we meet with the others again..."

"I'll handle the talking. I have something in mind to talk them down."

I nod. I really hope he gets through to them. I don't want to know what Yona will do to me if he can't.

I take the key that was in the box and move back to the tube Bramble is in. I try it on a couple of padlocks before one of them unlocks.

"How about saving that for when we have all of the keys." He already has another key. I didn't think I took that long finding this lock. He sets it down on the table beside me. "Just leave that key in the lock so we don't try to use it on another one."

I drop the lock on the ground. Well, back to the boxes. I read the front of the next one. The only thing different from the first box is the numbers themselves. 823. I write down the equations again.

[8+2-3]=7
(8-2x3)=18
{8x2+3}=19

I turn the dial counterclockwise to 7, clockwise to 18, then a tiny bit back to 19.

"So how many do you have?"

"I got... one." He's dangling three keys in my face. How did he even work that fast? "You know what? You unlock the boxes. I'll just... figure out which key goes where."

He shrugs and hands me the keys he has. "Suit yourself."

Ugh. At least I won't have to worry about taxes if we get married. Not that I should be thinking about marriage or taxes right now. I take one key and stick it in one of the locks, then try the next lock until one of them unlocks, then repeat the process with the next key... Given that this is an exam room, shouldn't the puzzle have something to do with anatomy? I guess it would be awkward if it's a pony anatomy doll and only non-ponies in the room, and the solution would be obvious if they left a book on pony anatomy in here. At least we don't have to cut each other open.

"Here's the rest."

"Faajajajaja! I just got the third lock open!"

He stares at me, then smiles. "What was that sound?"

I roll my eyes and grab the rest of the keys. For the rest of these, I just try each key on a lock until it opens.

"Did you count how many keys and padlocks there are?"

"Did you, captain math?" Seriously, the speed he worked at shouldn't be physically possible.

"Yeah. We're one key short."

"Maybe we need to use the symbol key." How did he... you know what, never mind. He's good with numbers. I don't need to worry about it.

"Maybe. But it would be odd that locking him in there would give us a key to release him."

"Yeah yeah." I unlock all but two of the locks. Sure enough, I've got one key left. I try it on the first one. No dice. I try it on the second one... Huh? "Wait. This key doesn't fit either of these locks."

"Really?" He takes the key from me and... does exactly what I did. "Hmm... We unlocked all the boxes."

"We?"

"Well, you got one of them."

I can't roll my eyes hard enough... Eh? "Hey, did we ever try that door?"

Gallus shakes his head. I head over to the door. It's heavy and metal, like all solid doors and effective weapons. Not my taste in music, though. It doesn't look like there's a handle on the door. Hmm... There's a panel near the door. I look at it. It looks very simple to operate, but it's covered by a glass case. There's a latch on it with a padlock.

"Hey, Gallus. I think we need that key over here."

He brings the key over and puts it in the padlock. It opens right up. I open the case and press a button.

*Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr*

Yes! The door is open! I step inside... A chill runs down my spine.

"Silver? You okay?"

"Yeah. I'll be fine." There are two panels on the left and right sides of the room, two masks dangling from the ceiling by tubes, and a box below the masks. "I think we need whatever's in that box."

Gallus pushes past me and walks up to the box. "There's no dial or inscription."

I walk up behind him. He's right. It's like the other boxes, but without the puzzle parts on it. He opens the lid.

*Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr*

!!! The door is closing!

"Wait!" Gallus let me go! "You'll hurt yourself if you try to stop it!"

*Ding* "Dispensing carbon dioxide."

... Oh, crap! I put one of the masks on. Gallus is standing right next to me.

"We're not given much room with these on."

I look at him. "What do you mean?"

He tugs at the tube. "We can probably move three feet from each other while wearing these. It could be worse, I guess."

"Yeah. We could be suffocating." I look at one of the panels. It looks like there are instructions on it. "We should probably read that."

Gallus looks where I'm pointing and follows me when I move. I read the instructions out loud.

"Press the button on this panel at the same time as the button on the opposite panel.
"Failure to press both buttons within fifteen second of each other will replace the oxygen with Emoja 16.
"Failure to press either button within fifteen minutes of the door closing will replace the oxygen with Emoja 16.
"The room will ventilate when both buttons are pressed. Keep the masks on until the room is fully ventilated.
"The room will ventilate if the button outside the room is pressed.
"The door will open once the room is venitlated."

I tilt my head. "Well, that sounds simple enough."

"It sounds simple, until you remember one small thing." He tugs at the tubes connected to our masks. "We can't go more than three feet apart from each other, and the panels are on opposite sides of the rooms."

I look at the other panel. It looks like a mirror image of the one we're next to. Right down to... "Maybe we should read those instructions before doing anything."

Gallus looks at the other panel, then nods. We head over before I read out the instructions.

"When one button is pressed, a wall will rise from the floor. It will be fully raised after 5 seconds.
"Your tubes give three feet of clearance. There is no way to extend this range.
"If the wall is raised and two creatures are on opposite sides of the wall, the wall will be high enough to force both creatures against the wall.
"Removing the keys from the box will do nothing. Their weight will not help you, though. Trust me, I tried."

I look at the box. We head back over to it and peek inside. There are two keys. "Well, I would try throwing them, but that note said they won't help."

Gallus chucks them at one of the buttons. They uselessly plinked off. "It was worth a shot."

I look at the panels, then at the tubes connected to our masks. "I have an idea."

"What is it?"

"I'll hold my breath, then we hit the buttons at the same time. Once that happens, we run towards each other and you hand me back the mask I'm wearing."

"And how can I talk you out of this?"

"Get ready." I take a deep breath.

"Silver, wait!"

I slip the mask off of my head and run over to the button.

"Damn it, Silver!"

I smash it and run towards Gallus. He hands me the mask back and I slip it back on.

"That was one hell of a move you just pulled."

"Yeah. I didn't think you'd be fast enough."

The wall comes up between us.

*Ding* "Please wait five minutes for the room to ventilate. Oxygen dispensing normally."

"Normally? That means it worked, right?"

"Yeah. It does."

I let out a sigh and slide down the wall onto my rump. I guess that means no one died this time... this... time?

"Gallus, what's wrong with me?"

"That depends on what you're referring to."

"Ever since the first chime, I've been feeling... off. As if I went through something horrible. As if I saw everyone else die in front of me." I look at the floor in front of me. "As if I had to stop Smolder from entering this room at all costs."

"And here I was questioning if it was real."

"What?"

"The Morphogenetic Field. A phenomenon where specific creatures send and receive information regardless of where they are in time and space."

"Time?"

"Let's say you went through things without interfering. All of a sudden, someone dies. That information enters the Morphogenetic Field and goes to the past, creating a new timeline where you do interfere and save that someone."

I hold my stomach. "So that feeling from earlier. Where I felt like I was killed."

"You probably were. In a different timeline where you sent the information backward through time. Unless we're immortals with anterograde amnesia, constantly forced to live out the same day over and over."

... "Could you help me understand something else?"

"Let me guess. You want to know when I got so smart, right?"

"Yeah. Because, now that I think about it, you weren't particularly good with math in the past. So you weren't good with it before coming to school."

"Well, maybe I faked it."

"Gallus, I'm serious."

"Heh. Sorry. Memories and knowledge are two different things. So if someone has amnesia and forget about a year of their life, they still know what they learned during that year. This is because memories and knowledge are stored in different parts of the brain."

"So when something specifically targets our memories, they don't affect our knowledge."

"At the same time, that knowledge can be passed through the Morphogenetic Field. So when you go through rooms you went through in other timelines, you'd already know what to do."

I chuckle. "That sounds good... Wait, do you think Smolder is able to use the Morphogenetic Field?"

"That would explain how she was acting in door 7. She's not that weird. She probably just wanted to get through it. Rain is probably the same way. You saw how she was treating Smolder that whole time, right?"

"Yeah. I did. This all feels so surreal, but it explains why I've been acting the way I have."

We sit in silence. Does he know how I feel about him? Should I tell him, knowing he could know from here on out without me knowing how? Do I just let it slide, knowing he could slip away from me at any moment? Why is this the one thing I have trouble being impulsive on?

*Ding* "Room ventilated." *Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr*

I look at the door. It's wide open. I take off my mask and take a deep breath.

Gallus puts his claw on my shoulder. I guess the wall went down. "We're in the clear."

I get up and head out of the room... Oh, wait. "You have the keys, right?"

"Yeah. I've got it." He heads over to the metal tube Bramble is still in. He removes the last two padlocks, causing the base of the tube to slide out. I look inside... Uh oh.

I place my claw on Bramble's neck... "He has a pulse. He's just asleep."

"That might be a good thing. He probably would freak out at us again if he was awake." Gallus picks up the fancy key. "We'll let him catch up to us."

I nod. We head to the exit door. Gallus puts the key into the hole and unlocks it. The door swings ope-

*KSSSHHHHHHHHHH*

GAH! Some kind of gas... sudden... uh...

So... sleepy...

*DING DING...*

Hour One: Welcome to the Nonary Game

We're all looking up. The bell had caught us all off guard, but we all know what it means.

"Uh, Gallus?" I look over at Cozy Glow. "Why would my number be a reason for her to be suspicious of me?"

"Because it can be very powerful in this situation."

Sandbar is scratching his head. "But that note said that 9 doesn't change the Digital Root of a number."

"That's why it's powerful." Gallus points his thumb over his shoulder. "Take those doors for example."

I didn't look at the doors much before now, but it's very clear how they work. One door has a 2 painted on it, and the other door has a 7, and there's a device next to each with a round pad, display, and lever. It looks like the displays say "vacant".

"Let's say Sandbar wants to go through door 2. He'd need to add up numbers to make the digital root 2."

Ocellus looks at Bramble. "The easiest way is to add 8 since 8 plus 3 is 11, which is 1 plus 1, which is 2."

"Exactly. Now, let's say Cozy Glow wants to jump in with them."

Cozy's eyes lit up. "Oh! 2 plus 9 is 11, meaning I can just go with them!"

"Precisely."

Everyone seems to get it. Except for Yona. "When griffon get good with numbers?" Oh, she was confused by something else.

"Well, Grandpa Gruff didn't want me sitting around all the time, so he had me-"

*Bzzt*

... What was that?

*Beep*

*Bzzt*

*Beep*

*Bzzt*

We all look at the doors. "Smolder, what are you doing?"

She just cringed and is slowly turning her head. Slowly... there's her eye! And there's the panic as she puts her back on the device. "Hahaha! Nothing! I wasn't trying to leave without you!"

"You can't go through door alone."

... What? I look at Rain Kiss. Apparently, so did everyone else.

"I got note. Apparently from... disadvantage." The ribbon-like parts of her horn lit up, and she lifted a note out of her mane. I reach to the note, grab it, and start reading it out.

"Dear Rain Kiss.

"For reasons I will not disclose, you will be at a disadvantage. Therefore, it feels fair to give you an advantage. That advantage will be the rules of the Nonary Game.

"The first rule is that every door must be entered by a group of 3-5 players. Everyone that enters must activate the RED and the DEAD within 81 seconds. If a player fails to activate the DEAD, everyone in the room will die. If a player that didn't activate the RED enters a room, they will die.

"The second rule is that you can only enter a room that says "vacant" or "assist" on the RED. "Vacant" means that no one is alive in the room. "Assist" means that someone is alive in the room, but is unable to proceed on their own, for one reason or another. If someone is inside a room and can complete the room's objective, the display will say "busy" and no one else can enter the room.

"The third rule is that once a room is cleared, anyone may enter it. This may be vital at times for reasons I will not disclose. This is why you should go through as many rooms as possible.

"The fourth and final rule is that the bracelets can only be removed under one of two conditions: either the wearer escapes, or the wearer dies. If the wearer dies, however, their bracelet can still be used to open doors. In this situation, the bracelets must still be scanned in the DEAD. Otherwise, none of the bracelets on the living players will deactivate.

"Good luck. ~Zero"

A number of things caught my eye, but the biggest one... "Disadvantage?"

"You no know me. Bramble unbelievable to be bad guy. So, I most suspicious. That likely disadvantage."

... It's funny. She's the only one I didn't have any reason to trust, but giving me this note also gave me a reason to trust her. Wait, where did the note go? Oh, Gallus took it, and he's handing it to Ocellus.

Thinking about it, Cozy Glow is the opposite. I have no reason to distrust her, but for some reason, I do. Did she do something I forgot about? No, it's because she's lying. Her emotions and actions feel fake. But she's a child. Can she do that when she's so young?

"I see. So for all of us to get through those doors, we have to split into four and five." Ocellus' voice brought me out of my thoughts.

"Actually, the easiest way is to split into two teams of four and let Cozy go into whichever one she wants to."

I look at Gallus. "Who put you in charge of the door teams?"

He's raising an eyebrow. "I don't see anyone else doing it."

"Ocellus was trying to." I look over to Sandbar, who's pointing at Ocellus.

Ocellus looks a bit flustered. "Not exactly. I was just making an observation. I'm fine with Gallus handling the team layout."

"Same here."

"I don't mind."

"It's his chance to shine."

"I'm bad at math."

The others seem fine with it. "Alright. So what should-"

"Shouldn't we talk about these rules more? Why would we be unable to proceed through a room?"

Sandbar has a point. That is an odd thing to specify in the rules.

"Maybe they have prisons in them. Like rooms that can only be opened from the outside."

Smolder made a sound point, but there is a problem. "If there are three of us in a room, we just have to avoid all going into one of those prisons."

"You guys remember those bombs, right? The ones in the rooms we woke up in?"

I slowly look at Gallus. His face is dead serious and for good reason. If Zero was willing to kill us before the game properly started, who's to say the rooms before us don't have some kind of death trap in them?

"Judging by your faces, you all understand what I'm getting at."

Ocellus looks shaken, probably by the realization we could die here. "In that case, let's move on to the next rule. We should probably enter the rooms the other teams cleared, in case we can find something the first team to go through missed."

"If we do that, we will need to keep time in mind.We're already under a nine-hour time limit. If we waste too much time looking around in rooms we don't need to, we might never get out."

Ocellus is nodding. "Yeah, we should probably be careful about that. Nine hours is a while, but we could still lose track of time."

Sandbar is looking at his bracelet. "We might also have to go back for bracelets. I don't want any of us to die, but if we do, we have to be ready to handle it going forward."

"Yona remember old yak saying; If in danger, cry later."

Bramble is clearly uncomfortable, but he still nodded. "If any of us die, we can mourn them once we're out. After all, we don't have time for a funeral here."

You know what? I'm getting tired of waiting. "Are we done talking about the rules? We need to get going."

"Right. The best way to get through those doors is to get two of us to add up to one of those numbers, then add a pair that can add nine, and have the rest go through the other door."

"And I go through whichever one I want, right?"

"Yak want door 7!" We all look at Yona. She got pretty loud just now.

The one least bothered by her volume was Gallus, who just chuckled. "Alright. We'll just have to work with that."

"I want 2." Rain held up her bracelet. "Same number."

"This is going to come out wrong, but I want to go through the opposite door from Gallus."

Uh oh. Gallus is glaring at Sandbar. "What? You don't trust me or something?"

Sandbar looks nervous. "It's not that. You're acting like a leader right now, and I've been a good leader in the past. I figured each team needs a leader, so we should be on different teams."

Is Gallus still upset?... Oh! There's a smile. "Fair point. Alright, we'll go through different doors."

"Miss Silver?" Bramble is rubbing his leg. "If you don't mind, I'd like to do the same with you. I don't want to be clingy."

"Oh! That's alright. If that's what you want, go ahead." I guess he was worried about offending me? He must have been sheltered.

"I'd like to go with Sandbar and Bramble." Cozy's wings must be tired since she just landed next to Bramble. "I just feel more comfortable with them."

"Then I'm with Silver. Convenient, since our groups have digital roots of 2."

Right. 3+8+9=20=2. 5+6=11=2.

"That decides Smolder and me as well."

Now Smolder is glaring at Ocellus. "What? How? I want door 7!"

"Too late."

"Huh?"

"Yona's called door 7, and both sub-groups would add 2. If you add 7, that turns the group number into 1, and they can't go through. So you need to go with Rain to create 9 and let one of the groups through door 2, while I add my 4 to the door 7 group to make 7. Sorry."

Smolder is growling. I don't think she likes that. "Fine! But I better get to pick next time!"

"Fair enough." So I'm with Gallus. I guess we should... Wait. Where's he going? "Come on, Silver."

"Huh?"

"We're going through door 7."

He feels rather forceful about this, but I don't have any reason to go against him. "Alright."

We all go up to our respective doors. I'm going through door 7 with Gallus, Yona, and Ocellus. The rest of us are going through door 2.

I put my claw up to the RED- *Beep* -then step back to let the other three do the same. As we did, asterisks appeared on the display, one for each that scanned. Gallus is last, so he pulls the lever. The display turns green and the door opens. We all step through, and the doors closed behind us.

*Beep beep beep*

Right. The DEAD.

"Over there!" I look where Ocellus is pointing just in time to see Gallus shoot over to it, Yona close behind him. I grab Ocellus and fly over to the DEAD. Er, I probably should have let her go on her own. Facial rugburn does not look pleasant. I put her hoof up to the DEAD followed by my own claw. Since I'm the last one, I pull the lever. The beeping stops.

"Next time you want to drag me along, warn me first." Yeah, Ocellus is upset at me.

Gallus is looking at his bracelet. "Hey, did you guys look at your bracelets during that? I thought I saw a skull on Silver's as she scanned it."

I look at my bracelet. "There isn't a skull on my bracelet."

"No, before you pulled the lever. Well, I guess it's too late to see it now."

Huh. I'll have to check at the next set of doors. First thing's first, I try the door the DEAD is next to... Nope. Won't budge.

"Did you expect it to open?"

I shake my head at Gallus. "No. I just thought it would be nice if they forgot to lock this door."

Ocellus is smirking. "That would be amusing. They went through all the trouble of kidnapping us and putting our lives on the line, and it fails because the didn't lock a door."

"How do we leave?"

Looking at the door, there doesn't seem to be too much special about it. It's reinforced, but... "It looks like we just need a key."

"Then yak use horn to pick lock!"

Gallus is pulling on Yona's tail. "Yak's horn looks bigger than the entire knob, let alone the keyhole!"

Ocellus put her hoof on Yona's chest. "I think we should find the key to the door. I don't want to know the consequences of cutting corners like that.

I just realized something. I haven't checked what room we're in. Looking around, this room is odd. There are three pinball machines, a table with some board games on it, a weightlifting bench, a billiards table, several chairs, including a few beanbag chairs... Ooo! Game consoles with a TV! That's pretty high-price stuff!

"Rec Room, huh?" I look over at Gallus.

"What's a Rec Room?"

"Recreation Room." Ocellus knows. "It's sole purpose is to help creatures relax in their free time."

Yona's hoof suddenly appears in my face. I somehow forgot she was here. "What that room?"

We look over. There's a side room with large windows on it. Inside, there are a number of chairs lined against some desks. There are cups on the desks with pens and pencils in them.

"I think it's for those who want quiet, or just want to draw or write something. Just imagine if this room was full of rowdy, loud types while you were looking for peace and quiet."

Alright. That makes sense. But who would find weightlifting-

"Hey, Silver! Check this out!"

Oh, right. Gallus. He gets on his back and puts his claws on the barbell...

"Hnnnngggggghhhhh!!!"

... and fails to move it an inch. That was a sad performance.

Yona's laughing. "Griffon need weight training!"

"..."

What did Gallus say? "Did you say you aren't as strong as you used to be?"

"Should be. I'm not as strong as I should be."

I thought he said... well, he said it under his breath, so I probably misheard him.

"Gallus." Ocellus is smiling. The same smile Bramble kept giving me earlier. "Do you need help?"

I know she has good intentions, but being asked that by a physically weak creature... ouch.

Gallus is blushing pretty hard. "L-let's find a way out of here."

TIME TO SEARCH!

First thing's first. TV TIME!... It's not turning on.

"You would go for the TV, wouldn't you?" Ehehe... Gallus looks upset.

But Ocellus is just staring at the TV. "Is something wrong, Ocellus?"

"Oh, um... Did you check if it's plugged in?"

"Plugged in?"

Gallus looks behind the TV. "It isn't. There isn't even a cord back here."

"What's a cord?" I am so confused right now.

"TVs run off of electricity. In order to get that electricity from the source to the TV, a series of wires are required. Since there are a number of things that run off of electricity, there's a standardized outlet that everything can plug into. The cord is the last wire that moves the electricity to the TV." As usual, Ocellus is explaining everything to me.

"Oh! Yak gets it!" And Yona too, apparently.

"So we need to find a cord to turn on the TV? That sucks."

"Cry me a river. We've got more pressing issues right now." Gallus is scolding me.

"Maybe not." Huh? I look at Ocellus. "The console is on, so there might be something we need on the TV. I'm not sure what, but why else would they leave the console on, but not the TV?"

She has a point. I can't imagine what would be on the TV, but it has to be important in some way.

"What's that?" We look where Yona's pointing.

"That's... the side room. We were-"

Yona shoved her hoof on Ocellus' mouth. "Not that! Thing next to door!"

I take another look. "Oh, that's a keypad. You put in the numbers and it unlocks the door."

"So that means..." Gallus tries the door. "It's locked." He's staring at the door. I didn't really notice earlier, but the door is made of glass. "I'm really tempted to break this."

Ocellus grabs him by the claw and leads him away. "I'd rather not learn of any consequences for trying to cut corners like that. We should just find the number to unlock the door."

... I feel like we're going nowhere fast. Maybe there's something at the weightlifting bench?

"I didn't take you for the weightlifting type."

"I'm looking for clues."

Why is his claw on my shoulder? "Well, if you need some help-"

"After that display earlier, I question how much help you can be."

Good. That got him to back off. "Harsh."

Maybe there's something under the bench.

"Are you sure you don't need help?"

"No, because I found a clue. Come look at this." There's a string of numbers printed on the side of the bench.

7kg 2kg 5kg 9kg - 5kg 2kg 9kg 7kg

"And what does that mean?" I can't get on Gallus for that. I don't know either.

"Kg mean Kilogram, so numbers are weight."

Wait, what? "Yona, how do you know this?"

"Yak lift weights plenty!"

"So does Gallus."

"I just put them on the bar and lift."

... Put them on the bar? "Wait, what if we need to put weights on the bar in this order?"

"Sounds like a good guess to me." He could have done more than shrug and talk like it was obvious!

"Right. Let's see." Oof! This weight is heavy... huh? "Uh, there's a problem here."

There's a soft buzzing right next to me. "What is it?"

"This says 15lbs."

"Yeah, that problem."

"Maybe not."

"Ocellus?" How can she not think it's a problem?

"Just pull all the weights off and pair them by weight."

That doesn't sound like it will help, but it won't hurt to try. Gallus and I pull all the weights off and pair them up.

"Ah. I get it."

I don't. "Care to explain?"

"Well, look at the weights." They're labeled 5lbs., 10lbs., 15lbs., and 20lbs.. "Now think about the numbers on the side of the bench."

"They were different."

"Of course. They're in a different unit than this. But what matters is the numbers."

"2, 5, 7, and 9. Is it a digital root thing?" That would be 5.

"No, it's the order of things. Even without converting kilograms into pounds, it's easy enough to determine which one is which."

"Why are we talking about pounds now?" ... They're all staring at me like I said something stupid.

"Lbs. is the acronym for pounds. You don't pay attention to this stuff, do you?"

"Ehehe." Wow. I look like a fool.

"Anyway, we have 2, 5, 7, and 9 kilograms, and 5, 10, 15, and 20 pounds. Are you getting it yet?"

Hmm... "2 kilograms is 5 pounds, 5 kilograms is 10 pounds, 7 kilograms is 15 pounds, and 9 kilograms is 20 pounds."

Ow! "There you go! Took you a bit!"

"You didn't have to slap my back so hard, Gallus!"

"Yak still don't get it." Well, at least someone isn't as smart as me.

"It's association. The smallest weight is the smallest weight, and the largest weight is the largest weight. Thinking of it like that, you don't need to actually convert." I lift one of the 20lbs. weights up and put it on the left side, as Gallus takes one of the 10lbs. weights and puts it on the other. "Just put the smallest weight where the smallest weight goes, and the largest where the largest goes."

And that sound means Yona figured it out. Gallus and I both grab the last of the weights, the 15lbs. ones, and put them on both sides. I step back. The weights are aligned as 15lbs. 5lbs.10lbs. 20lbs. - 10lbs. 5lbs. 20lbs. 15lbs. I think that's right.

"Is something supposed to happen now?" Gallus is reaching towards the bar. I mean, I'm pretty sure-

*Snap!*

What the- The bar snapped in half!

"NOT MY FAULT!" And Gallus felt like blowing out my eardrums.

Ocellus pushed past Gallus and is looking at the bar. "Actually, it looks like it was supposed to come apart like that." She's pulling off the weights. What is she... What?

"Why are there coins in the bar?" Good. I'm not the only one confused by that.

"Coins!" Oof! Yona shoved me aside! What is she- Huh? She has a coin in her mouth and is headed for the pinball tables.

"Yona! Wait!" Ocellus is hot on her heels. "We need to-"

Too late. The coin is in the machine and Yona is smashing those buttons like mad.

Gallus is shaking his head. "Well, we only lost one coin at least." He's gathering the rest of the coins. "Let's see what we need these for."

... I have to watch. I know Yona loves pinball tables for some reason, but I haven't seen... Wow. This is entrancing... How is she doing so well?... Go go go.

"Silver!" Ow! My ear! "Stop watching her!"

"But it's so cool!"

*Thud!*

"Huh?" That came from under the table.

Gallus is headed back to the table. He's bending down to look under- HIS ASS IS IN MY FACE! I REPEAT! HIS ASS IS IN MY FACE!

"What the heck?" Before I got too entranced by the ass, he laid flat on the ground. What is he doing?

He's come back out with... a black, plastic rope?

"A cord?" Of course, Ocellus knows. "Why was there a cord under the table?"

"Are you telling me we were supposed to play the pinball machines?"

Who made these puzzles? "We need a cord for the TV, right?"

"Yeah." Ocellus is taking the cord to the TV. "I can handle it."

"Yay!" I plop myself onto a beanbag and grab a controller!

"Well, someone's excited."

Ocellus is a small creature (a rat, I think) behind the TV with that cord thing. Oh! I can't wait! What game is it? Puzzle? Action? Shooter? Gallus is about to press the power button!

1285

... That's not a game.

"What's on the TV?"

Gallus is smiling at me. "Numbers." He's mocking me silently.

"Aww." Now Ocellus is doing it too. "Are you sad, birdy?"

"Be quiet."

"Yak miss something?" Yona's not mocking me, but I'm too jealous of her to care. She got to have fun. "Is that code to door?"

I drag my body over to the keypad. "Well, it's worth a shot." I wonder if I made my disappointment apparent enough.

*Beep beep beep beep*

*Click*

"Hey! It worked!"

I let out a sigh, my heart ruined by the lack of gaming. Guess I'll see what's through the door.

The walls have a long desk attached to them, the only gap being at the door. There is also a large table in the center that has dividers in the middle, making it about six desks in one. There are white rectangles on four of the desks with a colored square on each of them.

"Tangrams?" No prizes for guessing who said that.

"What's a Tangram?"

"It's a puzzle where-"

"I found a key!" I look at Gallus. He has a key in his claw... with a string connecting it to a pin.

*Grrrrrrrr*

What's growling? What is growling? That's not my stomach, so what is it?

"The ceiling!"

The ceiling? "Ahh! It's coming down!"

*Bang bang!* "The door won't open!" Gallus is tugging at the door with all his might!

"The Tangrams! If we-"

"YAK SMASH!" *CRASH!*

I have to get out of here!

...

What just happened?

I turn around. The room is completely crushed by the ceiling. The door is still closed, but the glass is shattered. Ow! I... stepped on a piece of glass.

"Thanks for the save, Yona."

"Yak good at smashing!"

I look at my friends. Ocellus is still catching her breath, Yona is smiling widely, and Gallus is patting her on the back.

"You got the key, right?"

"Yeah." Gallus is holding out his claw with the key in it. "I've still got it."

I think that's enough excitement for one room. "Let's get out of here."

We walk over to the exit. Gallus puts the key into the keyhole and turns it. That click... was so relieving to hear.

*DING DING*

With everything that happened, I forgot we have a time limit. We only have eight hours left before we become prisoners here.

Forever.

Hour Two: Between the rooms

"Eight hours left." I look over just in time to see Gallus shaking. "That sound is chilling."

"Ha! If all rooms that easy, we be out of here in no time!" Glad to see Yona's confident.

"Let's get going." I lead the others out of the room... only to stop when I realize someone's not following. "Ocellus?"

She's staring at the TV.

"Come on, Ocellus. We're done here."

She's not responding.

"Is changeling confused by puzzle?"

"It's not that." She finally turns around. "Where did we see a TV before?"

Really? That's what's bothering her? "We see them all the time."

"Well, let me put it this way; where was the first TV we saw?"

Easy. It was at... wait.

...

Where... huh? They're so common, it should be obvious, but... when did they first appear? I don't remember seeing one ever.

"Yak... confused."

I look at Yona. "So I'm not the only one."

"That's my point. We are so used to seeing them that we don't give it a second thought. We think, "Oh, look! A TV!" And go on our way. We never stop to think about when we first saw something so common. But my last memory, when we went into the cave under the school, must have been before we first saw TVs. You know what that means, right?"

Yona and I look at each other.

"It means two things. First, we didn't just step into the cave and get thrown into this nightmarish situation, so we probably aren't in the cave below the school. Second, we had lives after that moment, enough to see the TV invented, and forgot all of it. It's hard to imagine that it was pure coincidence."

Did... did the room get cooler all of a sudden? "Are you saying... someone erased our memories?"

"That's good to know, but isn't there something else we should be worried about?"

"Wha- Gallus?" Isn't he fazed by this at all?

"We can worry about our missing memories once we're out of here. Let's meet with the others and figure out what to do next."

I look at the other girls.

"I hate to say it, but he's got a point."

I sigh. There's really only one thing to do now. "Let's get going."

We leave the rec room. There's a hallway here with a staircase on the other side of it.

"Let's try the doors on the side."

"Let's not. We should look for our friends or the other doors. We can search for other stuff later."

I look at the dejected changeling. "Gallus, is there a reason you're putting Ocellus down?"

"I'm just trying to stay focused. I understand being curious, but we're not in a situation where that will help us."

"What if we find everyone else and they want to look around?"

"Then we'll look around. I'd be outnumbered in that situation."

"You outnumbered now!" Uh oh. Yona doesn't look happy. You don't want to be on the wrong end of an upset yak.

"Uh... Well..." Gallus knows that all too well.

I think that's my cue. "I agree with looking around, but we should only look in rooms that look significant."

That got Ocellus' attention. "What do you mean?"

"Well, look." I point at the doors we just passed. "Do any of those doors look different? Out of place?"

"... No."

"Then we shouldn't waste our time with them yet. If one of them was open, then I would suggest checking it out. But none of the doors here stand out for any reason. So we should just ignore them for the time being."

Ocellus is looking at the doors. "I guess that's fair."

"Now come on. We should keep moving." Eh? Gallus is already down the stairs.

"Hey! Wait up!" I rush after him.

At the bottom of the stairs is a big room. There are a few hallways branching off of it, and a double door labeled "Infirmary."

Gallus looks over his shoulder at us. "So our agreement means that we check out the infirmary, right?"

I look at my hind leg. "Even if we didn't make that agreement, I would have wanted to go in there. I got cut by the glass door."

"So did I." Oh? Ocellus has a cut on her front leg. "Come on. Let's go."

I head over to the doors and open them. "Uh, guys? I found the next set of doors."

"R-really?" Hey! Gallus really needs to be more patient!

But yeah. On the other side of the room are three doors. 1, 3, and 5. "They add up to 9 again?"

"Well, that makes sense. If you add the digits 1 through 9 together, you get 45, which adds up to 9. So if you split all of those numbers into two or three groups, the Digital Root of those numbers adds up to 9. If the doors had a Digital Root of 7, for example, then one, two, or three of us will have to stay behind with a Digital Root of 2. Moving forward with less than our whole group would put us at an unfair disadvantage."

... Ocellus was talking too fast.

"So if doors not equal to 9, then we have to leave friends behind?"

"Because we won't be able to add our numbers up to the numbers on the door otherwise."

"Yeah, that's what it sounded like to me." I'm glad they cleared up what she said because I am not letting them know I couldn't keep up with what Ocellus said.

"Really? You kept up with what I said?"

"There's no way. This is Silver we're talking about."

Don't see the sweat. Don't see the sweat. "Of course I-"

"Hippogriff can't keep up with uphill cart of bricks!"

"FOR THE LOVE OF JUPITER! LAY OFF OF ME!"

They're laughing at me again!

"I'm glad you doofuses are enjoying yourselves." Ow. That hurt my teeth.

"Okay, okay. Let's get you two bandaged up." I don't know if I want Gallus touching me right now.

Well, Ocellus headed over to the cabinets on the side, still giggling, and is now looking through them. I pick up a small set of post-it notes and a pen from one of the tables. Maybe I can doodle something to distract myself.

"Who's Jupiter?"

I look over at Yona. "Oh, he's-"

"Hey. How about we ditch Ocellus and go through door 3?"

Wha- Gallus?

"Why?"

"We're on a time limit here. If we take too long, then we'll be stuck here forever. And it's not like she'll be stuck here forever. The other group will pick her up."

Maybe he doesn't realize how bad of an idea that is. "Then how do we get through the next set of doors? The doors require at least three of us to go through, so we would have to wait on the rest of them in order to go through the next set of doors ourselves, and if we ditch Ocellus, they might not trust us enough to bring us along."

"Yak not think griffon think this through."

"Think what through?" There's the angry changeling voice. And there's the angry changeling.

"Oh, nothing. Just making sure you three don't ditch me to go through door 1." If she buys that, I'm taking him gambling for every day for the rest of my life.

"You're a terrible liar."

"I'm being honest! I swear!" He says with a dishonest smile.

"I'm a changeling. We're born to deceive. I know a liar when I see one."

He's in trouble and he knows it.

"Do I need to use Soporil beta on you?"

"No no. That won't be necessary."

I don't want to save him from her wrath, but I have to know. "Soporil beta?"

Ocellus turns towards me, then puts her hoof to her chin. She's either trying to figure out how to explain it, or...

"I think it's something else from our lost memories."

Thought so.

"Soporil beta is a powerful anesthetic, able to knock even yaks and dragons out in mere moments, regardless of how it's applied."

Gallus looks at me specifically. "You know what that means, right?"

I nod. "It means breathing it in is as effective as getting injected with it or drinking it."

Ocellus wraps her leg in a bandage. "I also think I remember reading that taking too much Soporil beta can cause memory loss. That might explain why we lost our memories, even if it wasn't used to kidnap us."

"Memory loss?"

I turn to the door. The rest of our group is standing in the doorway, looking either shocked or confused.

"Good timing. Gallus was about to ditch you guys."

"N-no I, I wasn't." Mhm. Good lie there Gallus.

"Okay, yeah." Smolder walks up to Gallus and lightly hits him on the head. "Gallus is a jerk. What was that about memory loss?"

Ocellus is explaining things that I heard earlier, so I can just look around a bit. There's another door near the numbered doors. It's not marked or anything.

*Rattle rattle!*

And it's not opening. I can't help but feel like this will be important. Gallus is watching me for some reason. He does trust me... Right?

"That's pretty observant of you, Ocellus." And there's Sandbar, jumping at the chance to praise Ocellus.

"Yeah, really interesting." And there's Smolder, jumping at the chance to ignore what she was just taught.

Bramble looks a little red in the face. "Miss Smolder!"

Smolder puts a finger on Bramble's muzzle. "Don't we have more pressing issues? Like, you know, looking around?"

AH! Oh, that's Gallus' wing that nearly smacked me in the face. "Hey! What-"

Smolder's hands are way above her head. "I don't want to either, but the others want to, so I'm not getting much of a say in it."

Sandbar nods. "We'll meet here at the next chime. Until then, we'll split up and look for anything useful or significant."

I watch as the others head back through the door, leaving Gallus, Smolder, and me standing in the room with the next set of numbered doors.

"Why don't we go through one of the doors right now?"

I look at Smolder and catch Gallus shaking his head out of the corner of my eye.

"We can't. 5, 6, and 7 make 18, which is 9. We'd need one of the others, and the only one we could reasonably convince is Cozy Glow."

I guess we should just look around for now. "Why don't you two look around in here? I'm going to check on everyone else."

"Fair enough."

Gallus heads over to the drugs while Smolder is checking around the beds. I head back through the door to the main room.

I hear buzzing... Oh. Cozy Glow is checking the ceiling. I float up beside her.

She looks at me. "Hi, there! I can check this room by myself."

"I know, but I wanted to ask you about a couple of things."

She tilts her head. "Like what?"

"Why do you think you were given the number 9 bracelet?"

"Dunno. But it does feel like it's going to be a bit of a crutch from now on."

"Huh? Why?"

"There are three doors in the next group, and there are only three more doors before the 9 door. If all of us are going through the doors, then I have to go through a door with two creatures that make the number of the door. Best way to do that is to wait for the others to choose their doors and go through the last door with whoever is left."

That... does sound restricting. "Any idea why we were kidnapped?"

"I have no idea why you guys would be kidnapped by someone that would kidnap me."

... Huh? Something about that sounded weird. "What do you mean?"

"Well, seven of you are non-ponies, and Sandbar strongly associates with non-ponies. So if that's what it was about, why would they kidnap me? If there's anyone that I'm the most distant from at the school, it's you six."

"Maybe they were trying to hurt the school's reputation."

"If that were the case, why kidnap two creatures that aren't from the school? If there were plans to send them to the school, then it would make sense."

I think she's forgetting something. "We are missing some of our memories."

"Did you really believe Ocellus when she said that?"

"She used me to prove it."

"Well, changelings are professional liars. I don't get why you would trust any changeling, let alone her."

... Really? I can't let that slide. "That's the last thing. Something about you is wrong."

"What makes you think that?" The fact she hasn't stopped smiling this whole time is frustrating.

"It feels like you say and do things no normal filly would even know how to say or do."

"Well, we're in a life or death situation." Gah! "It would be a shame if you suffered an "accident" in one of the later rooms we went through together."

No normal filly should ever make that expression! I think that's my cue to get away from her! "O-okay! I think I should check on the others now!"

"Hehehe. You really should."

I head off down one of the halls. Not a particular one. I just want to get away from the potentially psychopathic filly. Oof! "S-sorry!"

"Yak fine."

Eh? Oh, it's Yona. And... Bramble? "I though Yona would be looking around alone."

"W-well, Yona's so big and strong. So I figured that, if something happened, I would rather be around her."

"Yak also not too good at searching. Deer able to find things Yak miss!"

"Well, I'm just going around and asking everyone a few questions."

"Huh? Not looking?"

"Well, that should be fine." Bramble is trying one of the doors. "Ocellus, Sandbar, and Rain are all looking in different hallways, so every location is covered."

First thing's first, Bramble himself. "Was there any sort of interest in the Deer uniting with the other races?"

"It has been a topic of debate among some of our elders, but I don't think anything decisive was reached. Come to think of it, everyone agreed that if we did take that step, I would have to be there. I am the one with the most experience with non-deer. Well, ponies, specifically."

"Really? You?"

"Why's that?" There is a reason, right?

"Well, we caused an incident due to some creatures tearing down our forest. It's kind of a long story, but it led to me meeting a group of six ponies."

"Let Yona guess. Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Applejack?"

He's blinking. "Huh? How did you-"

"If something big is happening, they usually get involved somehow. And they're our teachers!" I probably shouldn't mention that time we caused an incident.

"Wow! I might want to attend regardless. Miss Fluttershy was really nice."

"Yak found something!"

Bramble and I rush over to Yona. Sure enough, the door at the very end of the hall has three symbols. "Have either of you seen something like this before?"

"The other deer found similar text, but we have no idea what it means."

"Yak never seen text like this."

... It doesn't look like text to me. It just looks like three symbols. Then again, text is basically a bunch of symbols. "I wonder if this stuff appears anywhere else."

"Maybe through next doors?"

"I think Yona's right. There could be something through the next set of doors."

Easy solution. "Then we should split up for the next set. That way-"

Did something- Oh. Bramble is touching my wing. "But Smolder gets to pick for the next set. She didn't get to go through the door she wanted to last time, so we have to do what she wants."

Right! If she wants to go with two of us through a door... Wait. "I don't think she can go through with more than one of us."

"Yeah, but she could go through with none of us."

Wait. Was that Yona? Can she stomp and not break something? "Why we not show others?" Apparently, she can.

... I didn't want to bring this up. "I don't trust Cozy Glow."

"You too, huh?" Bramble? "Something seemed off about her the whole time I was with her in the 2 door. So I'd rather not let her know about this either."

... Oh yeah! I pull out that set of post-it notes I grabbed from the infirmary and trace the symbols.

"Huh? Where did you-"

"I grabbed them from the infirmary." I fold up the first note and do some quick math on the second.

2+6+7=6
2+6+9=8
2+7+9=9
6+7+9=4

Yona is tilting her head. "Why those four?"

"Because I trust Sandbar and Ocellus the most right now. Well, aside from you two. We already talked about Cozy Glow, Smolder and Gallus already talked about ditching others, and I sort of trust Rain Kiss, but I can't be too cautious right now."

"So by showing it to Sandbar and Ocellus, every door will have someone that knows about these symbols going through them no matter what Smolder picks. That's smart." Bramble seems to get it.

Yona doesn't. "Why not tell everyone?"

"We have to be careful about who we tell this to."

"But if we need go through this door, they find out anyway."

"Well, uh... um..."

I can only assume my face is as red as Bramble's. "Miss Silver? I think we jumped the gun a bit."

"Well, let's not tell them for now. There's a chance they don't need to know about it. If you don't mind, I'm going to go find Sandbar and Ocellus now."

"And if we do need to go through them?" Great. That tone means Sandbar thinks I'm being stupid.

"Well, they'll learn when we go through them. Or if they find the symbols themselves."

"Um... Well, I guess there's the chance we don't all need to go through the door with the symbols on it. Besides, Gallus tried to ditch me earlier, Cozy Glow said those off-color things about us, and we really don't know who Rain Kiss is at all."

Sandbar is looking at Ocellus. "What about Smolder?"

"She tried to ditch you guys as soon as you were out of the room."

"Okay, screw her. But Smolder's picking which door she goes with this time, right? What's stopping her from making a team of the ones that don't know?"

"I already did the math. If you two know about this, there's no way for her to make a combination without someone that knows."

"I still don't think you thought this through, but I'll go with it." Thanks for the confidence, Sandbar.

Ocellus is waving her hoof like she's trying to get rid of me. "You can go back to looking around now, Silver."

"Oh, I wasn't looking around. I was asking the others some questions."

Ocellus takes her hooves off the handle of the door she tried. "Oh? Well, go ahead and ask."

First things first. "What do you two think of Cozy Glow?"

"Well, she's Cozy Glow." Thanks, Ocellus.

"Did Bramble vent to you too?" So Bramble talked to Sandbar about it?

"Well, not until I brought it up myself."

Sandbar is rolling his eyes. "I don't get what his problem is. There's nothing wrong with Cozy Glow."

"Aside from the fact she threatened to kill me?"

3... 2... 1... "Wait, what?" There's his reaction.

I tell them about what Cozy said to me. How she called Ocellus a liar, and how she threatened my life.

Sandbar has a far-off look in his eyes. "I still find it hard to believe that she's going to be a problem."

"I think she was just trying to scare you." Ocellus puts her hoof on my shoulder. "What she said is concerning, but I really doubt she could be that much of a threat."

"That's fair. She is the youngest of us. Aside from perhaps Bramble." I probably am overthinking things right now. "Who do you guys think Zero is?"

"If they're smart, they're nowhere near us right now. If they're giving us a chance to get out, they'd be caught pretty quickly if we got out."

That's true, but... "How would they keep track of us? They don't have any cameras around here."

"Cameras can get pretty small. Just because we can't see any cameras doesn't mean there aren't any cameras around here."

Sandbar can sigh pretty heavily. "I have to agree with Silver on this one. Why bother hiding the cameras if the creatures you kidnapped know someone is watching them anyway?"

Ocellus is tapping her chin. "Uh, they used some spares they had lying around? That is pretty flimsy, huh?"

... Wait, what did I ask them again? "Back on subject, who do you think Zero is?"

"Probably someone not happy with the School of Friendship, possibly Neighsay."

"But Bramble and Rain-" Get your hoof off of my beak, Ocellus!

"If they're racist enough, they probably just grabbed them to make nine of us, to make a point, or maybe just because they were easy to grab."

I'm suddenly not sure what's worse. There being some kind of connection between the nine of us we don't know about, or some of us getting caught up in something we shouldn't have just because we were easy targets.

"Thinking about it, they might be one of us."

Ocellus makes some noises that I can't even describe. "Sandbar? You don't seriously think-" Okay, that voice crack was cute.

"Think about it. There are no cameras, none of us would suspect each other, and the "danger" in the first rooms could easily have been faked. I can't help but feel like we'll run out of time only for Rain Kiss or Yona to reveal it was all a joke."

Is he going into his own reality? "Sandbar, I appreciate that you're looking for the best in others, but isn't that a bit far-fetched in this situation?"

"I agree with Silver. I mean, the two of us nearly got crushed."

"It was probably just... foam or something."

Well, I see Sandbar's completely gone into his own reality at this point. Time to change the subject.

"Sandbar. You can't be serious."

"What? Do you really think one of our friends would hurt us?"

Or not.

"That's assuming that one of our friends is the one behind this. I'm saying it isn't."

"Well, you can't prove that."

"We can't prove anything at this point!"

This is going nowhere fast. "Hey, have you guys met a Kirin before?"

"Huh?"

"Um... I read that they live in the Peaks of Peril. They also have a natural enemy in the Nirik."

Good. They stopped arguing.

"Speaking of Kirin, Rain seems very... absent-minded. She was constantly staring off into space while we were working together."

"It seems like she's a bit shocked by everything. As far as we know, Kirin are completely isolated from the rest of society, so she probably never saw a pony before. Or any other kind of creature, for that matter."

Hmm... "That may have changed during the time we forgot about though, right?"

Ocellus pulls at another door. "Yeah. Assuming that we did forget something."

Huh? "That was your theory!"

She's blushing. "It is, but I still have to be ready to say I was wrong."

*DING DING DING*

"There's the chime."

"Right. Let's get back to the infirmary."

Huh? Smolder and Gallus are here, as well as Yona and Bramble. But... "Where are Cozy and Rain?"

Smolder shrugs. "Your guess is as good as mine."

Gallus is staring at the doors. "That's not good. They should have come back right away."

"Miss Silver?" Hm? Oh, Bramble's whispering. "Did you tell Ocellus and Sandbar?"

I just nod.

Smolder's grunt draws my attention to her as she rolls her eyes. "Rain isn't here, so I'm not going anywhere. I'll go ahead and say-"

*SLAM!*

We all look at the door to the hallways we came from. Rain is standing there, looking like she saw a ghost.

"Guys! You have to see this!"

"Rain, where were you?" From the sound of it, Gallus isn't amused. "We agreed-"

"Screw the agreement! You have to see this right now!"

"When did you start..." I see Ocellus shake her head out of the corner of my eye. "No. You won't tell us until we see whatever it is you want us to."

"Come on! This way!"

Rain took off. The others reacted faster than me, leaving me at the back. I follow them down the hall to the 7 room. Even at a distance, I can see one of the doors is open.

Rain skids to a stop right in front of said door. "Oh no!"

Ocellus and Sandbar reach it right after her. Whatever's inside, it can't be good. Ocellus is screaming pretty loudly.

I don't have time to see the other's reactions as I reach the door.

"Wh-what?"

The floor is covered with glass shards. In the corner...

"Cozy Glow?"

Hour Four: Memories and Evidence

*DING DING DING DING*

This isn't good. It's been a full hour, and Cozy Glow hasn't woken up yet.

"Hey, Rain?"

We all turn towards Yona.

"Where did glass shards come from?"

Rain sighs. "It was a glass orb. I thought it looked out of place, so I touched it. When I did, a ton of memories flooded my mind."

Ocellus' ears perk up. "Memories?"

Sandbar laughs. "Looks like you were right after all."

"Assuming she's telling the truth." Where would we be without skeptical Gallus?

"What I remembered was... interesting. First, I remembered Professor Fluttershy and Professor Applejack arriving in our village and teaching us how to speak without upsetting each other. How we can't throw away our good times just because of some bad times."

"Professor?" Does that mean that she's...

"The next thing that was important was enrolling in the school of friendship. It was the same day Bramble enrolled, even."

"We were both students there?"

Rain is bobbing her head.

Ocellus is tapping her chin. "That makes it more likely that we were targeted because we were students at the school!"

"The only other important thing I remember was seeing the teachers going through a grate that led under the school. I got curious, followed them, and that's where my memories ended."

"That's where my memories ended too."

!! That was... I look at the bed Cozy Glow is on. She's sitting up!

"You're alright!" Sandbar's face is glowing.

"Yeah. I guess I am." Huh? Something feels off about her, but differently from before.

"So that orb does return memories." Ocellus suddenly bites her lip. "Or, would have."

Smolder is growling. "Why did you smash it? We could have used that!"

"Smashed?" Cozy Glow isn't looking at us. "... I guess I forgot why, between my memories coming back and getting knocked out."

"And who did that? You better not say Rain." I may not trust Cozy Glow, but Smolder needs to respect her personal space.

Though... Cozy seems unfazed. "I should be asking you something; Which door is each of us going through?"

Oh, yeah! "We can ask her questions once we're out of here. We should focus on getting out of here first."

"Right." Gallus is pointing at Smolder. "Smolder, you're the one deciding."

"Ugh. Fine, we'll move on with it. But I want answers once we're out of here!"

Cozy Glow shrugs. "That's fair."

"Right. I'm taking Rain and Yona through door 1."

There's a soft chuckle to my left. "I figured you'd take me."

Alright. So that's three of us. What does she want the rest of us-

"Come on!"

Huh?

*Beep Beep Beep*

HUH?

*Squeeeeak*

"Wait, Smolder, aren't you-"

*SLAM!*

... They're gone. "I thought she was going to decide what the rest of us would do."

Sandbar is blinking. "So did I."

Gallus is writing something down. "It's Smolder. What did you expect? As long as she got what she wanted, she doesn't care what the rest of us do. Although it does narrow down what the rest of us can do." He puts down the pen and holds up the note. "Ocellus has to go through room 3, I have to go through room 5, Sandbar and Silver have to go together, and Bramble and Cozy have to go together."

Bramble's eye is twitching. I don't think he wants to be stuck with Cozy Glow. "What if we don't want to do that?"

"You're free to stay behind if Cozy agrees to that, but this is the situation we've been forced into. Similar to last time, we have two groups adding up to a specific number, 8 in this case, and they have to add to someone else to create the number we need. I ran through the other possibilities, and none of them work."

Someone coughed right next to me! "I won't blame you if you forgot, but I didn't get to choose last round either." Right. Ocellus was forced to go through door 7 without getting a say in it. She was just more quiet about it than Smolder was. "So if you five don't mind, I'd like to go with Bramble and Cozy. I want to look out for them."

Gallus turns towards the rest of us. "Is that fine with you guys?"

That expression... Ocellus isn't looking out for both of them. She wants to make sure Cozy doesn't do anything to Bramble. "Yeah, that's fine." That also means I get to spend more time with Gallus. Woo!

WAH! Bramble nearly knocked me over! *Wump* Scratch that. He knocked me over. Where did he go? Oh, he's standing over the paper Gallus was writing on.

"The only way to separate you and Cozy Glow is for one of you two to stay behind. Then someone else would also have to stay behind, and some of us would have to go through the other room regardless. It's better to suck it up and tough out working with her rather than forcing some of us to go through more rooms pointlessly."

Have I heard a deer growl before? Of course not. Bramble's the first deer I've met.

Ocellus has her hoof over his back. "It's alright. We just have to get through this room, then you can go through a different one from her from here on."

He's biting his lip. "... Fine. Let's get this over with."

Cozy watches him walk to the door. "Not even gonna hide it, are you?"

We all head to the appropriate door, scan our bracelets, and head through. As soon as we're through, the DEAD is right in front of us. We scan our bracelets again and pull the lever, deactivating the bracelets.

"I still don't get what you and Bramble have against Cozy Glow." And Sandbar immediately chews me out for some reason.

Gallus is scratching his head. "And you don't have an issue with her? She insulted you too."

"Well, yeah, but that doesn't justify the way Silver and Bramble are treating her."

Why is Gallus smirking? "To be honest, I find her cutie mark suspicious."

... What? "Her... cutie mark?"

Did Gallus have to boop me? "Tell me, what does the term "rook" mean?"

"It's a chess piece." Sandbar said what I'm thinking.

"As a noun, yes."

"As a... noun?" Okay, I am thoroughly confused.

"The word "rook" can also be a verb, meaning to cheat or defraud someone."

... Does he mean...

"So... you're saying Cozy Glow's talent is..."

"Deception. I think her talent is deception. Since the other use of rook isn't as well known, it's a lot easier to convince others that it isn't her talent."

"If that is her talent. It could just be a bad coincidence." Why am I defending her?

"It could be, but you've seen how she treats others."

... He has a point. I look at Sandbar, who's looking at me.

"Anyway, come on. We don't even know what room we're in."

TIME TO SEARCH!

I look into the room and immediately see glass-covered shelves lined with bottles and jars full of liquids of different colors. "Guys, I'm no chemist, but I think this is a chemistry lab."

"You sure? I thought it was a cafeteria."

Sandbar does that... thing with his mouth. You know, where you blow out air while your mouth is closed. "I doubt there's a way to make a cafeteria into a death trap."

"There's plenty of stuff in the back they can use."

"But then it would be the kitchen, not the cafeteria."

Nice tangent, boys. "What's the puzzle? I see the locked door we have to get out through."

"It probably has something to do with the chemicals lining the walls." Gallus. Stater of the obvious.

"Actually, it may have something to do with that." I watch Sandbar approach a panel of some kind. "Look at these glass tubes. It reminds me of one of those pipe puzzles."

"Oh! Where you take the pipe pieces and rotate them so they connect from one end to the other? I love those!"

"You two might want to take another look." Gallus is tapping on the glass. I'm tempted to tell him he's scaring the fishies, but I don't think he'd appreciate that. "The lines are already connected."

"Yeah, I know." I put my talons through the holes at the top. "See up here? We need to put some chemicals in these holes. They'll mix in the bulbs, and then pour into the pipes."

"Don't stick your claws in those!" Eeee! He's holding my claw!

"Actually, it looks like..." Sandbar pulls at one of the bulbs, pulling it out. "Yeah, these can switch around. And it looks like we're supposed to stick the bottles in at the top."

"Well, what are we waiting for? Let's stick some chemicals in and see what happens!" Let's see. Are any of these-

"Hey, Silver? Could you calm down?"

I hear a sigh that is distinctly Gallus. "You know how she is. She got excited by something, and now she's excited for no reason."

"What's wrong with being excited?" Come on, guys. Let me be excited.

"Before you start digging through the chemicals, look at this." Gallus is motioning towards something on the panel. "It says to check the bulbs for the acidity they need. The lines on the bulbs should also change color depending on the acidity."

"Huh?" I look at one of the bulbs. It says 'pH ~11.3 Blue'. There are white lines on the sides of the bulb as well. "What does any of this mean?"

Gallus holds up another bulb next to my face. "pH is what they use to measure the acidity in chemicals. The number is what we need to make, though the squiggly line indicates that it's only an approximate. The color is what those white lines should turn into when mixed."

Okay. I guess. "But how do we do that?"

"What we need to do is find two chemicals that-" Sandbar is talking, but all I hear is words words math words.

"Hey, Silver?" I turn towards Gallus. "Do you need us to do this one for you?"

I can't think of anything to say, so I just nod my head.

Sandbar sighs and looks at Gallus. "You better pull your weight better than the others did."

Gallus nods. "You take the bulbs at the top, I'll take the ones on the side."

I watch them walk around the room, reading the labels and pulling out the chemicals. As they do, I notice something off to the side. A doorway. The boys aren't paying attention, so I approach the door. Maybe I can be useful.

The room beyond is surprisingly clean. The only thing of note is the small pedestal in the middle. I make sure the boys aren't looking and head inside. Hey, what's that smell? Anyway, I approach the pedestal. There's a key on top of it. Maybe they'll need it to open something? I pick it up.

*CLANG!*

Wah!

"Silver?"

The door slammed shut on me! I run over to it. There's a small window, just enough that I can see out of it. The boys are right there. "Guys! I'm stuck!"

Sandbar places his hoof on his head. "Silver, what did you do?"

"I saw this door, but it was open, so I went inside and picked up this key, and-"

"You couldn't sit still for one freaking second?"

"Not the time, Sandbar." Why is Gallus sweating? "Do either of you know what this room is?"

I stare at Sandbar, and he stares back at me.

"It's a hazardous chemical room. You use this room if you're messing with chemicals that could kill you."

...

Oh.

Oh, no.

"Guys? Can you get me out?"

"Is there anything in there?"

"J-just the key."

Gallus runs his claw along the glass. "Ah. See this slit here?"

His claw is poking through it. I put the key through. Gallus is able to grab it.

"There are some cabinets that are locked over there. Someone had to go in this room at some point."

I bang on the door a bit. "Hey! Open the door!"

"We can't. There's no handle. There's no button. I think we need to solve the puzzle to open the door."

I whimper. I don't want to be stuck here.

"Try to find a way to distract yourself. We'll get you out."

Distract myself? But there's nothing in here but me! Wait! Where did the boys go? What's going on? I have to sit down. I'm... I don't know if I can handle this...

...

Bees.

The bees needed a way to protect their honey. So one of them went to Jupiter and asked for a way to defend the honey. Jupiter briefly misunderstood the bee, but Juno agreed that bees needed a way to defend themselves. So Jupiter-

*Ding!*

Buh?

"All bulbs filled. You have five attempts before the hazard room is filled with Hydrochloric acid."

...

FUCK! GET ME OUT OF HERE! "HEEEELP!"

"Silver!" Gallus! "Silver! Calm down!"

"Let me out! Let me out!"

"Silver, calm down!" ... I put my claw... to his claw... on the glass... "Stay calm. I just need a bit of time. The puzzle is simple, I just need to get it right. Think you can wait another minute?" ... I nod. "Good. I'll have you out of there soon."

He leaves... I hold my head...

So Jupiter... gave the bees... stingers... But if... if they ever used... used them... they would... would... Th-they agreed, hoping... hoping that someday they... My beak hurts... They wouldn't... they could use their... their stingers... without... consequence... But that day... that day hasn't-

*BZZZT!*

"AAH!" So loud!

"Damn it, Sandbar! Stop distracting me!"

... What? I put my ear to the glass.

"But you haven't answered my question."

"Because it's a stupid question! Why would you even think that?"

What are they talking about? I got so wrapped up in distracting myself, I didn't hear them say anything.

"It's not a stupid question, and you still haven't answered it!"

"I'm trying to save Silver! Save your-"

"You're the one that put her in danger in the first place!"

...!!!

"No, I didn't! What the fuck are you going on about?"

Did... did Sandbar accuse Gallus of being... Zero? Why would he think-

*Ding* "Please stand clear of the door."

! I step back. The door slides open, and I dive through it.

Rrrrrrright into Gallus. "Silver! Are you okay?"

"Yeah." I look at Sandbar. He looks angrier than I've ever seen him. "What were you two talking about."

"Uh, it was nothing. Sandbar accused me of shoving you in the room. That's all."

Wait... Was that all it was? "No, I went in there myself. Why would you shove me in there."

"Well, that's relieving." ... Then why do you still look tense?

Gallus helps me to my hooves. "Come on. Let's get out of here."

He walks towards the exit, but I walk towards Sandbar. "Did you accuse him of being Zero?"

"It's just a hunch, but I-"

"Hey, guys?" I look over at Gallus. "This door is still locked. Was there another key in that room, Silver?"

"I don't know. I was too scared to really look around."

"Alright. I'll check." Gallus walks past us and into the room I was trapped in.

I shoot a glare at Sandbar. "Still think he's Zero?"

He's sweating. "Um... well."

"There's literally nothing in here!" Gallus walks back up to us. "So how do we get out?"

We sit there in silence.

I can only think of one thing. "We do have a key."

Sandbar raises his eyebrow. "We used that to open the cabinets to get some of the liquids for the puzzle."

"But that doesn't mean that was its only use. Where did you guys put it?"

Gallus walks over to one of the cabinets. "It's right here."

Sandbar watches Gallus hold up the key. "Well, it's as good a shot as any."

Gallus heads over to the door, puts the key into the slot, and opens the- What?

"Uh, where did that come from?"

It didn't open the door, but a panel in the wall next to the door.

"Didn't see that one coming." Gallus walks over to the panel and pulls out the thing inside. And the door just opened.

"Hey, Silver, you see the symbol on that key, right?"

"Yeah. I do."

Gallus looks at us. "Do you guys recognize this?"

I scratch the back of my head. No hiding it now. "Yona and Bramble found a door with three symbols on it. The symbol on the key looks like one of them."

Gallus is looking at the key. "Why didn't you tell me about that earlier?"

"Ask her." Thanks for throwing me under the bus, Sandbar.

"Well, you tried to ditch the others, Smolder tried to ditch the others, we still don't really know who Rain is, and Cozy Glow is Cozy Glow."

"So I'm not the only one in the dark on this, huh?" Please don't be mad at me. "Well, I'm headed back to the front. The door should be open now that we opened this door. You two can go on ahead." And he's headed back to the infirmary.

Sandbar and I look at each other. "Well, Silver. Let's get going."

We head through the exit. It's a hallway with three doors on the same wall, one of which we came through. To the left is a dead end, and to the right is a corner that I can't see past.

I scratch my head. "Have the others come through yet?"

"I wouldn't be surprised if they haven't. We got through that pretty fast."

... Did we? I was so scared that I lost track of time.

"You go on ahead. I'll wait for the others."

"Alright." I float over to the corner. It's just an empty hallway. What's at the end... A door? It's blocked off with a wooden bar. I lift it, drop it on the ground, and open the door.

"Fancy meeting you here."

!?!? "Gallus?" Wait, this is the infirmary.

Gallus is chuckling. "Was there anything else back there?"

I shake my head. "Just the exit doors and this door."

"Where's Sandbar?"

"Waiting for the others."

Bup? Oh, he's soft. "SANDBAR! GET OVER HERE!" And loud. Ow.

I turn around in time to see Sandbar skid to a stop. "Gallus? How did you get on this side of the door?"

"It loops around." I motion to the beds behind us. "It never split off, so we might as well wait here for the others."

"Oh. Alright."

I look at the REDs next to the doors. Busy. Busy. Cleared. "I think we can watch the REDs to tell when the others are done."

"You two do that. I'm going to find this weird door you two mentioned."

I watch Gallus leave. "Go right."

"Thanks!"

I look at Sandbar. "Why did you accuse him of being Zero?"

He's staring at door 3. "I'm not sure. I guess it's because of what he did earlier."

"Earlier?"

"Thinking about it, I guess it made sense for the context of the situation."

"What are you talking about?"

He's being quiet.

"Sandbar?"

He suddenly gets up and rushes through the door to the back.

"Hey! Where are you-"... He's gone. I look back at door 3. The RED says "Cleared." I guess he just wants to see Ocellus that badly. I wish they would just kiss already.

I look at door 1. It's the only one that doesn't say "Cleared" at this point. Which is a bit odd, considering that they had a head start on the rest of us. They aren't dead, are they?

"Hey, Silver."

I look at the two children. "Hey, Bramble. Hey, Cozy Glow." Wait. Bramble seems calmer than before.

"So where's this door Bramble mentioned?"

I open my beak to respond.

"Through these doors and to the right." Gallus is back.

"Thanks." And Cozy Glow left.

Gallus is moving his head left to right. "I'm guessing Sandbar wanted to be with his love bug."

I nod. "Ran back as soon as the RED said "Cleared"."

"They really love each other, don't they?" I look at Bramble. "I wonder how that feels. To have someone you care about so deeply."

"Silver." I look at Gallus. His eye is twitching. "Did you look at the RED for door 1?"

"Yeah. It says..." I look at it again. "... Assist."

How did I miss that? It said it earlier. Right after Sandbar left.

"5+6+8 is 19, 1+9 is 10, 1+0 is 1."

I look at Gallus for a moment before rushing over. Bramble somehow beat me to the RED. Not that it matters. We scan our bracelets into the RED, pull the lever, and rush into the door.

We find the DEAD quickly and scan our bracelets. It looks like we're in some kind of Exam room.

*Bang bang bang*

"Yipe!" Bramble jumps behind me.

"Where did that come from?"

"This thing." Gallus puts his claw on a long metal tube. At the base are nine latches, though only one has a lock on it.

"LET YAK OUT!"

"Yona?" Bramble rushes over to the tube. "Yona, are you okay?"

"Yak entered tube after entering room, and can't leave now! Wait, where Smolder and Rain?"

I look around. "I don't know. I can't see them anywhere."

"Maybe they're in there." I look at where Gallus is pointing. There's a closed door. It looks like it's designed to hold back a grown dragon. I look at the panel next to it.

Bramble walks up to the panel and presses a button.

"Please wait while the room ventilates."

Ventilates? Doesn't that mean... "Is that room full of poison?"

I can't take my eyes off the door. I walk over to it.

Rain. Smolder. They aren't dead, are they? They have to be alive, right?

"Unlocking door."

Yeah, they're fine. They had a way to breathe in there. They had to. They... They had to.

*Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr*

They're fine... they... they...

...

Ah.

"AAAHHHHHHHHH!"

"Silver!"

"AAAHHHHHHHHH!" I have to get out! I have to get out!

"Miss Silver!"

"AAAHHHHHHHHH!" I have to get out! I have to get out!

*Bang bang*

"AAAHHHHHHHHH!" I have to get out!

"Silver! Calm down!"

"AAAHHHHHHHHH!" WHO'S SCREAMING?

"SILVER!"

"AAAHHHHHHHHH!" LET ME OUT!

"Silver! Calm down!"

!!! LET ME GO!

"Calm down! Calm down!"

LET ME GO! LET ME... Let me...

"It's okay, Silver. It's okay."

Let me... I need...

I...

...

I...

...

.

.

.

Author's Note

The good thing about having panic attacks is that it means you know how to write them. :pinkiehappy:

Hour Six: Reality

.

.

.

"Mmph."

So warm.

...

Huh? What... happened?

"Miss Silver? Are you awake?"

I open my eyes. "Bramble? What happened?"

He digs his muzzle out of my chest. "Well, when I opened that door, you freaked out. You started screaming at the top of your lungs, ran to the door, and started hitting it. You passed out after Mister Gallus held you for a bit."

The... door? ...! That's right! "Where are Smolder and Rain?"

"Um..." He shifts a bit. "Over there."

I look where he's pointing. Sure enough, they're both on side-by-side beds. I get up and walk over to them.

"Miss Silver?"

... They look like they're sleeping. Very different from how they looked when that door opened. "How did they die?"

Bramble is looking away. "We don't know yet. Ocellus is looking into it."

I look back at them. Nothing I see on them looks like it would kill them. For that matter, they don't even look dead right now.

"Silver, I wanted to talk about Cozy Glow."

Eh? "What about her?"

"She's... different."

"Different how?"

"Well, when I went through door 2 with her, she looked ready to pull off something that could kill us. Going through door 3, though, she seemed like she was focused on getting out with me and Ocellus, and seemed genuinely worried when Ocellus got trapped."

"Really? I don't know why... Actually, I think that might be because she got her memories back."

"Huh? Why would that change anything?"

"The Cozy Glow I remember from school didn't seem to really understand certain emotions, like empathy. Maybe something from our lost memories caused her to fully understand those emotions."

"That's a nice thought. Especially since it proves Rain wasn't lying when she said she got her memories back."

"Ahem!" Oh? Ocellus is standing in the doorway of door 1. "I figured she wasn't given how she was talking."

*DING DING DING DING DING DING*

!? Wasn't it hour four? I was out for that long? That's not good.

... What's that sound? It sounds like a stampede.

"Silver!"

The others just entered the room.

"Are you okay? When we saw you lying on the floor, we were worried."

"I'm fine." I look at the bodies. "Physically."

"Silver was the first one to see the bodies." Gallus is moving towards-! So soft... "After that, she started screaming and didn't stop until she passed out."

Sandbar is moving towards the bodies. "Speaking of the bodies, do we have a cause of death?"

Ocellus nods. "It took a bit of reading and looking in the room they died in, but I can say what killed them without a doubt. Rain suffocated and Smolder drowned."

... Eh? How does that work? "Details please."

"I think they made a mistake that effectively became "choose how you die." Smolder inhaled a gas called Emoja 16, causing her to cough up blood while her mouth was covered by a breathing mask. That means that her blood had nowhere to go but into her stomach or back into her lungs, and her body desperately needed air."

Bramble is shuddering. "That sounds like a horrible chemical."

"It's not usually that effective at killing. Victims typically lose only half a pint of blood. Not enough to cause any adverse effect on its own. It was typically used to scare others away from somewhere since there are poisons that do the same and then some."

Sandbar puts his hoof on Smolder's stomach. "Or if you can cover their mouth."

That makes- wait. "I'm sorry, does that gas literally make you cough up blood and do nothing else? What's the point of it?"

"Emoja 16 was created as a way of scaring opponents during battles. Like I said earlier, there are other chemicals that have the same effect of coughing up blood, but they do more on top of that. As a result, they can use one or the other, and the opponent wouldn't know which they got hit with. It became restricted because robbers were using it in banks, waiting for everyone to clear out, then robbing the place blind. Or, as Sandbar said, you can cover someone's mouth then administer it to cause that someone to drown in their own blood."

"It exists for some reason. Just accept that." Pffft! Gallus! I was able to understand half of that!

"Moving on, Rain apparently chose to remove her mask, keeping her safe from drowning. However, the room must have been flooded with some other gas, likely carbon dioxide. As a result, she died by suffocation."

Yona's biting her lip. "They not have a chance to get out?"

"There was. There were two panels on opposite sides of the room they were trapped in. I think they needed to press a button on each, but couldn't. I'm not sure why, but I think it has something to do with the ties on the tubes connected to their masks. They couldn't move a certain distance away from each other." Ocellus draws a deep breath. "But that's where I draw a blank. I didn't find anything that would prevent either of them from moving in any way."

"We don't have to find out all the details now. What we need to find is the exit." Gallus moves towards the door. "Let's go."

We all share a look and follow. Gallus leads us to what looks like a waiting room.

"Er, Mister Gallus? Where are the doors?" Bramble is right. I don't see the doors here.

"They're all scattered around this time. This is just the most convenient place to discuss who's going where. And this time, we have something else to consider." Gallus puts his claw on a table, next to two bracelets.

That's right. Even though Rain and Smolder are dead, we still need their bracelets.

Gallus looks at the rest of us. "First thing's first, who's comfortable with going with one of these bracelets?"

... Am I? I don't know.

"Yak is fine."

"I mean, I was examining their bodies earlier. In detail."

Sandbar lets out a big sigh. "I'd rather not, but I will if I have to."

"I'm sorry. I can't." Bramble is looking away from Gallus.

"So we just need to keep the bracelets away from Bramble, right?" Cozy Glow isn't showing any fear right now.

"Seems like it." Gallus pulls out a piece of paper and starts writing on it. "Ocellus and Cozy Glow take the 2 bracelet through room 6, Silver and Yona take the 7 bracelet through room 4, and Bramble, Sandbar, and I go through room 8. That sound good?"

I look at the bracelets as the others nod their heads and make sounds in agreement. Gallus picks them up, hands one to Ocellus, then hands one to me.

Smolder's bracelet...

Smolder...

...

"S-Silver?" I look up. Gallus is looking at me. "You dropped the bracelet."

"I... I can't. I can't do it."

"What? But you said-"

"She didn't say anything. We cut her off before she could say if she was comfortable or not."

Hearing Ocellus say it, I realize I was trying to figure out if I could when they all decided I was fine with it. But seeing the bracelet makes me remember what I saw through that door. I don't want to see another dead body. Ever.

"I'll go with Miss Silver." We all look at Bramble. "I know it'll change things, but I don't think Miss Silver is able to handle the original set-up anyway."

Gallus nods. "That means you two have to go with Cozy Glow through door 4 or Ocellus through door 8."

"If you guys don't mind, I would actually like to go with Sandbar this time." Ocellus seems... fidgety.

Well, I don't see why not. "That's fine."

"It's not."

We all look at Gallus.

"Given the circumstances, only two combinations can go through door 6. One is Yona and Sandbar taking bracelet 2. The other is me taking both bracelets on my own."

Wait, that means-

"Or you could wait for us to finish then tackle the room with someone." Cozy Glow has a point. He can just-

"We have less than three hours left. Do you really want to risk having some of us waiting around?"

"I think it's better to have full teams going through each door. We already lost two of our members. We can't risk more of us dying pointlessly."

Cozy Glow's statement was followed by silence.

"Fine. It's Silver, Bramble, and Cozy Glow through door 4, and Yona, Sandbar, and Ocellus through door 8. I'll just wait here for you guys to come back." Gallus sits himself down in one of the chairs, looking like a child that didn't get his way.

"Silver, Bramble, this way!" I follow Cozy Glow out of the room.

It may not be the time, but... "Hey, Cozy. Back when you touched that orb, what did you remember?"

"A lot. I can't go into details now, but it was a lot."

"Enough to change your whole personality?" Glad to know Bramble is just as inquisitive.

"You could say that." She suddenly slows to a stop. "I just remembered what I said to you two. This is... a bit awkward."

I look at the door to my right. It has the number 4 on it and a RED next to it. "Well, we can talk about it later. For now, we need to get through."

We scan our bracelets and go through the door. Once through, we see the DEAD quickly and rush over to it. Once our bracelets are deactivated, I look at the room.

"HAHAHA!" That's funny.

"Miss Silver?"

"Sandbar said they couldn't make a cafeteria into a death trap. I think he was wrong."

Cozy Glow covers her smile. "Well, the cafeteria looks like it has a puzzle in it at least. There's stuff in the back they could use. Though that would technically be the kitchen."

"You just recreated the rest of Gallus and Sandbar's conversation."

"Miss Silver? Mind if I ask why you were talking about cafeterias?"

"Gallus made a sarcastic remark about it."

"You know what sarcasm is?"

"H-hey!" Great. Now Bramble is joking about my attention or whatever.

"Could you two stop? We have to get through here."

I look at Cozy Glow. She doesn't look like she's in a joking mood right now. "Right."

TIME TO SEARCH!

There's a lot of trays on the tables, some stacked with food. "Mind if I eat? I'm starving right now."

Cozy Glow lets out a sigh. "No. The food might be part of the puzzle. Or poisoned."

"That's a shame. I'm hungry too."

"We'll eat once we're out of here, Bramble." Cozy Glow floats over to a metal panel. "Well, I think this has to do with our way out."

It looks like there's a number pad on it with a display with six lines on it. Above it is a message. "Find the nines, and you may find your answer." ... Eh?

Cozy Glow reads it, then looks around. "Maybe... the trays with nine different foods on them?"

Hmm... I look at the trays with food on them. This one has three foods. This one has six. This one has a mountain of pasta on it...

"Wait! I think it involves the ones that don't have food on them!" Eh? Bramble's waving us over.

The tray doesn't have any food on it, but it has two lines of numbers printed on it.

378/226/459
654/298/771

"Oh, I get it. It's digital roots again. See the top corners? They add up to 9."

Hmm... Ah. I see it. 3+7+8 and 4+5+9 each make 18, which becomes 9. "Maybe the tray where all three of the top numbers make 9 is the one we want."

"Maybe, but we should get any that has a nine on it to be sure." Cozy Glow picks the tray up and floats over to the number pad.

"Something weird happened earlier."

I look at Bramble. "What was it?"

"Miss Ocellus... seemed to be angry at me."

... Ocellus? "Why do you think she was mad at you?"

"I don't know. I just asked her a simple question."

"What did you ask her?"

"Can you two save it for later?" I think that's a tray Cozy tapped my head with. I hope it is. "We need to find those numbers."

"Uh, right." I start looking around. I'm no math wiz, but I know how to add three numbers together.

...

"Uh, Miss Silver? Why did you leave this tray here?"

What is Bramble talking about? "It didn't have any nines."

"But it does." Bramble points at the numbers on the tray. "See? There's a nine there, and a nine-"

"None of the combinations add up to nine."

Bramble looks at me, then the tray. His ears fold back. "I... don't know math. I just grabbed all of the trays I came across."

I sigh and pat him on the head. "That's fine. Just let me handle this."

"... Okay." He sits off in the corner.

I glance at him and head over to Cozy Glow. "Hey, Bramble apparently doesn't know math."

"Yeah, I figured." She tosses a tray into a pile of them. "This can't be good for his self-esteem."

"Huh?"

"I've been with him through all of the doors. In every one of them, he wasn't able to do anything. I wish he was able to do more."

That's odd. "That's... not something the you I knew would say."

"We aren't going back to what I remembered, are we? I understand why you're curious, but we have more pressing issues right now."

"If you don't want to tell us, you can just say so."

She looks me in the eye, then away from me. "... I don't want to tell you because you would never believe me. I'm still not sure I believe it myself. But it's clearly affected me in some way. Could we leave it at that?"

"Um... How sure are you that I wouldn't believe it?"

"Very. Very sure. You'd have to be pretty much insane to believe it. Or a quantum physicist."

Quantum physicist? "Alright. I'll let it go for now."

"Now go comfort Bramble. I have enough trays to go through right now."

"Alright, Cozy." ... Hehe. The way she blushed was cute. With how she acts sometimes, it's hard to remember she's a child.

I watch the tiny pegasus as she shifts through the trays, putting the digital roots of the numbers on them into the number panel. I turn and go to Bramble. "Hey, are you okay, Bramble?"

He shakes his head. "I'm guessing she told you."

I bring him into a hug, similar to the one he gave me earlier. "Being useless or useful isn't important here. What's important is that as many of us get out alive as possible. And we still need to go through the 9 door, so you still have a chance."

He smiles at me. "Thanks. I just need a bit of time to cool down."

I'm not about to let go either way. For a small while, all we hear is the sound of Cozy trying different combinations.

"Hey, Miss Silver? Can we go raid the kitchen?"

"Sure thing. I could use a snack right now." I wonder what they have in the fridge here.

I take another glance at Cozy as I move towards the door to the kitchen. Inside, it looks like, well, a kitchen. Ovens, stoves, refrigerators... yeah, we had those at the school, from what I remember. I open up one of the fridges. "Oh, yummy. A key." I pull it out.

*Slam!* *Click*

... That was the door again, wasn't it?

*CLANG* *FWOOOOM!*

"M-miss Silver! The oven!"

I look at the oven. Flames are shooting out of it like it's a dragon!

I start banging on the door we came through. "Cozy! Cozy, we need-"

*Bzzt*

*Pssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh*

WABLARGH! Well, the fire's out.

"Oh, man." I look at the drenched deer. "We just got so wet."

I look at myself. "Yeah. I mean, it's nothing I'm not used to."

"Really? You get this wet regularly?"

"Oh, yeah. I was this wet all the time at home."

"Guys, context." Eh? Why is Cozy blushing so much? "I know what you're talking about, but context."

I have no idea what she's talking about. "Thank goodness you got the door open."

"Well, let's say I found the right tray."

"Oh! Oh, wow." Now Bramble is blushing. For some reason. "Yeah, now that I think about it, that did sound pretty bad."

... Is he talking about being wet? "How?"

Cozy's eye is twitching. "How do we get it and you don't? You're the oldest one here!"

I don't know how to respond to that without asking what they're referring to.

"For that matter, how do you know what I was referring to, Bramble?"

"Our elders see no shame in discussing those things with the young."

I'm still confused. "What are you two- Nevermind. We need to get looking."

"Right. Was there a key back here?"

"Yeah. I've got it." I move past Cozy and head to the exit door. I unlock it and open it to find... more hallways.

"Let's split up. We're looking for a door with a 9 on it."

Bramble and I nod at Cozy and head off. I run around the hallways for a few minutes, but I can't find anything.

I head back to the door we came through. Bramble and Cozy are already there. "Anything?"

Bramble shakes his head. "Nothing."

Cozy's hoof is pressed against her head. "I didn't find anything either. What a waste of time."

I look at the steam in the cafeteria. "I guess we have no choice but to go back."

Bramble folds his ears back. "That's not good."

*DING DING DING DING DING DING DING*

"That's really not good." Cozy grabs us. "Come on! We can't waste any more time!"

She almost drags us back through the cafeteria and to the room Gallus was in. As we get close, I hear something... concerning. We round the corner to an even more concerning sight.

Ocellus is crying her eyes out, Yona is patting her on the back, and Sandbar and Gallus are nowhere in sight.

"Ocellus?" Cozy finally lets go of me. "Where are Sandbar and Gallus?"

Ocellus looks up. "Sandbar ended up in a death trap. We couldn't get him out, and he... he..."

... What? Sandbar is... dead? How? Why is this happening?

"We came back here to get Gallus' help." I look at Yona, who's still trying to comfort Ocellus. "He wasn't here. Neither were the bracelets."

Why did he leave? Where would he have taken the...

...

A chill runs down my spine. He didn't.

I rush out of the room.

"Silver! Wait!"

I round each corner until I find it. The 6 door.

Busy.

"He went through by himself."

I look at Bramble and Cozy.

"Silver, we shouldn't waste any more time. We can always."

"No. I'm waiting for Gallus to come-"

...

Vacant.

...

It switched to vacant as I was looking at it.

...

159.

"Wait here! I'm getting Yona!" I push past them.

"Miss Silver!"

"Hurry!"

I round corner after corner, making my way back to Yona. There's the door.

"Yona! I need-"

... Huh?

R-red?

Is that... BLOOD?

What happened? Why aren't they moving?

"Ocellus? Yona?" I move towards them.

Once I'm next to them, I nudge Ocellus. AH! It's the same look... Smolder...

Are they... Did they die? How?

...

GALLUS!

I grab the 1 bracelet and start making my way back to the 6 door.

"Cozy! Bramble! Something bad has-"

... No.

This... is a joke... right?

It... it has to be.

No one... no one would... kill them... right?

I move closer. "Guys... this isn't funny."

They'll... they'll move... any... any second...

I put my claw... on his head... and shake it a bit... "Bramble? This... this isn't... funny... Ocellus... and Yona... died..."

He's... he's... not responding... He'll... respond... right?

"G... get up... this... this is a... a joke... right?"

...

Why...

Why me...

My eyes drift towards my claw...

My bracelet... 5... I...

"I guess... I don't need this anymore."

I grab my bracelet.

*BOOM!*

... Huh?

Is there... more blood?

I'm feeling... weak...

What is... that pink stuff?

I... I'm taking... a... nap...

...

Gal... lus...

...

.

.

.

Ending 1:
DEAD End

???: Belief

...

"Uh, Gallus?" I look over at Cozy Glow. "Why would my number be a reason for her to be suspicious of me?"

"Because it can be very powerful in this situation." That's... Gallus?

"But that note said that 9 doesn't change the Digital Root of a number." And... that's Sandbar.

"That's why it's powerful. Take those doors for example."

... What? What's going on?

We're trapped in a death game we have to escape from. Right?

"When griffon get good with numbers?"

What's... happening? Why do I feel like I'll... die?

"You can't go through door alone."

My whole body feels cold. I feel like my guts have been ripped out!

"Miss Silver?"

Where am I? What's going on?

"Actually, the easiest way is to split into two teams of four and let Cozy go into whichever one she-"

"Guys, something's wrong with Miss Silver!"

I can't take this! I can't-

"Silver?"

! G-Gallus...

"Hey, what's wrong?"

I... I...

"Silver, why are you-"

"I DON'T WANT TO DIE!"

...

"Silver, we're all scared, but we have to-"

"I'm not going!"

"What do you-"

"I'M NOT GOING ANYWHERE!"... Why am I so scared? Nothing's happened yet.

My head's spinning. Everything is dark. And there isn't a reason for me to be scared yet.

"I think we're at an impasse here."

"I can stay behind. That way, the rest of you can go through."

"That won't help Silver. We'll need her at some point."

Why? Why can't I think straight?

"You religious?"

... Huh? I look at Rain Kiss. As blurry as she is.

"You have gods you believe in, yes?"

... Gods...

"Saturn, the father of the gods." Was I... really holding Bramble that tightly?

"What was that?"

"He was the... ruler of the cosmos. When... when it was prophesied... that one of his children... would overthrow him, he... he started... eating them at birth. His wife chose to... to switch out the sixth child with a bundle of... rocks. Eventually, that child, Jupiter, managed to... to slip Saturn a poison that caused him to vomit up the five immortal children he ate."

"Ew." Heh. Ocellus is a bit green.

"Yeah, it's kind of disgusting. I'd like to think he imprisoned or banished them in some other way, but I'm not the one that wrote these tales. After that happened, Jupiter and Saturn went to war. Jupiter ended up getting enough support to overthrow his father. That's how he became the god of gods."

"Hey, Silver?" Smolder has her hand on my shoulder. "I don't think we have time for a bunch of stories. How about telling us which god or goddess we remind you of the most."

... I'm not the best at this, but...

"Hey, Smolder? Do you think she'll be able to do that?"

"Maybe, maybe not. It'll at least help her take her mind off of things."

I guess I'll start with the 1 bracelet and go up from there. "Yona... would be somewhere between Mars and Bacchus. Mars is the god of war, and Bacchus is described as the god of good-cheer, hilarity, mirth, and revels."

Yona tilts her head.

I smile at her. "Whatever those mean."

Ocellus giggles. "To put things as simply as possible, hilarity means good cheer, mirth means good cheer, and revel means good cheer."

Cozy covers her mouth. "So he's the god of good cheer, good cheer, good cheer, and good cheer."

"YAK IS GOOD CHEER!" Heh. That gets all of us laughing.

Ocellus quickly catches her breath. "There are appreciable differences between the terms, but that is what they boil down to."

Alright. Back on track. "Um... I don't know Rain that well, but something is telling me that Ceres, the goddess of agriculture, would be a good match."

"Agriculture... Growing thing, correct?"

"Yes, it is. Specifically, growing plant life." What was it that Gallus called her that one time? Encyclopedia Ocellus?

"Then Ceres very fitting. Kirin connected to nature greatly." I'm not sure I can get used to how Rain talks.

"Hmm... Neptune is the god of seas, but he also presides over ponies. I think that would fit with Sandbar."

Sandbar doesn't look enthusiastic. "Why do you have a god of ponies?"

"Uh... I think Novo wanted for there to be a god to watch over her crush." ...Oh, crap. Did I just say that out loud?

"And who would your aunt have a crush on?" Either Gallus is psychic or I said that out loud.

Sandbar is looking at my soul. "Is it... Princess Celestia?"

"Um... alright." Might as well get this over with.

"Or is it Luna?" ... Or Bramble could throw me an olive branch.

"Sure."

"Or was it our headmare, Twilight?"

"Uh huh." I'm not giving any of them a clear answer.

Ocellus is trying to hold in her laughter. "I don't think she's going to give us a clear answer."

Oh no. She caught on to my tactics. "No. I'm not."

"Then let's move on. Who would I be?"

"I would say... Venus."

"Venus?" She looks mad. Why wouldn't Ocellus want to be Venus? "Is this a jab at changelings eating love? Or a reference to that tale where she caused a war that ended an entire nation?" Oh. Of course she would know about that tale. It is Ocellus, after all. "I'd rather be Vesta, thank you."

Vesta... Goddess of home and hearth... Hmm... "I don't think it fits you."

Ocellus gives me the stink eye. "Why would Venus fit me? Please answer in a non-offensive way."

Sandbar puts his hoof over her back and moves his muzzle to her ear. "Because you're a very lovely creature that has shown affection to us all."

Hehehe. Ocellus' face is so red right now. "V-Venus is fine."

Everyone else giggles a bit. As happy as I am that he bailed me out, I really wish he would kiss her already.

"Miss Silver? If you're going through us in bracelet order, then you'd be next."

"Please answer modestly."

I think... "Juno."

"I said modestly!" And Ocellus is at me again.

Smolder is scratching her head. "She's comparing us to gods. How is one less modest than another?"

"By comparing herself to the wife of the most powerful god."

"I didn't even think of that. I just... always felt a connection to her."

Ocellus is in my face. "I can tell when you're lying."

"Isn't Jupiter the god of the sky?"

Ocellus looks at Cozy Glow. "Yeah, why?"

"Well, I think I know the reason she chose his wife." Cozy is pointing at... Gallus. Uh oh.

They're all looking at Gallus... I can see, one by one, when it hits them.

"Ohhhhhhhh." I don't like the way Ocellus is smiling. "You were about to compare Gallus to Jupiter, weren't you?"

"Th-that's completely irrelevant!" Why is she able to see through me so easily?

"Because you make it so easy so often." ...Krrrgrfffaflllegh.

"Am I missing something?" Good, Gallus doesn't- HE TOTALLY GETS IT! I CAN TELL BY THAT EXPRESSION THAT HE GETS IT!

"Hey, guys? I think we should stop. She looks like she's on the verge of an emotional breakdown." I'm not really, but I'm not about to correct Sandbar.

"Yeah, let's get on with things. Silver is Juno, Gallus is Jupiter, and I'm next. Who am I?"

"Smolder." Nice to have an easy shot at someone else for once.

It's hard to tell what Smolder's reaction is when she covers her face with her hands like that.

Gallus pats her on the back. "Well, at least she's in a good mood."

Hehehe. "In all honesty, you'd line up with Vulcanus, the god of volcanos."

Smolder folds her arms. "Volcanos, huh? That fits, I guess."

I look at Bramble. "Um... I guess... Apollo?"

He smiles at me. "You don't sound too certain about that."

"Well, Uh... I'm not. I don't know you that well, so..."

"What's Apollo the god of?" Sandbar leaned over to Ocellus to say that.

"Uh, he's the god of the sun, music, medicine, and archery."

"Silver, he was asking me that." Oops. At least she doesn't seem bothered that I answered.

"That all... sounds about right for me. Those sound like things that the deer regularly partake in."

I look at Cozy. She's smiling at me so sweetly.

"Pluto."

And the smile is gone. "Excuse me?"

Rain, Ocellus, and Gallus giggle.

Smolder scratches her head. "Who?"

I smile at the dragon. "The god of the underworld."

The rest of them start giggling as Cozy tries to glare me to death. "Silver, did I upset you somehow?"

I giggle, but there is something gnawing at me. Pluto wasn't actually the god that came to mind for Cozy. I did say Pluto as a joke, but I didn't want to acknowledge the goddess she really makes me think of.

Because I can't think of any way that Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, fits with her.

The filly rolls her eyes. "Ugh. Well, you're obviously in a better mood, so who's going where?"

"Oh, I'm still not going anywhere."

"Silver!"

I smile at Gallus. "I'm kidding."

Some math stuff happens, and this is what we have.

Yona and Ocellus are going through door 7.

Rain and Smolder (reluctantly) are going through door 2.

Sandbar and Bramble are paired up.

Gallus and I are paired up.

And Cozy Glow... "Well, since Silver apparently has a problem with me, I'm going away from her."

I guess we should... Wait. Where's Gallus going? "Come on, Silver."

"Huh?"

"We're going through door 7."

He feels rather forceful about this, but I'd rather go through the other door. "I want to go through door 2."

He stumbles over his claws. "Huh?"

"Wait." Smolder is looking between us. "You both want to go through opposite doors?"

Sandbar looks at Bramble. "Do you have a preference?"

"N-not really?"

"I... don't either."

Cozy slaps her face. "Great! We have one pair that wants to go through opposite doors, and another pair that will go through either!"

"Okay. We'll go through door 2."

Eh? "Wait, didn't you want to-"

"I said that so that we would keep moving. I didn't think you had a preference."

"Well, I do. But do we need to be in that much of a rush?"

*DING DING*

... "I had to say it, didn't I?"

Author's Note

In regards to the first part of this chapter; It makes sense if you played the Zero Escape games. If you don't, I will explain it later.

In regards to the second part; Blame Future Diary.

Hour Two: Greenhouse

I did not realize we lost that much time.

"Let's hurry!"

None of us question Gallus. Rain, Smolder, and I follow him to the 2 door, while the others go to the 7 door. We waste no time scanning our bracelets in. I pull the lever and we dart through the door.

*Beep beep beep*

"The DEAD! Where's the DEAD?"

I see a blinking red light. "This way!" I rush over and scan my bracelet in... Huh. There is a skull on it.

The others scan their bracelets in, and Gallus pulls the lever. The skull disappears from my bracelet, leaving the 5 all alone.

"Woah. Plants for days."

I turn around. Smolder is right. This place is packed with all kinds of flowers. Bright ones, dim ones... Oh my gosh! I recognize the ones in the aquarium over there!

"Hey, check this out!" Huh? I look over at Smolder. She's standing in front of a table with six indents and a violet on it. I head up beside her. There's a note on the table.

Roses are red,
That much is true,
But violets are violet,
Which is not blue.

... "Something tells me Zero doesn't like that popular rhyme."

"I mean, they're right."

"Call it hauch, but this may be puzzle."

I look at Rain. "Hunch. But yeah, this looks like the puzzle."

"Well, what are we waiting for?" Gallus cracks his neck. "Time to search."

TIME TO SEARCH!

I look at the violet on the table. I wonder what the puzzle is exactly.

"Hey, what are those shutters blocking off?" I look where Smolder's pointing. "Eh, it's probably not important." ... Then why point it out!?

I look at the shutters Smolder pointed out. There's a panel in front of it-

"Yeow!"

...? Rain is dragging Smolder off to a corner. I wonder why.

Anyway, the panel looks like it belongs to a computer. There's also a hatch that one of us could probably fit through.

*Clang clang*

"No dice?"

I shake my head. "It feels like it's locked pretty tightly."

Gallus taps my shoulder. "What do you think they're talking about?"

I look at the other two. "No idea. See if you can find something that will fit in those indents on the table, I'll go talk to them."

"And by "talk," you mean "listen in from under the table they're next to," right?"

"Please get out of my head." I head over without letting Gallus respond.

I duck under the table they're next to.

"So just find the flowers and let me point out the other things."

"Are you sure that will work?"

"Well, you're acting..." Rain is looking at me. "How long you down there?"

"I just got here."

"Wha-" Smolder looks at me and leaps back. "Oh geez! What the heck?"

I step out from under the table. "So what was that about flowers?"

"Table has flower. We in room full of flowers. Ego, we need flowers."

Smolder scratches her head. "I think you meant to say "ergo"."

"Okay, but what about-"

"Hey, you three think we should be looking for flowers?" Buh, Gallus! I was about to- That's a pretty flower.

"That Delphinium."

"Why would we need a blue flower, though?"

Gallus and Smolder look at me, then at each other. "Well, it's not like she would have much reason to know about that."

I tilt my head. "Know what?"

"Roy G. Biv."

"Who's he?"

Smolder chuckles. "I wouldn't be shocked if there was someone called that, but we're referring to an acronym."

Gallus lifts a talon and starts poking like he's spelling something out. "Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet."

"... Oh! That's why there were seven indents, with the far left one already filled with a violet." Of course. Gallus draws in his free time, and Smolder spends a good bit of time with Professor Rarity. They would know about color stuff.

"Yeah, it's pretty easy to get." ... Did he just take another jab at my intelligence?

I turn back to the table with the indents... wait. "How do we know the blue flower isn't one of those two?"

"Left flower Bellflower, right flower Balloon flower."

"That doesn't solve the problem, Rain." I pick up the flowers. The pots they're in are the exact same as the one Gallus is holding. "Is there something else that would indicate which one is right?"

"Look at you. You know what the word "indicate" means." That was a jab at my intelligence.

"Not now, Smolder!"

Gallus groans. "Let's just gather any flowers in these kinds of pots we can find."

Gallus and I set the flowers we're holding on a table next to the one with the indents. I look around. There are a few clay balls hanging from the ceiling. I fly up to one.

"Hey, Silver!" Smolder flies up beside me. "I feel very strongly and for no particular reason that you should smash that on the ground!"

... !?!?!? "Smolder, please keep your destructive habits in check."

Smolder chuckles nervously, then grabs the ball from me and thro- Wup- "HEY!"

*Crash!*

"Hey!" Gallus starts waving his fist around like an old man would at brats on his yard. "Be careful! You almost hit me!"

I point at Smolder. "She threw it!" Oh, don't make that innocent face!

"I don't care who threw it, don't throw that kind of stuff-"

"Guys, look!"

I look at Rain. She's holding a small piece of paper. I land next to her and read it.

Five bells ring for the second prince.

Uh... what? "Does that make sense to you?"

"Yes." Rain turns around and picks up the... Bellflower.

"So it was referring to the Bellflower?"

"Bellflower and..." She lifts up a flower that looks like a poppy. "... Prince of orange."

"That looks like a poppy."

"Prince of orange type of poppy." She places the poppy in the second indent and the Bellflower in the fifth.

"Look out below!" *Crash Crash*

!!! "Smolder, I don't normally say this, but what the fuck are you thinking?"

Rain puts her hooves to her face and Gallus glares at Smolder as she lands with a goofy grin on her face. At some point, Rain picks up the papers that were in the clay balls Smolder hurled to the ground, picks up a few flowers, and puts them all in their place in the indents.

Gallus breaks the silence. "Smolder, why?"

"Well, there were clues in them."

"But you wanted to break one BEFORE WE KNEW THAT!" I don't know what's worse. The fact Smolder got me to raise my voice like that, or the fact Smolder got me to be the voice of reason in this situation.

*Chchchchchchchchchchchch*

I look at the opening shutter. "Forget it." I head over to the window that was just behind the shuuuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh... That doesn't look nice.

"Those are..."

"Bear traps." Gallus starts nodding his head. "Those are bear traps lining the floor of that room down there. Specifically designed for warding off Ursa Minors. If one goes off, they'll all go off."

*Chink*

That sound came from the hatch. I guess it's open. And leads to... that mess of horror.

"Look there. Across room." Rain's pointing at something, but it's not clear to me what she's pointing at. "There's switch on far wall."

I scan the far wall for whatever she is talking about. The only things I see are the door and a green thing that looks like a RED or DEAD. Is she referring to that second thing?

Smolder shrugs. "Easy enough. We just fly over and trigger the switch."

"It's not that simple. Look up." I follow Gallus' gaze to the ceiling of the room through the window. There are some pretty large fans up there. "Those will blow any creature smaller than a ten-foot dragon down in a heartbeat, no matter what they are."

I look at the sides of the room. "There are also fans on the walls, just as large. If the ones up top will blow you down fast, the ones on the walls will keep you from going where you want."

"So? I just need to be faster than the fans."

Gallus raises his eyebrow. "Who do you think you are? Rainbow Dash?"

I hear a soft humming. Is that Rain?

"Well, I just need to get across before the fans turn on."

I look at the fans. "Too late. They're already on."

"Well... I just need to outfly them?"

Gallus grabs Smolder's wing. "And how do you plan on doing that, baby girl? You're not big enough and you're not Rainbow Dash. If you try to fly in there, you'll be lucky to get off the ground, let alone get to the switch."

I look through the window at the kirin bouncing between the traps. "We're going to need another way through."

Smolder grunts. "What do you propose? Dropping a flower down there and hoping it springs the trap?"

"Well, Rain seems to be getting through just fine-" Wait, what am I saying? What did I see earlier? I look through the window again.

Sure enough, Rain is jumping and bouncing between the traps with the grace of a swan.

"When did she get in there?"

I would call out to her or be more concerned, but she's basically two jumps away from the switch.

"Go go go!"

Maybe I should try to... No, she's already at the switch. She pulls it and a couple of steel walls come up around her like a pyramid. I'd be more worried, but-

*CLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANG*

OW! MY EARS!

"Argh! That was so loud!"

"Well, at least the danger is gone!" Smolder doesn't seem to be affected by the sounds. She moves over to the hatch and hops in. Gallus and I share a look before following her.

The fans turned off (I guess that's where the humming was coming from), so the three of us fly over the mess of metal traps on the ground.

As soon as the walls around Rain lower, Smolder flies over and hugs her. "That was so awesome! I love you even more now!"

Gallus and I share another look. "Smolder, are you alright?"

She looks at me. "What do you mean?"

"Well." Gallus starts counting on his claw. "You beelined to the table with the flowers on it, you saw the shutter before us and immediately wrote it off, you had that weird discussion with Rain earlier, you somehow knew that those clay balls had clues in them, and what you just said makes it sound like you already knew Rain, even though we just met her. It's almost like you knew what would be in this room."

"Well, I just wanted to get through the room."

That- I- Grr. "That just sounds even more suspicious!"

"You see-" *Whump*

Rain is dragging the dragon by her tail, letting her face slide along the ground. "Let's get going."

Gallus and I share one last look before following them.

"Hey, are you two going to tell us what's going on?"

"No." At least Rain is honest. All Gallus and I can do is follow her down the hallway.

Smolder says something, but the ground is a better gag than I thought it would be.

Rain drops Smolder. "What was that?"

Smolder sits up. "Can we get some bandages for my face?"

"Sure. Infirmary right there."

Yup. That's the infirmary alright. The others go inside. I step towards the doors.

"Come on! This way!"

!? What was that? I look to my right. That hall... The others aren't watching, so I rush over and into the hallway.

After going up some stairs, I find the door... how do I know that it's this door? I push it. The room it leads to looks like an empty apartment aside from the glass orb in the middle. It looks kind of like Aunt Novo's orb did. I go in and touch it.

"Then tell him exactly what you think of him."

"I'm sorry I caused all of this."

"Well done. You've all done wonderfully this year!"

"There may be a majority of ponies joining, but they don't even make up half of the new students."

"Anyway, I can help you make a shrine to your gods or something if that will help you settle in."

"Wow. The buffalo sound very resourceful."

"Those two are like oil and water. Even ignoring that she's a princess and he's a thief."

"Let's make sure that she doesn't get in too much trouble."

!!! Those were... I... Wow...

"Silver?"

I turn around. The other half of our group is there.

"Is something wrong? You look like you saw a ghost."

I sit down. "I remember. What happened in the basement. The Tree of Harmony. Our second year. I remember all of it!"

"What? How?"

I look at the orb. I don't say anything before they rush over to it and touch it. Cozy has her back to me, but the other's eyes are glowing. Once their eyes stop glowing, they all step back.

"I can't believe my memory theory was right."

"Miss Anita, Mister Hector, Miss Strongheart... I wonder if they're alright."

"Yak hopes they're still at school."

"Hey, Silver?" I look at Cozy Glow. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah, I'm just... processing that."

"SILVER!" Someone is calling out. "WHERE ARE YOU?"

Sandbar rushes to the door. "IN HERE!"

I watch him step back towards the orb right before Smolder, Rain, and Gallus enter the room. "Woah. What's with the congregation?"

Sandbar puts his hoof on the orb. "This is why."

I watch the other three approach the orb, then cautiously touch it. After a few seconds, Smolder screams and falls flat on her ass.

Gallus stares at her. "Good job, Smolder."

"NO!" *Crash!*

I look over. The orb is in pieces on the ground.

Rain tilts her head. "That was brittle."

"It's alright. We got what we needed out of it." Cozy floats over to Gallus. "Is there anywhere better we can talk?"

Gallus nods. "The infirmary. There are cots and chairs to sit on, medical supplies if you need them, and, oh yeah, the next set of doors is there."

"That sounds perfect." Sandbar turns to the rest of us. "Come on, guys. Let's get going."

We all head to the infirmary. Sure enough, there are three doors there. Er, my mistake, apparently there's a fourth door, but it doesn't have a number on it.

"1, 3, and 5." Sandbar scratches his head. "Why does it add up to 9 again?"

"Because our bracelets add up to nine." I hold up my bracelet. "If the doors didn't add up to 9, some of us would be forced to stay behind. For example, any combination that adds up to a group adding up to 5 and a group adding up to 3 would leave one or more of us adding up to 1."

Ocellus stares at me in shock, but Gallus just nods his head. "That's exactly it. Little shocked Silver was the one to point that out."

"Well, I know some things."

Smolder clears her throat. "Well, since I'm choosing who goes where-"

"Actually, I'd like to look around first. See what's through the other hallways." We all turn to Ocellus.

"No." Something tells me Smolder doesn't want to do that.

"We should keep moving." Gallus doesn't either.

"Well, we found that orb. Who knows what else we'll find." And Sandbar is on Ocellus' side. Big shocker there.

"Yak want to look!"

"I say we look."

"We probably should."

"Sorry, Miss Smolder. I want to see what's around."

Gee, thanks for making my opinion count... Hmm. "Alright. Let's look around."

"Come on, Silver! You could have at least made me feel like someone was on my side!" Hehe. Smolder's scolding me.

"Alright, we'll meet back here at the four hour chime."

"Why not the third-"

*DING DING DING*

"That's why."

I swear these hours feel like they're passing by really fast.

Hour Five: Consequence

... Nothing.

It's all dark.

What's happening?

*Ding ding ding ding ding*

Was that the hour five chime? It sounds dull and distant.

Is someone talking? I can't see anything. It's hard to make out what they're saying.

"Hello?"

...

*BANG* "Quiet!"

Uh, that's Yona. I don't think I want to mess with her.

Wait. Did Gallus blame me for this? Was that his plan? That would be very low.

Where the heck am I? I reach a claw out. It almost immediately touches something metallic... Am I in that metal tube Bramble was in?

I hear more voices. I put my ear to the metal.

"Yak go with Deer!"

"In that case, you should probably go with me through door 4. Your only other option is to go with Gallus, and I don't think you'd want that."

So they don't trust him? I guess they knocked us both out.

"I'm going with Gallus and Rain. That should add up to 6, right?"

"That means we're going with Silver. Do you really think we can handle her?"

I am trained in-

"She's a wimp. Anyone remotely close to her size can handle her."

... Dicks.

"I say we go in a certain order. Yona, Bramble, and Ocellus go first so that Bramble is away from Gallus and Silver. We count to twenty, then we let Gallus out and Smolder and Rain take him to door 6. That way we have more creatures here if he tries anything. Finally, Sandbar and I let Silver out and take her to door 8."

"That sounds good. Let's go, Bramble."

There's silence for a while.

"Let's let him out."

...

"Huh? He's not awake yet?"

!!! He's claustrophobic!

"No. His face is pale. I think he woke up and panicked so much he passed out."

Oh, Gallus! You poor thing!

"Well, that makes it easier to move him."

I have to get out! I have to see him!

"Huh? What was that?"

"I think Silver's awake."

Please! Please!

"Well, you two might want to keep that in mind. We're off."

... No... Gallus, please be okay...

*Click*

? What was that- What- GAH! SO BRIGHT!... I slowly reopen my eyes so they can adjust to the light. As I do, someone is silhouetted above me.

"Silver."

Cozy Glow?

"That stunt... That was Gallus' idea, right?"

"Well, he suggested it, but-"

"Then it was his idea." She looks... worried? "Right?"

"... Right." I really don't want to throw Gallus under the bus like this.

I sit up. I'm still in the exam room. I look to my right. The other metal tubes are there, completely open. I guess they put Gallus in that far one.

"Are you okay, Silver?"

I look at the filly. "Yeah. I'm fine. I'm just... worried."

"Don't be. Let's go." That was rather blunt for Sandbar.

Cozy puts her hoof on my shoulder. "Why did you go with it?"

I bite my beak. Do I tell her about the Morphogenetic Field? Will she believe me? Will she call me crazy? What do I tell her?

"Silver?"

"I... wasn't really thinking. I just went with it." That's the best I can come up with. And it's a complete lie playing off the lie she wants to believe.

"... I understand."

"Come on, you two!" Sandbar's really getting impatient. "We're not getting out of here by standing around!"

Well, he's right. I get up and follow him and Cozy out of the room and through a few hallways. Eventually, we reach a door with an 8 painted on the front. We scan our bracelets into the RED, pull the lever, and go through the door. The DEAD is... right next to the door. Are they trying to hide any of these? We scan into it, pull the lever, and look around.

That's a lot of boxes! That is not a small amount of boxes! They're all over the place! Mostly on shelves, but still!

Cozy floats over to some of the boxes. "So, all of the boxes, the layout of this place-"

"It's a storage room, you idiot!"

!?!?!? "Sandbar! What is wrong with you?"

"I just want to get through."

I grab him by the shoulders. "That's not what I mean! You're usually kind and patient! All of a sudden, you're being blunt and aggressive! That's not the Sandbar I know!"

He rolls his eyes. "Well, maybe you don't know me that well."

I start shaking him. "WE SPENT TWO YEARS AT THE SAME SCHOOL! YOU CAN'T TELL ME THAT WAS ALL A LIE! ESPECIALLY ONE YOU WOULD DROP FOR THE HECK OF IT!"

Cozy grabs my legs, forcing me to stop shaking Sandbar. "Now Silver, I'm sure he's just tired." She turns to the colt. "Why don't you just find somewhere to rest, and we can handle the puzzle."

"... Yeah. Sure." He heads through a door off to the side.

I look at Cozy. "What just happened?"

"I have no idea."

TIME TO SEARCH

First thing's first, what the heck is on that table? I head over to it. There's a sign that says "collect" with a baggie below it.

There's a buzzing right next to me. "Collect? What does that mean?"

I pick up the baggie by the bottom and lift it up. About five small cubes fall out. "I guess we have to collect those cubes."

"First of all, don't do that. That could have had something dangerous in it. Secondly, do we know how many cubes there are?"

I look around. There doesn't seem to be anything to indicate how many cubes there are. Or what we would need them for. "Let's just collect as many as we can. If all we have to do is look for these cubes, this room might just be a cakewalk." Why do I get the sinking feeling it won't be?

"Alright. Let's get looking. You cover that half of the room, I'll cover this half."

I stick the cubes back in the baggie. Well, this is going to be boring. I've got to look everywhere you'd expect to find a wagon wheel, everywhere you wouldn't expect to find a wagon wheel, check the wagon in case the wheel is already on it... I just thought of something.

I move towards the doorway Sandbar went through. "Hey, Sandy? Could you look for some small cubes or baggies?"

"There's nowhere to hide them in here."

"Okay, thanks!" That wasted a second, but it's peace of mind.

This is going to get boring really fast. I look inside the boxes. I look under the boxes. I look under the shelves. I look at the tops of the shelves. I look in every nook and cranny... "Hey, Cozy?"

"I knew you couldn't keep quiet for long."

"Have you heard of the Morphogenetic Field?"

"I have, but I don't think it's a real thing."

I pick up a baggie and put it on the table with the rest. "Because it's so unbelievable?"

"Well... sure. Let's go with that."

"Well, that just screams no to me."

"I do have other reasons, but I don't want to go into details."

I'll let her believe what she wants to believe. After all, what else could explain me having memories from another timeline?

"May I ask you something?"

"Go ahead."

"Do you trust Bramble?"

"Well, yeah. We went to school with him. Why do you ask?" I put another baggie on the table.

Cozy puts a baggie down at the same time. "Then why did you kidnap him? Even if it wasn't your plan, you still assisted with it by kidnapping him."

"Well, I didn't realize Gallus would knock Smolder out. I thought we would either sneak by her or talk to her about it. I guess I panicked when I saw her unconscious."

"And dragged him through door 1? I'll take that answer."

Uh, I think she knows I'm lying.

"Well, that's my half of the room done. How much have you got left?"

"Two boxes." This one's empty.

"I'll check on Sandbar."

And this one has a baggie in it. I grab it, toss it on the table, and follow Cozy... THAT DOES NOT LOOK NICE! "What the heck is that thing?"

"It's a crushing machine." Sandbar is sitting in a corner. "You throw junk in it, and it crushes the junk down so it can be more easily reused or removed."

He doesn't sound much happier. "How are you feeling?"

"Depends. How many of those baggies did you find?"

"How did you-"

Sandbar points at a panel on the rail keeping us from mindlessly wandering into the obvious death trap.

"I'll grab the ones we found." I head back to the main room, grab the baggies, and head right back. Wait. Do I have to count these out?

"One. Two. Three." Cozy's counting it out. This is still going to be boring.

...

"Forty-six. Forty-seven. Forty-eight. Forty-nine. That makes fifty with that one in the case over there."

"Case?" I look where Cozy is pointing. "How did I not see that earlier?"

"It also has a key in it, so we need to open it in order to leave this room."

"So how do we open it."

Sandbar points past me. I turn around. At the other end of the walkway we're on is a cage. It's so small, only one of us can fit in it. There's a chain attached to the top of the cage. I follow the chain up. It's attached to a track of some kind, leading over to the crusher.

"One of us has to get in that?"

"I'm not getting in it."

Cozy is scowling. "You haven't done anything at all! You could at least do this!"

"Then make me."

He's still not back to normal. "Then how about you solve the puzzle and one of us get in the cage."

"Only if Cozy Glow gets in. Otherwise, she's doing the puzzle."

Cozy Glow? Not me? Why? I'm the one they're supposed to be suspicious of right now! What is going through his mind?

"Ugh... Fine. But only because you'd probably throw me in there if I didn't." Cozy buzzes over to the cage and closes the door.

There's a loud buzz, then some mechanical sounds as the cage lifts into the air. I look at the case. It's op- NO! I kick off of Sandbar to try and grab the bag before- URK! "LET GO OF ME!"

"SANDBAR! YOU ASSHOLE! YOU PILE OF SHIT!"

I look at the colt. He has a smug grin. As if throwing the bag into the crushing machine was the right thing to do.

I fly over to the cage Cozy is in. She's rattling the door, hitting it over and over. I try to lift the cage even a little.

It's too heavy. I can't get any slack on the chain at all.

"Silver." I look at the helpless filly. "Let go."

... I can't do anything. I let go.

*BUZZZZZZZ*

The cage falls. I cover my ears. I can still hear her screams of pain though. I close my eyes. That last sad look she gave me is still there...

It's done.

I couldn't do anything.

...

*DING DING DING DING DING DING*

...

"You coming or not?"

I look at Sandbar. At that murderer. I fly over but stay out of reach. "Why? Why did you kill her?"

"Let's just say, I had a bad feeling about her."

... "Stay away from me."

He shrugs. "Have it your way." He turns around and leaves the room.

I land back on the walkway. I look over at the panel. I look at the bags on the ground. What did he mean by a "bad feeling"? I head out of this room.

I head back through the door with the 8 painted on it. I head back to the waiting room.

"I know that! At least she didn't kill someone!"

?

"Sandbar? Did you actually..."

"She had it coming."

"SANDBAR!"

"Sandbar, you..."

I step into the doorway. Sandbar has his back to me. Ocellus, Bramble, and Yona are looking at him in shock and terror.

"Come on." That killer steps towards the others. "I did what-"

Yona stomps her hoof down. "Stay back!"

... I'm going to check on Gallus. I leave to look for door 6.

It doesn't take too long to find it, but...

"Vacant?"

I look to my side. Either the others followed me, or I was staring at that for longer than I thought.

Bramble hides behind Yona. "Can I stay with Yona?"

Ocellus looks at me. "Did you grab Cozy's bracelet?"

I shake my head. "She was crushed to death. Even if I could reach it, it would have been destroyed."

She lets out a sigh. "In that case, there's only one group that can go through. Me, Sandbar, and Bramble."

I can see Yona and Bramble's hearts break.

Sandbar shrugs. "Okay, we just go in and finish what the other group started. I already killed the only one I wanted to."

"Don't say that so casually." Ocellus moves over to Bramble. "I'll stay between you and him. There's nothing to worry about."

Bramble nods. They head over to the RED and scan their bracelets in. I stay back as they go through, leaving me with Yona.

"Yona..."

"Hmph!" She stomps off.

... I just wanted a hug.

I can't get it out of my head. That screaming. It might stay with me until the day I die. It was so heartbreaking. Seeing her face. I'm not sure if I'll ever move past it. I'm not... I'm...

Vacant?

When did it switch to vacant?

Was I sitting here that long?

"YONA!" I start running through the halls! I have to find Yona! Or at least something I can do!

! That was her! I grab the doorframe to slow myself down, then move just outside of the room! "Yona! We-"

My heart stops. Yona is lying in a pool of blood.

And a hooded figure is standing over her.

They turn to me.

I have to run!

*WHAM!*

A wall? When did this... I'm trapped. There are walls in the hallway that weren't there before. The figure steps out of the room, and the door disappears. I'm in a room with a killer, and there's no way out. I look at the hooded figure.

"Zero."

Ending 8

Helpless

Author's Note

Yeah, in case you didn't notice, I edited "Hour Six: Reality" to include a name for that outcome. The number of each outcome based on which character is most associated with that ending. This one being the only exception.

Hour One: Dis/Trust

"Uh, Gallus?" I look over at Cozy Glow. "Why would my number be a reason for her to be suspicious of me?"

"Because it can be very powerful in this situation."

Wait, something feels off. I can't tell what, though.

"Miss Silver?" Bramble is in my grasp. "Could you let me go, please?"

I nuzzle him a bit before letting go. He makes a beeline for Yona, who's looking at me strangely. I look right at... Sandbar. Was I about to call him a murderer? Why? I look at Cozy. She's glaring at Sandbar.

"What's with all the tension?" Ocellus has her eyebrow raised. "It looks like you all just came from a huge brawl or something."

"Whatever it is, we can work it out later." Gallus points at the doors. "We need to work out who's going where."

"Yak avoiding Hippogriff!"

What?

"Keep me away from Sandbar!"

Cozy-

"I'm keeping my distance from Gallus!"

Smolder?

"I don't trust most of you!"

Bramble-

"What did I do?"

"Don't drag me into this!"

"What did Sandbar do?"

They're raising their voices! They're moving close to each other! RAIN SAVE ME!

I watch from behind Rain Kiss. They're all going at each other! Bramble is on Yona, waving his hoof at Sandbar while Yona waves her hoof at Gallus! Cozy is practically in Sandbar's face- No, Ocellus shoved her away and is yelling in her face now! Gallus and Smolder are prodding each other in the chest! This is so scary!

"ENOUGH!" *FWOOOM!*

Woah! I had no idea Rain could do that! And that shut everyone else up.

Rain now has a very black coat, and her hair has turned to flames. Her horn is also glowing brightly. If it weren't for me being behind her, I'd be just as scared as the others look.

"Are you all insane?" Woah. Her voice sounds nothing like it did before. "We're in a life or death situation, and the seven of you are quarreling over petty issues? We can't wait around here! So if you don't mind, I'll be making the decisions here. You got it?"

The seven of them nod. She glances back at me with her white DEMON EYES! PLEASE DON'T BE MAD AT ME! She looks away. Phew.

"Smolder and Gallus make 4, Ocellus and Sandbar make 7, Yona and Bramble make 9... Silver and I are going with Yona and Bramble through door 7, the rest of you are going through door 2. Any objections?"

"Are you-" A burst of flames shut Yona up. "No objections."

"Good." A column of flames erupts from below Rain. Once they vanish, she's back to how she was. "Now let's get going before I lose my temper again. Door 2 first."

Gallus, Smolder, Ocellus, Sandbar, and Cozy Glow all sheepishly move past us, scan into the RED of door 2, and go through. All it takes is a glare for Yona and Bramble to scan into the door 7 RED. I scan after them, and Rain scans after me. Rain pulls the lever, and we go through the door. Once through, we find and scan into the DEAD. With all of that done, there's one thing that takes priority.

I wrap my legs around Yona's neck. I feel her pull back slightly. I can't stop shaking. I feel like I'm trying to disarm a bomb right now. Please don't hurt me. Please...

I stop shaking once I feel her wrap her hooves around me. I also didn't realize I was holding my breath.

"I'm sorry, Yona. I don't know what I did that upset you, but I'm sorry anyway. I'll make it up to you somehow. I promise."

"It's alright, Silver. Yona not sure why she was up in arms either. But we're friends. It's not important to avoid these things. It's important to forgive each other when they happen."

I suddenly feel Bramble and Rain hug us as well.

"Miss Silver, Um... I don't know what you did or why you did it, but if you're sorry, then I'll forgive you."

"See? This is all it takes. You don't have to keep your friendships pristine. You just have to repair the damage when it happens."

... Ah! "We should probably focus on getting through here. It'd be bad if the others got mad because we took too long."

"Right. Hugs later."

We break the hug off. The others spread around the rec room to look for clues.

TIME TO SEARCH!

1285.

... Huh? Why did that pop into my head? I look at the number panel... Well, it's worth a shot. I punch the number in.

!!! It opened!

I look around. The others might get suspicious if they realize I opened this myself. I slip in and close the door.

There are a bunch of desks in here. On a few of them are these weird puzzles that look like they involve shapes. One of them has a key with a line attached to it. I think I'll leave that alone for now.

This puzzle. There's a very blocky image and two squares with some lines cut into it... Oh! I know this puzzle! I just have to fit the pieces from the square into the blocky image! Though it's usually just one square. I pick up a piece and fit it in where it looks like it goes.

... Now that I'm putting this together, it kind of looks like Professor Rainbow. Is that a coincidence? Maybe not. Then again, she is a public figure, being both a hero and a Wonderbolt.

I go to the next one. This one looks like some kind of tornado. But it has a base? And a ball inside. I guess it's some kind of trophy. Anyway, it looks like... no, I need a different piece there... there we go.

Three? I have three squares of pieces to work with? Oh, I know this crown! It's the crown of King Grover! Gallus really likes this thing... Uh... Huh. Okay, like that. That looks good. Hold on... alright, now it looks good.

"Silver?"

Er, hehe. They noticed.

"How did hippogriff get in?"

I scratch my ear. "Well, I'm not sure. A few numbers just popped into my head, so I tried them on the number panel and they worked."

They all look at each other and shrug. "Anything we can do to help?"

I shake my head. "Not really. I'm almost done. I just have to finish this puzzle." FOUR SQUARES? Ugh. I remember when they were one square and nothing else. Alright, I put this piece here. This piece there. Rain, please stop hovering over my shoulder.

I watch her as she walks over to the other puzzles. I put my full focus on the puzzle before me once again. This here. This there... Hmm...

"Aren't Tangrams supposed to be a solid color for each piece?"

Ugh. Rain. I put the piece I'm holding into place. "Yeah. It's also supposed to be a different color. I think Zero wanted to specifically design these."

She's hovering over me again. "Looks familiar, right?"

I put another piece in and look at the puzzle. "Yeah. It kind of looks like the Crusader's cutie marks."

"But none of them have that specific design."

I put the last piece in place. "Yeah. It's kind of strange. If they wanted to represent the Crusaders, why not use their typical symbol? The one they sometimes have on their stuff?"

"That's a good question. If you did this right." Rain walks over to the key. I watch as she pulls it from its spot... Nothing happened.

Was I holding my breath? I'm not anymore.

"Let's go." I follow Rain out the door and to the exit to the room. She uses the key and we go through.

It's a hallway with doors lining the sides. It goes a good way down. I look at one of the doors as we pass it... I should stay with the group. We head down the stairs.

This is a bit of an open room... Yelling? Someone is yelling.

"Cozy Glow?"

Cozy? Where? Oh, in front of the infirmary. "Hey, you okay, Cozy? You look down."

She looks at me. "You might want to leave them alone right now. They're having some... conflict."

Rain is growling. I can't see her, but she's the only one that would growl at that. "Those four. Why do they have to keep fighting like this." She barges into the infirmary. "What are you... GALLUS! WHERE'S YOUR LEG?"

!!! I rush in. Sure enough, Gallus' leg is mostly missing, with a bunch of bandages on what's left of it.

"Smolder shoved him into a death trap! He's lucky to have lived through it!"

I dart over to him and take his claw in mine. "Gallus! Gallus, are you alright?"

He lets out a weak laugh. "Yeah, I'm just missing a leg and a lot of blood. That's all."

"Gallus. Please don't die."

"That's not gonna happen. I'm just gonna say that."

He puts his claw on my cheek. I put my claw on his. He's so cold.

...

His claw slowly drifts off of my cheek.

...

"And if you think he didn't deserve it, then you deserve to die too."

... Smolder... "SMOLDER!"

I immediately strike her in the stomach and keep hitting her hard enough to knock her, bit by bit, into a wall. As soon as she's against the wall, I spin her around and pin her arms to her back, putting my full weight into it.

"Ghh. When did you get so strong?"

"Really? Is forgiveness not an option for you? You had to take it so far?"

"You don't know what he did! Don't make me the bad guy here!"

"I don't have to. You're doing a good enough job of that yourself."

"You don't really think anything you say or do can get to me, do you?"

I open my beak to respond when I realize something. I don't have her pinned to a wall. I have her pinned to door 5. I look at the RED. "Oh, I think there is something."

"What? I have thick scales!"

"Sandbar! Ocellus! Can you help me with something?"

I watch them share a look, then head over to us.

"And what are they gonna do?"

*Beep Beep*

"Huh? What did they just do?"

I force Smolder's claw to the RED. "Your scales are thick. Your insides probably aren't as tough."

"... OH FUCK!"

"If I pull this lever and force you through alone, you won't be able to deactivate your bracelet."

"FUCK! FUCK!"

"We wait for time to run out, then get your bracelet and get ourselves out of here."

"I'M SORRY!"

I smirk. "What was that?"

"I'M SORRY! PLEASE! PLEASE DON'T KILL ME! I'LL BEHAVE! I PROMISE!"

I giggle. "Sorry, I'm having some trouble hearing you. What was that?"

"PLEASE! PLEASE STOP!"

I press into her body a bit.

"NO! PLEASE NO! STOP!"

I put my claw on the lever.

"NOOOOOOOO!"

I pull the lever.

And I pull Smolder away from the door.

We watch the door open and close.

I giggle. "I was just messing around." Not a complete lie. I wanted to scare her straight. I hope it sticks.

"Fuck! HOLY FUCK SILVER!" She pulls away from me. "Do you have ANY idea how FUCKING scary that was?"

"Yeah. I do. His name was the Storm King. I barely got away."

"W-wow."

I look at the others. They're all looking at me with wide eyes and slack jaws. Except for Gallus, who's just lying there.

Ocellus blinks a couple of times. "I'm more shocked that you managed to overpower her than anything."

I shrug. "My family is pseudo-royalty, and my dad was in the navy. I pretty much had to learn how to hold my own."

Cozy rubs her leg. "I think that's a bit more than holding your own."

I go back to Gallus' side. I look at his bracelet. "The fact that's still on means he's alive, right?"

"Yeah, but he's lost a lot of blood."

I look at Ocellus as she looks around the room. She flies behind a counter in the room.

"Does anyone know what Gallus' blood type is?"

The rest of us look at each other.

Ocellus sighs. "Nevermind. I asked on a chance." She pulls some kind of machine out from behind the counter. There are a lot of tubes and a container of red liquid. "Although using this would be taking a chance anyway."

Bramble taps the machine. "What is this?"

"It's a blood transfusion machine. It's used to keep patients from bleeding to death. But it requires the right blood type. Otherwise, it can cause other medical problems."

I look at a note on the machine. "What's type O?"

Ocellus glares at me. "An error while writing. Please don't change the subject."

She heard typo. "So this machine is loaded with writing errors?"

Now she gets it. "Oh! That's a blood type. And the only one that can be added to any... body..."

I smile. "So this machine will help him, right?"

Ocellus looks at the note I read. "Yeah. It'll work. Type O can be added to any other blood type without issue. I just need to hook this up, then we wait for him to wake up."

*DING DING*

We all look up. It's only just now the second hour?

"Let's look around while we wait for him." Rain. "Even if he can't physically help through any of the doors, it'll be better to have him awake to help with any puzzles."

I clench Gallus' claw. "I'd like to stay at his side. It'll make me feel better."

They all nod in understanding.

"Then we'll meet back here at the third-hour chime."

"Right."

Hour Three: Drifting Together

I run my claw along Gallus' head. His eyes are still closed, but he looks healthier than before. I haven't left his side for a while. I move my claw to his shoulder, then along his side. He feels warmer than earlier. I move my claw to his stomach...

"And here I thought you wanted to touch my butt."

"Gallus!"

He opens his eye. "How long have I been out?"

*DING DING DING*

I look up. "A bit over an hour."

He takes a deep breath, then lets it out. "It feels good to not die."

I chuckle. "You're back in top form."

I hear the others enter the room.

Ocellus is the first one to speak. "He's awake!"

Gallus sits up. "Yeah, I am." He looks at what's left of his leg. "Although I'm not all right since my right leg is missing."

Smolder facepalms. "We couldn't let him die?"

Cozy buzzes over to us holding what looks like a peg leg. "Here. It's better than nothing."

Gallus watches us attach the fake leg over his missing one. "Oh, no. I'm Hector."

... HAH! Oh, I almost forgot about that nutjob. "Nah, you're more of a pirate than he'll ever be."

If the others weren't laughing before, they are now. "He would kill you if he heard that!"

Rain clears her throat. "Well, it's good that we're laughing together again, but we really need to keep going. I'm sure Gallus needs to get real help now more than ever."

The griffon is glaring at the kirin. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"To keep Smolder from causing more trouble, I'll be going with her and Yona through door 1. It would probably be best if Gallus has someone to help support him, so that would mean..."

Gallus sighs. "Silver and Sandbar."

Sandbar rubs the back of his head. "Does that work?"

"It's either that or I go with the kids. If Rain is going to stay with that combination for door 1, then it's me through door 5, Ocellus through door 3, the smallest ones together, and you two together."

Why do I have a bad feeling about this? "So Sandbar and I have to go with Gallus to make sure his leg doesn't cause him trouble?"

Cozy looks annoyed. "I can handle it."

Rain chuckles. "I feel better about having larger creatures handle it."

Bramble stomps his tiny hoof. "I'm plenty strong!"

Smolder has her hand on her head. "Are we going to argue at every junction?"

Yona has her hoof to her mouth. "At least it's not like last time."

Rain sighs. "Look, the three of us are going to get going. I suggest the combination I recommended for Gallus' sake." With that, she leads Yona and Smolder to door 1. They scan their bracelets into the RED, open the door, head through, and close the door.

"Don't worry about me." Gallus? "If something happens to me, whoever's with me can finish the puzzle and fetch some help."

Cozy looks at the doors. "I want to go through door 5."

Our other pony looks at our changeling. "And I want to go through door 3."

I look at Ocellus and Bramble. "Is that alright with you two?"

They nod, and I nod at the others.

"Alright." Gallus starts walking towards door 5. "The kiddies are coming with me, and the others are going with Ocellus."

"We have names." Pfft. Sandbar, that flat expression doesn't help your case.

Gallus, Bramble, and Cozy all scan into the door 5 RED. I guess we're locked in, huh? I head over to door 3 as door 5 closes.

*Beep Beep Beep*

I watch the door open.

"Don't do anything stupid, you two."

Sandbar and I share a look before we head through. The DEAD is at the other end of the room. We all run to it and scan in.

Woah. This place rocks. Literally. There are rocks everywhere. It looks kind of like-

*CLANG!*

Huh?

"Guys! Help!"

Sandbar's hoof connects with his face. "What was that about us not doing anything stupid?"

Ocellus is blushing from inside of a large metal capsule. "Just get me out of here!"

I tap on the window. "How did you get in there?"

"I was just looking! I thought it looked suspicious, so I stepped inside to look!"

Sandbar and I look at each other, then lower our heads and shake them. "Let's solve the puzzle. That'll probably get her out of there."

TIME TO SEARCH!

Let's see here. Five slots in the front of the capsule, so we need five stones. There are little panels that flip up over each of them. Let's see what the first one is. "A silver stone of the sea."

Sandbar puts his hoof to the panel. "The only "stone of the sea" that I know of is Ruhgomite, but that's more green than silver."

"It's probably Neptite. A silver stone that can produce water, if you know how to use it." I look around. "Although, if you think about it, you just need to find a stone that's silver. Maybe grab a few and then check which one is which."

"Well, this looks really helpful."

Eh? It looks like some kind of book. I look over his shoulder. There's all sorts of stones listed in there, including various ways to tell what does what. "Did they just give us an answer guide?"

He chuckles. "I think so."

Well, I don't need it to recognize Neptite. I head over to the stone I see and knock it. A few drops of water fall out. I take it over to the capsule and drop it in the first slot. A small door closes over it.

Sandbar lifts the second panel. "A green mineral of oil and water."

... Uh... "What does that even mean?"

"EEP!"

We both press against the glass. "Ocellus?"

"I'm fine. My hooves got a bit wet. That's all."

Sandbar lets out a sigh. I think he's upset that she's not really helpful right now. "The "mineral of oil and water" is probably Mixitol. It can be added to any liquid to fully mix it with anything, hence the "oil and water" part."

"Oil and water don't mix. Unless you ad Mixitol." I look at a green mineral. It glows as soon as I touch it. "Uh, this is Lytherium."

"You know what that does, right?"

I nod. "It's naturally created by every creature so they can use their natural magic. The exact details vary from creature to creature, but any Lytherium in our bodies automatically adapts to our bodies needs."

"And you know which creatures generate the most Lytherium, right?"

"None of them. It may seem like creatures that use some sort of magic would produce more, but they're just using it in a different way, creating magic outside of their bodies, or the magic most creatures think of when they hear about it."

He picks up a clear bag of green crystals. "Speaking of most creatures, not many know that much about Lytherium, especially how there aren't any creatures that create more. I read that about 79 percent of ponies don't know everything about Lytherium. How do you know so much?"

"I asked my aunt what her orb was made of, and she told me everything about Lytherium. A part of me wants to see if I can change how a body uses Lytherium, so I've been on and off researching it."

"That sounds really useful." Sandbar empties the bag into the second slot. "I think it would be neat if I could-"

"AAH!"

"Ocellus?" I rush back to the capsule.

"It grabbed my legs! I can't move them!"

Sandbar and I share another look, this one more of concern. "Hey, Silver? You don't think we're putting together a... uh..."

"Putting it together or not, we need to get Ocellus out, and there's only one way to do that right now."

He bites his lip. "Try to stay calm, Ocellus! We'll have you out as soon as we can!"

"I can't promise anything. Thinking is the only thing I can do right now."

Sandbar lifts the third panel. "You take the fourth one, and whoever finishes first will get the fifth."

"Right." I lift the fourth panel. A pink mineral of... clotting? Wait, that's Valital. It's mixed with an injection to stop bleeding right away. "Why aren't some of these more popular? They sound really useful."

"One word; price. They're expensive to fabricate accurately enough, and they're aren't that many places that creatures are able to mine them naturally. Believe me, these kinds of things are the kinds of things that deserve to be widespread, but they are too pricey for that."

I pick up a few different bags of pink crystals, and take them to the book for reference. "Magnite?"

"You know so much about Lytherium but haven't heard of Magnite before?" Sandbar is checking the fifth panel. "It's the polar opposite of Lytherium. It absorbs most magic near it. It won't do anything to you if you touch it, but you want to avoid eating any of it."

I figure out which one is Valital then take it back to the capsule. "That's what anti-magic weapons and armor are made of, right?"

"Yeah, but it's a catch-22. Magnite, even when combined with steel, is physically weak. So you either have something tough, or something that blocks magic."

I pour the Valital into the fourth slot, then look at Ocellus. "Hey, do you hear Ocellus right now?"

"No, why?"

"Because it looks like she's talking."

Sandbar steps up next to me. "Huh. I guess she's saying something." He puts the rock he's holding into the fifth slot, and it closes up.

"Is that it?"

Two holes open up, as two trays come out of the machine.

*Ding* "These holes lead to mixing devices. Anything in the mixing devices will be injected into the subject. Lytherium on the left, Magnite on the right. You can only insert three stones before the seals close. Please keep the amounts as balanced as possible."

Uhh... "Sandbar? What happens if you have too much Magnite in your body?"

He gulps. "Your coat and eyes lose color, and you quickly die from a lack of magic."

"How quickly?"

"I don't know. I've only read about it."

I look at the left tray. "And Lytherium?"

"I've only heard of unicorns having excess Lytherium, but if you don't have some way to filter it out, then the excess magic will cause stony growths to appear on your body. Your organs will absorb the magic, causing them to... rapidly fail."

"I'm guessing you don't know how rapidly, either."

He shakes his head.

I let out a sigh. "Let's hope I can get this right."

I look at the stones. Their weights are labeled in grams.

Lytherium
1.0g
2.1g
4.4g
6.8g
15.5g

Magnite
1.7g
3.7g
9.3g
17.3g
23.9g

Oh, geez. Ocellus or Gallus would be able to do this without a second thought. But I have to add three of these up to make the same number? When did Captain Math suddenly decide to hate me?

"Hey, Silver? I think you should know that you have a 500-milligram leniency. Basically, if you're half a gram off, Ocellus will be fine."

I sigh. "That barely helps. How good are you at math?"

He looks over the numbers. "Not good enough for this."

Ocellus looks like she's screaming. Maybe she'll understand this.

"WE CAN'T HEAR YOU! IT'S BEEN SOUNDPROOFED!"

She looks me in the eye, then looks around inside the capsule, apparently not wasting her voice.

"I think I got something!" Already? "If you put the 1 gram and 4.4 gram Lytherium in the left hole, and the 1.7 and 3.7 Magnite-"

"But we need three on each side."

He stares at me for a second, then looks at the minerals. "R-right. I remembered that."

So, uh, 4.4... 1.7... uh... UH... HOW? How do I do this? Oh, geez. Oh geez. This isn't good!

"Silver? Are you sure-"

"LET ME THINK!" I'm sweating bullets! This is so tense!

"T-try lifting them! Judging by weight!"

"Uh... s-sure." I pick up the 2.1, 4.4, and 15.5 gram Lytherium pieces. Then I pick up the 17.3, 3.7, and 1.7 Magnite pieces. This... "I think this works?"

"Are you asking or telling?"

I bite my beak... and put them in. A small door slides over each of the holes, blocking them off.

"Let's hope this works." Sandbar presses the button on the front of the capsule.

Oh please oh please oh please be right! She cringes, probably from the needles jabbing into her legs. Come on... The capsule opens, and she tumbles out.

Sandbar catches her. "She's breathing!"

I let out a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness." I don't know how I'd live with myself if I got her killed.

"S-Sandbar?" She sounds weak.

He caresses her cheek. "It's alright Ocellus. You're safe. You'll survive."

"If I'm going... to survive..." She opens her eyes. Her... white eyes? "Why do I feel... so weak..."

...! The color is draining from her coat!

"O-Ocellus?"

Her eyes are rolling back!

I rush to her side! "No no! Don't die!"

She breathes out and... and is going to sleep!

"Don't die! Don't-"

*Click* *Tink*

... That... was her bracelet...

She's...

gone...

...

I... I killed her.

...

"It's not your fault."

...

Did someone... say something?

...

*DING DING DING DING*

...

Author's Note

If any of those minerals are real, it's pure coincidence.

Hour Four: Half Lives

...

"Silver. Please don't waste her death."

...

"Come on. Let's go."

...

"We can't do anything now."

... I get up.

"Let's get going. I already have the key."

I watch Sandbar walk over to the exit door, then look at me. It takes me a moment to realize he wants me to follow him. So I... do. I walk behind him. He opens the door.

"Mister Sandbar?"

Bramble is standing there. He looks upset. I'm tempted to hug him. I think I need a hug.

"Silver? Are you listening?"

"Huh? What did you say?"

"Cozy Glow died, and Gallus needs our help."

"Are you okay, Miss Silver?"

I look at Bramble. He's looking at me. What's with his expression?

"Let's help Gallus." I move past him and into the open door.

"Yo, Silver!" Gallus immediately draws my attention. "You okay? You look like you just saw a puppy die."

I pick up the fake leg as I pass it. "I did. Her name was Ocellus."

"Oh. Shit. She died too, huh? Here's hoping Rain's team is good. I'd hate to lose half of us only halfway through this."

I put the fake leg up to his stump.

"Wait, Ocellus died?" I guess Sandbar didn't tell him.

"Yeah." I don't feel like going into detail.

There's pressure on my head. "Well, let's get out of here. That way, their deaths won't be wasted."

"... Sure." I think his leg is on right.

"Let's get going." I follow Gallus out of the room. We loop back around to the infirmary.

"Sandbar, take the keys and find the door they lead to."

"Huh? Why?"

"I need Bramble and Silver. Something went wrong in room 1."

It says assist. I follow Gallus over to it, then through the door. We go around a wall, and find an exam room with three metal tubes in it.

*Bang Bang Bang* "Let Yak out!"

Yona must be in one of them. Bramble steps from behind me as Gallus heads over to the tubes. I look over at a door in the room. I head over to it. There's a panel next to the door. I press a button on the panel.

"Please wait while the room ventilates."

I guess I have to wait.

"Silver, what did you do?"

I sit down in front of the door.

"Miss Silver?"

Just have to wait.

"Unlocking door." *Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr*

... Fuck. They're dead too. I step in and grab the key from Smolder's body, then I leave the room.

"Oh, no! How did they die?"

"Don't know, don't care." I unlock the last lock on the tube Yona is in. It slides open.

She looks me in the eye. "Silver? What happened? You are Silver, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

Something pulls me back a bit. "She's a bit out of it right now. Cozy Glow, Ocellus, Smolder, and Rain all died."

"What? Oh, no!"

"Uh, Mister Gallus? I got their bracelets."

Gallus' claw hits his face. "We forgot Cozy Glow's! I saw Sandbar with Ocellus' earlier, but we need all of them!"

"I'll get it." I unlock the exit, head through, and make my way to the room Cozy died in. I see the skeleton lying there on the other side of a door. I look it over. It's Cozy Glow's. I see the bracelet. I guess they're made of something incredible. And expensive. I pick it up. It still displays a 9 on its face.

"Silver, talk to me."

I look at Gallus. "There's nothing to say. I got Ocellus killed. End of story."

His ears perk at that. "You what? How?"

"I messed up the puzzle."

"Then it's not your fault. Blame Zero for her death, not yourself!"

"I tried that last time this happened. It didn't work then, either."

"... What do you mean?"

I take a deep breath. "My uncle. My father's brother. He died because I lived."

"What?"

"When the Storm King attacked, I was at the tail end of the evacuation. I was running as fast as I could when I tripped. A couple of storm beasts came up to me when I did. I couldn't move. I was paralyzed with fear. That's when my uncle yelled at me. He held them back as I got back up and ran. When I looked back, they decapitated them. Whenever it came up, my parents and aunt lied and said it wasn't my fault."

He's gawking. "I had no idea. All this time, and... Hey, Silver? Could you do me a favor?"

"What is it?"

"Once we get out, promise me you'll get help for that. Professional help. I know something that can."

"Sure. As long as our friends don't know."

"Promise."

I walk towards the exit. "Let's get going." Wha-... He's... soft. "Thank you."

"You're welcome."

We break off the hug and get going. We get to the infirmary just in time to see Bramble's butt disappear through the door out. We quickly fly out the door.

"Wait up!"

The others stop. "Hey. You got the bracelet, right?"

"Yeah, but how were we supposed to find you without any way of knowing where you went?"

The three of them share a look. "Good point."

"Also, we have a bigger problem." Gallus holds out the bracelet he has. "There are five of us left. The remaining doors are 4, 6, and 8. That means we either have to leave one room alone, or one of us has to go alone."

They all look at each other. "I say we leave one of the rooms for now. That makes it less likely for any of us to run into a situation where we have to die."

We all nod at Sandbar's suggestion. "That's a fair point."

"May I ask, in that case, to go with two of you? It would make me feel more comfortable."

Gallus looks at Bramble. "That depends on how things add up."

"It's 4, 6, and 8, right? 3 and 6 make 9, which means Bramble can go with you two through door 8, and I can go with Yona through one of the other doors."

They all look at me.

"I... guess that works."

"Is that alright with you, Bramble?"

Gallus is tapping his talons together. "Actually, it's either that or you go with me and Yona through door 6."

"Um... I'll go through door 8."

Gallus nods then holds out bracelet 7. "You can take this bracelet through door 4, or you can take bracelet 9 through door 6."

I swap the bracelets. I'd rather go through door 4. "Are we all good?"

The others nod, and we go through the halls to the doors we need. It doesn't take long for me to find door 4.

"Silver? Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." I scan my bracelet and the loose bracelet.

"You can talk to me if you ever need to." Yona scans her bracelet then pulls the lever.

We step into the cafeteria and find the DEAD. It doesn't take long to scan into it and pull the lever. Well, better not waste any time.

TIME TO SEARCH!

My eyes lock on to a number pad in the room. I walk over to it. "Find the nines, and you may find your answer."

"What that mean?"

I shrug. "I guess it has something to do with the trays."

She turns to the trays on the tables... and starts drooling.

"It could be poisoned, you know."

She looks back at me, then rubs the drool off of her chin. "Yaks immune to poison!"

"Yaks bad liars."

"Yak hungry."

I sigh. "Yak can wait until we're out. If you can't help, just stay away from the food at least."

She starts pouting and makes her way to a corner. I look at one of the trays.

378/226/459
654/298/771

Hmm... The top corners add up to nine, so I guess I'm looking for that. I pick the tray up and move to the next empty one. I don't see any sets of numbers that add up to nine, so I leave it be.

I go through the rest of the trays on this first table, and put the ones I picked up by the number panel. Then I move to the next table. This is going to take a bit...

"Yak bored."

"How good are you at math?"

"Not very."

"Then quiet down and let me work."

...

"Are you done yet?"

"No."

"When will you finish?"

"When you stop asking."

...

"I stopped asking! Are you done yet?"

"Whine whine."

"What did you say?"

"Nothing. Just quiet down."

That's half of the tables. I might as well see if I have the right one before going through the other half. I go through the trays I set aside one by one, punching in the combinations that have more than one nine.

This tray...

369/459/144
882/729/981

All of the combinations add up to nine... Are you kidding me?

I punch the nine key six times.

*Ding*

... That was the answer. Really? Really? Alright then. Time to grab... The kitchen door is closed. Did Yona go through? I go up to the door and open it.

...

Fuck. She's dead. Crisp. And damp from the very late sprinklers...

Fucking SHIT! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH ME? I KILLED TWO OF MY FRIENDS NOW!... Fuck...

I pick up her bracelet. The screen is cracked. I think the heat broke it. I drop it and pick up the key. Ugh. Why couldn't I be the one to die? Ever?

I unlock the exit door. It leads to a mass of hallways. I wander them for a bit, but I doubt I'll find anything here.

?

A box?

It's small but noticeable.

Was this here before? I lift the lid. There's a book inside. I open the cover.

'Dear Diary.

Two ponies arrived today. An orange one and a yellow one. It was the oddest thing since I haven't heard of anyone coming or leaving the Peaks of Peril in a long time, let alone a pony.'

Is this... Rain's diary? I keep reading. The rest of the entry is about the professors going on their friendship mission to the kirin's home. The next three entries are about how wonderful it was to have her voice back. The next one...

'Dear Diary.

I'm scared. I'm leaving the land the gods love. I don't know what to expect at this "school," but it terrifies me. I don't want to go. What if someone tries to hurt me? I want to stay, but I'm the only one they can send. Do they think I'm expendable? Or is it because I don't have any friends?

I don't like this.'

She didn't have any friends before coming to school? But she was so nice. Wait. If this is her diary... I flip to the back.

A number of pages are torn out. Darn. I thought she would have written about the rest of the memories we're missing.

I flip back to the entry after the one I just read.

'Dear Diary.

I met the nicest girl today. She even helped me reconnect with the gods. I never would have expected to befriend someone like her, let alone ever meet someone that wasn't a kirin.

Her art skills are amazing. She's not someone that knows my gods, yet she replicated them so well. It makes my room feel a lot more like a home. I have to wonder how my parents will feel when they see it.

Then there are her friends. There's Gallus, the sarcastic, Yona, the clumsy, Sandbar, the unnotable, Ocellus, the nerd, and Smolder, who is easily the most annoying of them. Even so, I'm looking forward to spending more time with her and her friends. This is going to be great!'

That's right. I was the first one to approach her, and I helped her make those statues of her gods. The next three entries are about... me? I can't tell. They almost read out like something out of a romance novel. If that's the case, then it probably isn't me. She was always so honest, so I doubt she would have... kept...

'Dear Diary.

I can't keep it bottled up anymore. I can't say it to anyone, but I have to let it out. I've been trying to lie to myself as much as possible. I can't. Not anymore.

The way she speaks always makes me smile because she sees the light when there's none in sight. When she dances, I can't take my eyes off of her. Her movements can be so hypnotizing. I've gotten lost in her eyes once or twice. The only thing more amazing than her gaze is how she doesn't mind.

I can't get close. She wants someone else. I can't get in the way of that. But I have to say it.

I love Silverstream.'

... Why?

Why am I learning this now?

Why am I realizing this now?

Those odd moments. I thought it was just her being... her.

I close the book and cry...

It's so... heartbreaking. Heartwrenching.

This whole experience.

Yona...

Ocellus...

Rain...

Everyone...

Powder? Oh. Of course.

"The others are dead, aren't they?"

I put the book down and wait for the inevitable...

I cough.

Blood.

I feel... dizzy.

He catches me as I fall.

"Who... are you?"

I can barely feel a thing... but I still feel his breath on my ear.

"You know."

Ending 2

Heaven

Author's Note

The next three chapters are going to be a bit... weird. You'll see why.

Former Patreon Content: Lost Memories 1

"I'm sorry, I think I misheard you. How many new students are joining this year?"

Cozy Glow sighed. "Twice as many as last year. Quit making me repeat it, Smolder."

"Just... wow." Sandbar rubbed his head. "To think that the school's become that popular in just one year. Even without E.E.A. approval."

Cozy flipped through some of the papers she had. "Well, getting the official support of several world leaders probably had something to do with it."

Smolder smirked. "And we have something to do with that."

Gallus moved in front of the filly and started walking backward. "So how many griffons are signing on?"

"Um... Two, I think."

Smolder stumbled a bit. "Wait, it's not just ponies?"

Ocellus shook her head. "I heard about this from Professor Twilight. There may be a majority of ponies joining, but they don't even make up half of the new students."

Cozy nodded. "There are a number of hippogriffs, changelings, and yaks signing on, as well as a few dragons and the griffons I mentioned earlier. There are even other races that are testing the water, so to speak."

"Kind of like the five of us, right guys?" Smolder looked around. "Hey, where'd Silver go?"

Rain Kiss sat on the bench facing a small stream in the courtyard. All she wanted to do at that moment was watch the water flow. She didn't turn her head or acknowledge the light pink creature that sat next to her.

"Do you like the water too?" The creature next to her spoke softly.

Rain nodded but remained silent.

It was a while before the other creature spoke again. "Would you rather be home?"

Rain nodded again. There was another period of silence between them.

"Is it because you don't like it here, or are you just more comfortable at home?"

Rain drew a deep breath then let it out. "I feel like the gods are watching my home, not me. So when I'm away from home, it feels like I'm not under their care."

The other creature giggled. "The gods watch over those they care about, no matter where they are. There's no need to worry about them abandoning you."

"Are you sure about that?"

"My kind lives in two places. At the top of a mountain and the bottom of the sea. Our gods watch over us in both places."

Rain turned towards the other creature, finally realizing that it wasn't a pony. "What are you?"

"I'm a hippogriff." The pink creature grabbed the amulet around her neck. A swirl of magic engulfed her. Once it was gone, she looked like a horse crossed with a fish. "And now I'm a seapony."

Rain stared in awe. She hadn't heard of this kind of magic.

The creature turned back into the bird-like form she had earlier. "Anyway, I can help you make a shrine to your gods or something if that will help you settle in."

Rain looked back at the water, then smiled. "That would be nice."

"Excuse me, miss?"

Yona turned around. "Hello."

The small deer looked like he was about to be crushed. "Uh, d-do you know where Miss Fruity Sap is?"

Yona tilted her head.

"Er, I-I-I mean, Frontier Shot!"

Yona scratched her head.

"Ah! Uh, Flapper Shutter! No- That's not-"

"Fluttershy?"

"Er, y-yes. Her."

Yona pointed to her left. "She right there."

"Oh, uh, thanks." The deer darted off in the direction Yona was pointing.

"But I still think-" Fluttershy squeaked when something hit her side. She looked down. "Bramble? How are you doing? It's been a while."

Starlight raised her eyebrow. "You know him?"

"Oh, yes. There was an incident a while back, before we knew you, even."

"There were a lot of incidents from before you knew me."

"M-Miss Fluttershy?" Bramble was trembling. "W-what was that big thing?"

Fluttershy looked over at the "big thing." "Oh, her? That's Yona, one of our best students."

"W-What is she?"

"A yak. They come from the far north where it's constantly cold, so they need thick coats to protect them from the weather."

"You aren't afraid of her, are you?" Starlight watched Yona approach them. "She's a sweetheart. If anything, you're better off being near her."

Bramble hid behind Fluttershy, only for her to use her wing and push him in front of her.

The large creature looked down at the smaller one. The small one let out a whine.

"It's okay, Bramble." Fluttershy gently stroked his head. "She won't bite."

Yona leaned down and rubbed her nose against Bramble's, causing him to crinkle his nose. She followed it up by rubbing her cheek against his. Finally, she wrapped her hooves around his body and pulled him into a hug.

Bramble took a deep breath in, smiled, and let out his breath.

"Get off of my back!"

"Yarr! Enjoy manual labor, princess!"

Two seconds later, the black feline fell to the ground, causing the light gray parrot to faceplant into some... plants.

The female looked up to find a dragon hand reaching out to her. "You aren't helping me for gems, are you?"

"Nope."

The kitty girl raised an eyebrow but took the hand offered to her anyway. Once she was on her feet, she dusted off her dress. "I'm Anita. You?"

"I'm Smolder."

There was a cough nearby. "Name's Gallus."

"And I be Hector! The youngest pirate from Ornithia!"

Gallus raised an eyebrow. "Uh, cool. So are you a real princess?"

Anita rolled her eyes. "Yes. I am."

"Cool deal, missy."

Anita looked at the dragon, a slight smirk on her face.

"Beware the pirate, here for yer booty!" That statement earned Hector a slap from a cat, followed by a slap from the dragon. Followed by Rarity, who was apparently nearby, walking up and slapping him. Then another parrot came up from behind Gallus and slapped him as well.

"You touch my bottom, and I will rip your feathers out."

"I don't care if you meant my body part or my gems, but I won't let you near either one."

"How dare you say such a crude thing! You already earned an F from me and class hasn't even started yet!"

"You're giving parrots a bad image. If you keep acting like that, I'll drag you all the way back to Ornithia by your ankle. Without pit stops."

Hector was visibly nervous.

Gallus rubbed the back of his head. "Ouch. Four hit combo. You have to watch what you say around here."

Rarity looked at the older parrot. "Celaeno, how could you recommend such a crude boy to our school?"

Celaeno shrugged. "It wasn't my call. Some of the actual leaders of our kind decided he needed discipline or something."

"They didn't like how I did my pirate training."

Celaeno grabbed the young parrot by the ear. "Because you kept breaking into important places! You're lucky nothing ever broke!"

Rainbow dashed in out of nowhere. "Hey, Captain! Is this the kid you mentioned?"

"Y-yeah?"

"I need him real quick! Bye!" Rainbow suddenly grabbed Hector and flew off, leaving no time to react.

"Wha- Rainbow!" Celaeno ran after the pegasus.

Rarity sighed and turned to the cat. "I'm guessing you're Anita."

Anita bowed. "Indeed, madam."

"Wow. Super formal much?" Smolder started scratching Anita's head. "You're not earning princess points around here."

"Ebbehnehhh... Ahhhh."

The others stared at Anita for a moment. Anita herself seemed to take a moment to process what happened.

Once she did, she swatted Smolder's hand away. "Do not touch me there again, rogue."

Gallus moved up behind Anita and started scratching behind her ear. "Kitty like scritchies?"

"N-no! Don't touch me!" The unfortunate kitten went from commanding to pleading very quickly.

Smolder grabbed Anita's hands. "Aww. But it's so cute."

Gallus continued his assault on the feline's head. "And you like it, right?"

Anita helplessly struggled against her scratching assailants. "Nyaaaa! Miss Rarity! Help me!"

"Professor Rarity!" The trio of students was knocked over by a hippogriff. "I was just looking for you!"

"Oh, really?" Rarity looked at the three floored students and the kirin cautiously moving around them. "What for?"

"Well, Rain Kiss here is worried that her gods aren't watching her here, so we decided to make a small shrine for her to use. I don't know how much you know about religion, but I figured you could help make the designs accurately."

Smolder sat up. "Huh? Why a shrine? She can just pray, can't she?"

Anita used Smolder's head to stand back up. "Some creatures prefer to have a dedicated place to practice their religion. Just like how there are some that prefer not to actively practice their religion."

"Because religion is stupid."

Everyone looked right at Gallus. "What?"

"Gods aren't real. They're just something some desperate creatures made up."

Tears were appearing in Silver's eyes. "Even if that's true, you don't need to be so harsh about it. Let them think how they want to."

Gallus scratched his neck. "Well, it's just, it's not like the gods actually help any creatures."

"Care to run that by me again?" They all looked at Rain Kiss, whose body suddenly had flames coming out of it. "Dinner?"

Everyone's eyes went wide. Everyone but Smolder stepped back. Gallus was trying to respond but only succeeded in making strange noises.

*Splash*

All of a sudden, the flames were out and Rain was dripping wet. A bucket bounced off of Gallus' head and landed at his claws.

"I was gonna warn y'all about making her mad, but I think you get why that's a bad idea." Applejack put her hoof on Gallus' head. "I better not have to stop you from fighting someone else every year."

Rarity sighed. "Come along now, Rain. Let's make that shrine you want."

"To sum that mess of a speech up; if you steal from the other students, you run a hundred laps around the school. If you steal from the staff, it's a hundred laps around Ponyville itself. If you try to steal anything from Ponyville residents or if you steal from someone at the school ten times, you get expelled and Celaeno drags you back home, where you'll face the punishment you were originally supposed to! Are we clear?"

"Uh huh. Sure."

Rainbow looked at Hector, then followed his gaze. Right to her trophy cabinet. She thrust her hoof full force into his stomach.

Rainbow waited for the parrot to open his eyes before really laying it on thick. "YOU TOUCH ANY ONE OF THOSE FREAKING TROPHIES, AND I WILL RIP EVERY FEATHER FROM YOUR FREAKING BODY! YOU GOT THAT?"

Hector smiled, sweat drenching his head. "Y-yes ma'am."

Rainbow stepped off of him. "Good. And if you forget any of that, I will gladly beat it back into your head."

Hector took another look at the trophies before deciding not to enrage Rainbow Dash any further.

Celaeno stepped away from the closed door as soon as she heard Rainbow get close. Once the door opened, they locked eyes. "If you knew everything he did, you probably would have gotten pretty physical."

"I'm shocked I didn't with what I know already. He sounds pretty rotten."

Celaeno patted Rainbow on the head. "If anyone is gonna turn him around, it's you guys. Please don't let me or Lix down."

Rainbow nodded. "I won't. I promise."

"Hi, Little Strongheart! How have you been?"

The buffalo looked at Pinkie. "Hi, Warmaker."

Pinkie tilted her head. "Warmaker? That's a bit harsh, isn't it?"

"I personally blame Applejack and Rainbow Dash for not letting me talk with Braeburn while I had the chance to, but your horrible song is what really caused us to clash."

"Come on! I was trying to help!"

"And your unique way of helping only made things worse."

Twilight watched as Pinkie and Strongheart went on like that for a while.

Starlight walked past the two ungulates and over to Twilight. "Hector, the parrot representative, is already rubbing other creatures the wrong way, but everyone else is settling in just fine."

Twilight smiled. "It's going to be a good year."

Author's Note

Yup. I'm posting some things that were originally Patreon exclusive over here. This mostly gives me a chance to entice people into seeing what else I'm hiding behind that 5$ per month paywall I have. And if you can't afford it... I understand. I'm in that situation myself.

Former Patreon Content: Lost Memories 2

"So please keep in mind, your forest protects you, but our lands fight against us. Would you use a living Timberwolf as a shelter?"

Bramble looked around. "N-no. But that's because it's a threat to us!"

Strongheart sighed. "That's what I'm saying. Everything, where I come from, is a threat to us. Our only allies out there are the ponies and each other."

"B-but-"

Fluttershy put her hoof over the deer's back. "Bramble, you need to understand, not everyone comes from a place like the forest. Take the Dragon Lands, for example."

Smolder raised her eyebrow. "What are you talking about? There aren't any threats there aside from the other dragons. We've got lava baths, huge cliffs, and super hot caverns."

"Which is fine for a dragon, but a deer or buffalo wouldn't be able to last there."

Bramble's eye was twitching. "I'd die in a second!"

Anita nodded. "Most of the lands south of here are naturally dangerous until you get to Mt. Aris. We don't have the things you have in the forest, so we have to make do with what we have. Well, my ancestors did."

Silver giggled. "These days, you have to worry about things like White Panther."

Anita burst out laughing. "That's true!"

Gallus raised an eyebrow. "White Panther?"

"A nasty thief running amock in Abyssinia. Word is that she even stole a valuable jewel right from under the appraiser's nose, and slipped off with everything at a big auction."

Sandbar rubbed his head. "For being a nasty thief, you seem pretty happy to talk about him."

"Well, she ran rampant in Abyssinia, and we're in Ponyville."

Fluttershy started stroking her mane. "Um, Twilight mentioned that you have some strange fascinations. I'm guessing that's one of them."

Rain Kiss cleared her throat. "Back on the original subject, the Kirin also live with our environment, like the deer. We have no need to fight against nature where we live, so why should we?"

Fluttershy's ears shot up. "Oh, yes! It's quite a sight to see! I'd love to go back there sometime!"

Several of the students giggled.

"Oh!" Silver turned to Fluttershy. "Field trip, maybe?"

Fluttershy gasped. "That sounds like a wonderful idea!"

The students cheered as Smolder took Fluttershy's photo, causing her to make, well, that pose.

Rainbow stepped in as Fluttershy was rubbing her eyes. "Aww, did you just win teacher of the month again?"

"Um... I guess."

Rainbow groaned. "Not what I wanted to see." Rainbow looked around the room. "And I'm not seeing what I want to see. Have you seen Hector?"

Fluttershy shook her head. "He said he was going to be with you today."

"He was supposed to be, but he never showed! I really don't get why we put up with him most of the time."

Gallus scratched his cheek. "Uh, he's not ransacking our stuff again, is he?"

Smolder let out a growl. "He better not. I've already singed his feathers twice for that."

Sandbar gulped. "Can we go check real quick?"

"Um, I'm sorry, but I can't let you go until-"

The school bell suddenly rang, causing all of the students to stampede out of the room, knocking Fluttershy over and making Rainbow spin like a top.

Pinkie poked her head into the room. "What were they in a rush for?"

The pegasi responded at the same time. "Hector."

Pinkie stared at her friends before looking down the hall. "Oh."

"No! Stop! I am a pirate! This is what I do!"

Applejack's expression didn't change at all as she dragged the parrot through the halls by his legs.

"Whose room was he in?"

Applejack looked at the crowd of students. "Wow. Did y'all even wait for the bell?"

"Yeah. Barely."

Applejack sighed. "He was in Anita's room. Don't think he got anything out of her room, though."

"I'll be the judge of that!" Anita stomped towards Hector, who was struggling against the ropes around his legs. She immediately started rummaging through his pockets.

"Wait! No! I didn't take anything! Honest!"

"Then what is this?" The cat held up a necklace.

"I-I-I was gonna give it back! Really!"

Anita rolled her eyes. "Sure you were."

Applejack raised her eyebrow. "That's, what, five times now?"

Hector covered his eyes.

"Hector." Enter Twilight Sparkle. "You have not only tried to rob a classmate again, but you also skipped on your class to do so. You have no idea how hard it is for me to resist sending you back home to face your fate."

"Yeah, yeah. Whatever."

Twilight sighed. "Come along. I doubt detention will do anything, but it's always worth a shot."

With that, Twilight dragged the pouty parrot away.

Rarity stared as she entered and they left. "Nothing in his room but his own things."

Anita let out a soft tsk. "Not a very good thief, is he? Anyone here would do better than him."

"But Yona trusts her friends not to steal from her."

"Exactly. Part of being a thief is slipping under the radar, being unsuspicious. He's done everything but scream that he's stealing things. He's kind of pathetic, really."

Ocellus bit her lip. "Well, there was that time he yelled out that he got away with stealing one of Professor Rainbow's trophies."

Anita stared at the changeling before burying her face in her paw. The others all giggled, then burst out laughing.

Celaeno looked out across the sky she was sailing. "Did you need something, Mullet?"

"Yer losing yer touch, captain."

She turned around. "Hey, Lix. I'm guessing this is about your nephew."

"I can't help it. His parents aren't around anymore, so I'm the closest thing he has to a parental figure."

"And you've done as good of a job as you could have, all things considered."

Lix sighed. "Figures. I hop back on for one voyage, and we end up enslaved by that psychotic monkey."

Celaeno chuckled. "At least he's gone now."

"He knows what'll happen if he don't shape up, right?"

"The council told Twilight, and they expect her to tell him."

"So he may not know."

"Assuming Twilight didn't tell him."

Lost Memories 3

"And why is Hector here?"

Rainbow sighed. "Because he's a student and he's been on good behavior for just long enough. Really wish he was in detention right now."

Silver looked at their destination. A dance club they had reservations for. "Well, as long as someone keeps him in sight, he won't be able to cause too much trouble."

"Why are you guys acting like I'm a criminal?"

Gallus prodded Hector's beak. "Because you are! And you advertise it very loudly!"

"I'm not a criminal! I'm a pirate!"

Ocellus rolled her eyes. "The titles are not mutually exclusive."

"Um... What's it like in there?"

Yona leaned over to Bramble. "Remember the thing Silver did that gave you a headache?"

Bramble's face went pale. "Uh, is it too late to turn back now?"

Smolder slapped the deer on the back. "Don't worry! You're gonna like it!"

Rain scratched her head. "Is it bad that I don't know what Yona was talking about?"

"Try not to think about it."

Strongheart turned to Cozy Glow. "That makes me even more worried."

"Could you all be quiet?" Anita had a huge smile on her face. "I'm trying not to let my excitement disappear."

Rainbow looked at Anita. "Have you been in a club before?"

"Yeah! And it's so exciting!"

Anita rested her chin on the table. "This is so boring."

Rain looked at the flashing lights on the dance floor. "Well, it's certainly more tolerable than I thought it would be."

Smolder chuckled and placed her arm around Rain's shoulders. "At least someone thinks so. How long did Bramble last?"

The blushing kirin put her hoof to her cheek. "Eight minutes."

"And how far did he get?"

Anita looked at the janitors by the door. "Not far enough."

Hector stretched his arms over his head. "It's a shame Yona and Strongheart had to take him back to the school."

Anita eyed DJ Pon-3. "To be fair, I don't think either of them really wanted to be here either."

Across the room, Silver was scratching her head. "What's with all the ballads?"

Gallus sighed. "I think it was Twilight's request. She didn't want us going too wild."

Sandbar took a bite out of the sandwich sitting in front of him. "Actually, I think it was so Bramble wouldn't get overwhelmed."

Ocellus looked at the janitors by the door. "Not that it actually helped."

Cozy looked at the DJ. "Should I tell her?"

"Uh..." Gallus rubbed the back of his head while looking at the dance floor. "There seem to be ponies that are fine with it."

Silver looked at some of the other booths. "Yeah, but there are also ponies that clearly aren't."

"Oh my goodness!"

The others looked at Cozy.

"S-Smolder just..." Cozy started laughing. "She..."

Silver followed Cozy's gaze to the opposite booth. Rain had her hooves over her face while Smolder scratched Rain's head.

"Silver? Do you see what she's laughing at?"

Silver looked at Ocellus. "Not really." She turned back to the booth. "Wait, where's-"

A record scratch drew everyone's attention to the DJ booth, where Anita was standing with a record in her hand. "Sorry. I know some of you where having fun." She held the record in her left hand. "But me? I was getting rather bored." With a flick of her wrist, the record appeared in her right hand. "Time for a change of pace."

The cat placed the record on the turntable, and a different song started playing. Anita stepped onto the floor to the beat of the song, pulling out a pair of glowing batons. As she got close to the center of the floor, she started spinning them around.

"What is she doing?"

Once the first verse started, she started twirling her own body while the lights above her dimmed, making her batons stand out more. The aura she was giving off was of both dominance and elegance, making some of the onlookers think of their own princesses. While Anita did pose from time to time, she never stayed still for long, often moving between poses before anyone could piece together how she was positioned.

When the chorus came, she suddenly tossed her batons in the air, twirled for a few feet, then caught them. All in time with the music.

"Is she a juggler or a dancer?"

Ocellus' friends were to entranced to respond.

Hector moved to the edge of the booth he was in.

The third time Anita tossed her batons, she pulled two more out of nowhere, throwing them as well. She then posed four times, catching each baton with each pose, before the second verse kicked in. During the second verse, she continued tossing her batons and twirling her body. Several ponies joined in, though none dared get close to Anita herself as she continued to juggle her batons.

Smolder nudged Rain, then nodded towards Hector. Rain smirked, then slid up behind Hector before igniting her horn and knocking him onto the floor.

And into Anita. Her response was swift and certain.

She forced two of her batons into his claws before resuming her dance in time for the chorus to come back. Hector took a moment before starting to move rather stiffly.

Smolder and Rain both giggled. But their amusement turned to amazement as Hector started getting more into the beat, no doubt with some silent help from Anita. By the time they got to the bridge, both of the creatures were moving in sync with the music and each other. It was as if their dance was planned out, in spite of its impromptu nature.

"Is he really..."

Rain started fanning herself. "Who knew our trouble maker was a good dancer?"

The duo posed four times before the final chorus. They both tossed their batons in the air, danced a few feet, then caught each other's batons, then repeated. They both tossed the batons a third time, but this time Anita caught all four as Hector backed out. Anita moved to the remainder of the song on her own, with Hector watching while just as entranced as the ponies that weren't dancing.

Once the song finished, Anita held one last pose before her observers let out a loud applause. Anita herself smiled at Hector, who returned the smile.

"Well done, kitty! Well done!" DJ Pon-3 pulled out a few more records. "Well, now that we're out of the ballad section, how about we really get this party going!"

"DID SOMEONE SAY PARTY?" In true Pinkie Pie fasion, she popped out of the dance floor.

The nine creatures were laughing as they left the club.

"Thanks for that, Anita." Cozy took a moment to catch her breath. "It was getting pretty boring until you did that."

Smolder pat the cat on the back. "Yeah. That was amazing. Not sure I could have lasted if you hadn't done that."

"Hadn't done what?"

The students looked up. It was Twilight. A few of them struggled to find any words at the moment.

Gallus lifted a claw. "If this is about Bramble, he couldn't handle the lights by themselves. Made a mess of the entrance and had to be dragged of by Yona and Strongheart. By the time things really got kicking, he was long gone."

Twilight stared at them, her expression stern. Her students were starting to sweat.

Except for Cozy Glow. "So, how long are you gonna keep this up?"

Twilight sighed. "Bramble told me that already. I was more worried about how Rain would react to the louder music of a dance club."

Rain chuckled. "Thank you for thinking of me, but I can appreciate all kinds of music. Seeing Anita dancing also let me appreciate the music they played."

Twilight smiled. "That's good. I was worried you were going to be bothered by how loud it can get."

"I don't want my preferences ruining other's experiences. And to be honest, the dull music almost ruined mine. I'm fine with different cultures rubbing off on me."

Cozy floated up to Rain and whispered something into her ear. Something that made Rain's face go completely red.

Smolder cleared her throat. "So, how is Bramble?"

"He's fine now." Twilight looked towards some hills in the distance. "Yona and Strongheart took him somewhere quiet and peaceful so he could wind down. The three of them are back at the school now."

Hector looked back at the club. "So, how about we do this again sometime?"

"You're free to return to that club any time." Twilight turned around. "Just don't expect it to be on the school's funds."

Anita giggled. "Good thing I have my own."

The group of creatures started laughing again.

Silver leaned over to Gallus. "Hey, does Hector seem different somehow?"

"He probably just likes dancing."

Silver looked at the parrot. "I don't think that's it. Maybe he just wanted someone to treat him like a friend."

Cozy floated over. "If what I read is right, you won't want to know what I know."

The two half-birds raised their eyebrows. "What is that?"

"You don't want to know."

Author's Note

And with that, we'll be going back to the original story of puzzles, death, and confusing plot points. Yay!

Hour one: Of Life and Love

"Uh, Gallus?" I look over at Cozy Glow. "Why... Nevermind." She mumbles something to herself.

Gallus shrugs. "So, who's going where?"

"Yak want door 7!" We all look at Yona. She got pretty loud just now.

The one least bothered by her volume was Gallus, who just chuckled. "Alright. We'll just have to work with that."

"I want 2." Rain holds up her bracelet. "Same number."

Rain... Something about being near her suddenly feels... odd.

"Hey, Silver? Are you alright?"

I look at Gallus. "Yeah. I'm fine. I'm just... thinking."

"Well, unless it's which door to go through, that can wait."

"Door 2." I say that without thinking much, but I do want to go through that door.

Gallus smiles. "Sounds good to me."

There's a bit more discussion about who goes where. Bramble wants to go with Yona, Sandbar wants to go with Ocellus, Gallus wants door 2 and the others want to go through door 7.

Gallus is scratching his head. "Well, that's a problem. Door 2 has three creatures that add up to 4, and door 7 has six creatures that add up to 5. We need a change of 7 for things to work."

"Alright, so what adds up to 7?" We all stare at Smolder. "... No."

Cozy shrugs. "We'll be stuck here otherwise."

"Send Ocellus and Sandbar over!"

"No!" Both of them responded at once.

"Then you're both holding us up! Not me!"

Gallus coughs. "How about this. You get first pick at the next set of doors."

Smolder glares at him, then rolls her eyes. "Ugh. Fine."

For some reason, my eyes drift to Sandbar as he scans his bracelet. I don't know why, but I suddenly have a sinking feeling about him. Am I afraid that he's... Zero?

"Silver, come on."

The door 7 crew is already through their door, and the others going through door 2 are waiting on me. I head over and scan my bracelet into the RED. We head through the door into the greenhouse.

... Wait. How did I know this would be a greenhouse? This whole thing is confusing, and we're just getting started.

"Silver! The DEAD!"

Oh, right! I rush over, scan in, and pull the lever.

Smolder prods my head. "You need to sit this one out, Sil? You look pretty out of it."

I sigh. "I really am right now. I need a break."

Rain shrugs. "Go ahead. We've got this."

"Thanks." I head over to the aquarium. How did I know it was here? I saw it, that's why.

...

"You want to talk?" Gallus sits next to me.

"I do, but I don't know where to start."

"Let's start with why you wanted door 2."

I lean on his shoulder. "Rain."

"What about Rain?"

I can barely see Rain in the reflection of the glass. "I just feel like... like I need to make something up to her. Like I wronged her somehow. I don't know why."

"Because of her crush on you, maybe?"

... Huh? I look Gallus in the eye.

"You know how Sandbar and Ocellus will make goo-goo eyes at each other when the other isn't looking? I once saw her making that face while looking at you."

I look at Rain directly. "That might be it. I don't see her as any more than a good friend, but I really don't want to break her heart."

Gallus sighs and drapes his wing over my back. "I'll help you find her someone but only once we're out of here. Until then, love has no role in what we're doing."

"Maybe Sandbar thinks that way."

I feel his wing stiffen. "What?"

"I don't know why, but I get the feeling that Sandbar might be Zero."

Gallus rubs the back of his head. "Have you heard of the Morphogenetic Field?"

"Yeah. You mentioned it while we were in... door... 1."

He smirks. "We aren't at door 1 yet. If you focus, you might remember what happened in that other timeline."

I close my eyes and focus...

...

"Ocellus, Cozy, Rain, and Smolder died in the second set of doors, then I saw Yona dead in front of me. I found Rain's diary, detailing her life at the school and her crush on me, then Zero appeared and talked to me."

"There you go. It can't be one of the other girls. What makes you think it's Sandbar specifically?"

"Well, you've been so helpful to me, and Bramble has never done anything suspicious."

"So Bramble is too innocent, and you don't think it's me because I've been helping you?"

I scratch the back of my head. "Well, yeah. There's not really anything that I can use to defend Sandbar."

"Are you sure about that?"

I close my eyes and focus again... "I really don't. The one time I didn't see Zero was the one time I knew Sandbar died." The first timeline, I was told Sandbar died. That is the only timeline so far that I didn't see Zero at the end of things.

"Maybe you'll find something to defend him with."

"I doubt that."

*CLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANG*

... My ears. My poor ears.

"Hey, guys! We finished the puzzle!"

Gallus moves away from me. "Gee, you don't say!"

I head over to the window. All of the traps have been triggered. "How did you set it off?"

"We found a clay ball to chuck in." Smolder points up. "It was hanging from the ceiling."

Rain is rubbing her head. "Good job, Smolder."

"Thanks!" I think Smolder heard the words and not the tone.

"Well, let's go." I hop through the hole and into the room below. There's no threat here anymore, so I can just fly across to the door. Or the lever to open the door, rather. Now through the door.

Huh? "Hey, why is that door open?"

The others look at the open door as well.

"That's odd."

"I wonder what's through there."

"Only one way to find out." Smolder flies through.

"Smolder!" We follow her.

Inside are two things; a glass orb, and a message on the wall.

"Only the LUCCKY can survive. Zero is the PRISONER."

... Whaaaaaaaat?

Smolder has her hand to her head. "Why is lucky misspelled?"

Rain has her hoof to the message. "Zero is the prisoner? What's that supposed to mean?"

Gallus scratches his head. "Is it an anagram? That could explain the extra C."

I look at the orb. "Well, this might help." I place my claw on the orb.

"This is incredible! How long has this been down here?"

"It was good to be home."

"So this is Gallus? I can see why you like him. He's cute."

"He's mine!"

"I'm not making it up. If you saw half of what I saw, you'd think the same way about them."

"Uncle Highwind? Wha- tha- huh?"

"How is she? After the accident and all."

"I don't know. She hasn't gotten back to us."

!!! AH! Those were... Wait. UNCLE HIGHWIND IS ALIVE? But, no. I saw... he died. What is... how did... Huh?

"Woah!"

The others apparently grabbed the orb while I was holding it.

"That was... trippy." I think Smolder is right.

"What happened to Strongheart?"

I look at Rain, then scratch my head. "Something happened with her tribe she had to go home for. If she came back or sent a message, it was after our memories cut off again."

Rain sighs. "We were about to go on a field trip too. I wish I could remember it."

"It's alright, Kissu. We can visit once this is over."

... Wait. "Kissu?"

Wow. I didn't know dragons could turn that shade of red. At least, the ones that aren't red naturally.

Gallus is smirking. "Smolder, how long have you two, uh..."

"NO! We, uh, there's nothing going on! We're just, uh, friends!"

Wait.

... There was that time when we visited the Peaks of Peril and saw Rain's home, Smolder and Rain went somewhere by themselves.

"CUTE COUPLE WANTS TO BATTLE!"

"I'm not cute!" Smolder takes a moment to process that she just denied the cute part and not the couple part.

This is so EXCITING! I have to hug them!

"Gah! Silver! No!"

Rain just giggles. Oh? She's just as red as Smolder.

"You two have to give me every detail of how you two started dating, starting from the top!"

Smolder is pushing on my chest. "This is why I didn't want anyone finding out!"

"Uh, should I come back later?"

We all look at the doorway. Sandbar is standing there.

"Yeah. And bring the others. We found something crazy."

Sandbar nods at Gallus then walks off. Sandbar...

"Could you please not tell anyone else?... Silver?..." Ow! "SILVER!"

"W-what?"

Smolder looks mad. "Could you not tell anyone else, please?"

"Uh, sure."

"Silver?" Rain has her hoof on my shoulder. "Are you okay?"

I look at the door. Should I tell them?

"She thinks she knows who Zero is, but I don't agree with her guess." And Gallus just told them.

"And who does she think-" Smolder's eyes shoot wide as she turns to the doorway. "No. Sandbar? There's no way!"

"You might not want to share that assumption with anyone else." Rain steps away a bit. "They might think you lost it."

"Right." I hear voices through the door. Soon enough, the others step into the room.

Yona tilts her head. "An orb?"

Ocellus steps up to it. "Well, let's see what it does."

The five of them touch it. All of their eyes glow for a few seconds. Once their eyes stop glowing, they all jerk back.

"Oh, yeah." Cozy eyes Rain and Smolder. "The two of you were going out, right?"

"ARRRRDFDFDFDFDSDFJIADPSDVJERO" ??? Did Smolder have a seizure?

Bramble looks shocked. "Wait, is that true?"

Ocellus is smiling. "Aww, that's sweet!"

Sandbar is rubbing his head. "Yeah, I kinda figured when I overheard Silver mention it."

Yona is scratching her head. "But why?"

Rain waves her hoof around. "You wouldn't understand."

Snapping? Why is Gallus snapping his claws? "We can discuss this later. What do you guys make of that message?"

"Uh... They misspelled lucky?" Thanks, Sandbar. Thanks.

"There's probably a reason for it." Ocellus moves over to the message.

Gallus is beside her in a moment. "I'm thinking anagrams. Why else would there be an extra C?"

"Hey, Silver?"

"What is it, Bramble?"

"Since when was Gallus this, well, smart?"

I look at Gallus. He does seem to be smarter than he usually was.

"I think it has something to do with the rest of our missing memories." Cozy? "Let's say something needs to be moved from one part of a forest to another. If the first part of the forest burns down but nothing else does, then whatever was moved out of it is still safe. Memories and knowledge are the same way. Even if we forget we learned something, that doesn't mean we forget what we learned."

Bramble looks at Gallus. "I suppose that's fair. But can we lose knowledge without forgetting that we learned it?"

"Well, heh, it depends on how well we remember learning that thing, though it would probably involve recreating how you learned the first time to the best of your ability."

Huh. Yona's been pretty quiet. I look at her... huh? "Yona? You seem pale."

Her eyes snap towards me. "Hehehe. Yak just... cold. That's all."

A yak getting cold. That's a new one.

"I'm not coming up with anything. No anagrams at all." Ocellus sits down. "And at face value, it doesn't make much sense. They wouldn't misspell a word like that unless it was intentional. Zero being a prisoner makes less sense. Even if they are one of us involved in this game, they probably have a way out of here."

Gallus scratches his head. "And it's not like they're trying to save a past version of himself or anything."

... The Morphogenetic Field. It allows anyone that can access it the ability to send information across timelines and to their past self. What Gallus said... I might forgive them if that really is the case. Otherwise, how would they live?

"Silver?" Smolder has her hand on my shoulder. "You look out of it again."

"What if Gallus is right?" ... Wait, I need to clarify that. "What if Zero had a good reason to trap us here? Would it be possible to forgive him?" I give them time to answer.

"No way." Not that Smolder needed any. "This is way too far for any justification."

"Well..." Rain scratches her head. "If they really are trying to find a way to survive something."

"Nevermind the death traps they could fall victim to." Cozy... has a point.

"Well, maybe they have a way to avoid dying."

"Don't get off topic! What could possibly justify their actions?"

Uh oh.

"Nothing! That's what!"

"There might be something!"

They're raising their voices.

"And what would that be?"

"Guys, calm down."

"No!"

I'm getting out of here before they cause another panic attack.

I slip out the door and head down the hall. Once I get to the doors to the infirmary, I sit down.

"So you start a fight and bail?"

I'm not going to look at Gallus. "I didn't want to have another-"

"Maybe you're Zero."

WHAT? "Hold on. You're not serious, are you?"

He looks very serious. "Everything that casts suspicion on Sandbar comes from you. You're the cause of the groups two big arguments across the timelines. And you've done nothing to defend yourself."

"Hey, don't blame me for the first one! You came up with the plan to-"

He presses his claw to my beak. "Don't make this about me. Why should I trust you?"

... I don't have an answer. What can I even say right now?

*DING DING*

"Well, Silver?"

Hour Two: Superstition

I bite my beak and take a step back. He's saying... I'M ZERO?

"Well, Silver? Do you have an answer?"

How can I even respond to that? What do I say?

"Come on, Silver. Say something."

Why would he accuse me? What did I do?

"Why won't you say anything?"

"How about she shouldn't have to?"

!!! Smolder leads the others into the room. Yona and Rain step between me and Gallus, and Cozy wraps her hooves around me. The rest surround him (though I don't know how much Bramble can do in this situation).

Gallus looks around at the others. "Weren't you guys arguing?"

Ocellus shrugs. "We figured it wasn't worth arguing over if we would forgive them or not. They probably have an unforgivable reason anyway."

"Why would you accuse her of being Zero? You don't really think she would do something like this, do you?"

Gallus looks right at Sandbar. "To be quite frank, any one of us could be Zero. If we don't suspect each other, we'll keep playing right into his claws." He starts moving around like there isn't an angry mob around him. "He'll pull the strings, control your actions, and lead you all right to failure. Everything will end, and the truth will be forever lost."

Yona lets out a growl, but Rain is the one to speak up. "Do you really think she's Zero?"

Gallus shrugs. "I know she isn't. I just want her to prove that to all of you."

Really? He put that pressure on me and stressed me out... over something he already knew? Why did I fall for him again?

Smolder's face is in her hand. "I'm gonna have to keep an eye on you."

Sandbar rolls his eyes. "So, what are we doing right now? Looking for things that could help us?"

Cozy looks at the door to the infirmary. "The next set of doors are through there. How about we look around until the next chime."

Everyone nods except Gallus, who just stands there.

"Anyone that misses the chime gets a wet willie!" Uh oh. Smolder can actually do that.

"That's not sexual, is it?"

We all look at Rain and burst out laughing. How does she not know?

Ocellus shakes her head. "It's where she wets her finger and sticks it in your ear. It's not sexual."

Sandbar lets out a few more laughs before taking a deep breath. "Alright, let's split up."

Ah. It's nice to get a good laugh in times like this.

I suddenly feel Gallus' breath on my ear. "Don't trust the pony."

... Did he just confirm that Sandbar is Zero? I watch him as he and Smolder enter the infirmary. I guess he thinks the same thing I do.

"You okay, Silver?"

I look at Cozy Glow. "Yeah. I'm just letting my imagination run wild."

"As usual."

"Hey!"

She giggles. "I didn't say that it's a bad thing. All the time. Anyway, I can search around here by myself, if you want to look somewhere else."

I look around. "Actually, I think I'll just ask questions for now."

"Well then, ask away."

"Why do you think you were given bracelet 9?"

She shrugs. "Probably nothing specific. If they had a reason to distrust me, they would have given me it as a crutch."

"A crutch?"

"Moving forward, the easiest way to form a team is to make nine with two bracelets and have them pair up with whoever has the bracelet of that door. As a result, I'll be stuck with whatever team is formed after that happens."

"So you won't get a say in where you go." I get it. If Zero is afraid of Cozy, they would want Cozy to have the least say in what we do. Though that is a pretty big if. There's not much reason for anyone to distrust her. "Any idea why we were kidnapped?"

"Chance? Fate? Who knows? The only constant is that we all go to the School of Friendship, but even that doesn't quite work. They could have grabbed Anita, Hector, or Strongheart as well."

I scratch my ear. "They probably only needed nine of us. Besides, Anita is a princess, Hector is a nuisance, and the last time we heard from Strongheart, she headed home for some mysterious reason."

"True, but that assumes that the memories we just got back were the last memories we ever had. It's possible that she came home."

"Even then, they might want to cripple the school by taking away it's best students. Especially the one that gets the most work done."

She squishes her cheeks. "Aww. Thanks."

"When did I say that was you?"

"Hey!"

We share a giggle.

"You know, I'm not quite sure what to make of you."

"Me?"

I nod. "Sometimes I feel like something is off about you but can't place what. Other times, you feel like a perfectly normal pony or someone I can trust to the end of the world."

She sticks her tongue out and looks up. "Mmm... Let me put it this way; you don't have to worry about what I'm going to do."

I smile. "I'll keep that in mind." I look around.

"Ocellus and Sandbar went that way, Bramble and Yona went that way, and Rain went that way."

"Thanks, Cozy." I guess I'll talk to Sandbar and Ocellus next.

This hallway... I don't think it's really been significant. Either way, there they are.

Ocellus is the first to notice me. "Hey, Silver. We've got this place covered."

"I'm not searching. I'm asking questions."

Sandbar smiles at me like he's not Zero. "Alright. What's on your mind?"

"About what happened earlier..."

"You mean with Gallus? Or before the first set of doors?"

"Yeah, you seemed pretty upset at that point. I'm glad you calmed down."

Uh... What?

Ocellus puts her hoof to her cheek. "I'm not sure why you broke down, though."

"Well, the rest of us were going at each other pretty hard."

What are they talking about?

"Sandbar, what are you talking about? We weren't fighting earlier."

"Yes, we were. Cozy was mad at me, Smolder was mad at Gallus-"

Ocellus raises her eyebrow. "No, Silver just broke down crying and screaming. It wasn't until Rain suggested-"

"Rain wasn't arguing until-"

"There was no arguing."

"I think you're both losing it." They stare at me. I was expecting that. "I don't remember anything significant happening before the first set of doors. I was talking about what happened after I left the room with the orb."

"Oh, that?" Ocellus rubs the back of her head. "Well, I tried to diffuse it by thinking of something that would justify this, but Sandbar beat me to the punch by pointing out that we shouldn't worry about it right away."

"Once we find out who Zero is, we can decide if we forgive them or not. After all, I didn't want another big fight." And Sandbar is talking crazy again and doing nothing to stave off my suspicions.

"Again, we didn't fight before the first set of doors."

Ocellus prods Sandbar. "See?"

"And I didn't break down crying. I don't know where either of you got the idea that something happened before the first set of doors."

"Um..."

"Well..."

I sigh. I think it's time to switch topics. "What do you two think of Rain?"

"She's nice but doesn't talk much. In fact, I think I've heard her voice more here than I did in a week at the school."

Ocellus taps her chin. "From what I've read, kirin have a natural enemy in the form of the nirik. I wonder if she's so passive because of them."

I scratch my head. "Nirik?"

"I wish I could describe them in detail, but all I really know is that they are a natural enemy of the Kirin that resemble them somewhat."

"Hey, do you think that's what Rain turned into?"

I tilt my head. "What are you talking about?"

"Back when she broke up the first argument."

How do I even respond to that? Why is he still saying that happened?

"Let it go, Sandbar." I think Ocellus is just as frustrated as I am, even though she's imagining things as well.

Next topic, before things get weirder. "Who do you guys think Zero is?"

"Probably Gallus or Smolder, since they're the pranksters of the group."

Wait, what? "Prank?"

"Sandbar, you don't think this is all a prank, do you?"

"I'm hopeful it is. It's probably not, but I hope it is."

At least he's acknowledging that he could be wrong on that.

"I don't have any idea who Zero is. For all we know, they may not even be one of the participants."

"That's a good point." That doesn't make me think it isn't Sandbar, though. I just have to be ready to admit it might not be him.

I think that's all I have to ask them for now. Well, I have one more thing to ask Sandbar, but I don't want to ask it in front of Ocellus. "I'm going to talk to the others."

"See you at the hour."

I head back. I don't think I've spoken to Rain that much. I head over to her.

She quickly notices me. "Hello."

"Hey. I'd like to ask some questions."

"Sure."

"Who do you think Zero is?"

She shrugs...

...

Uh, okay. "Why do you think we were kidnapped?"

She shrugs... again...

...

Wow. "Do you remember anything happening before the first set of doors?"

She shakes her head...

...

"Are you..."

She giggles. "Sorry, I didn't see a need for complex answers, so I chose to remain silent."

Okay, that was amusing. "So, you and Smolder..."

She's blushing. "Y-you wouldn't understand. It was a connection that wouldn't be considered normal. Let's just say, she understands part of me that I never thought anyone else would."

"And that understanding connected you two and it blossomed from there?"

"Yeah." Hah! She looks so embarrassed.

"Mind if I ask about the nirik?"

"Well, they aren't exactly kind creatures." She's still blushing.

"Rain, is there something you don't want to tell me?"

"Well, the nirik... I guess I can trust you. The truth about the nirik is that they are kirin."

Interesting. "You mean, they're kirin that-"

"No, that's what we call kirin that get too angry. Because that's when we change. We thought it was something to fear until Lady Autumn Blaze showed us that we could control it. Since then, there have been fewer nirik issues."

"So, how well can you control it?"

"Vvvvvvvvvery well." Well, that's one way to say it.

"Have any of the others seemed off to you?"

Rain sighed. "I was hoping you wouldn't ask. I feel like there's something wrong with Gallus."

... GALLUS? "Wait, what do you mean?"

"The others seem to be almost exactly the same as when I first met them. Gallus, however, seems much smarter. And some of the things he said earlier really make me wonder if he knows something that we don't."

"Things such as..."

"Even beyond him accusing you of being Zero before saying he knows you aren't, the way he worded some of his statements seemed strange to me. Almost like he already knew who Zero was."

I raise my eyebrow. "You don't think it's him, do you?"

"I can't rule it out, but I believe Zero is someone outside of our group. I hope that, at worst, it's Hector or Anita. At least, someone like that."

"Why?"

"Because they can be more easily proven to be Zero, meaning they are more likely to be brought to justice."

I put my claw to my chin. "I see."

"I know you think it's Sandbar, but I really doubt he would do this. We can't use faith to prove who is or isn't Zero."

"Thanks for talking to me. I feel like I understand some things better."

"No problem."

I head back to the infirmary. I want to talk to Smolder while this is still on my mind.

Smolder is near the beds of the infirmary, while Gallus is searching around the drugs. I head over to the dragon.

"Hey. We've got this area."

"I know. I'm just asking everyone questions."

"What would you ask me?"

"Well, I asked Rain how the two of you got together, but she couldn't bring herself to tell me."

She looks me dead in the eye... and smiles. "Really? It's kind of a fun story."

"I won't tell anyone."

"I don't care. I like how it happened."

I sit down. "When did it start?"

"When we visited the Peaks of Peril. Rain went off on her own at one point. I got curious, so I followed her. She eventually reached a clearing, then let out a scream and got engulfed in flames. When they died down, her coat had turned black and there were pink flames all over her body. I realized what had happened since we were warned about the nirik just before that. She thrashed around a bit, then noticed I was there. She tried to scare me off. Once I realized why I did what any dragon would."

My heart is pounding. "You fought her?"

"She had a ton of steam to blow off from various frustrations at the school, and I had been itching to fight someone for quite a while. We got so aggressive that if anyone had seen us, they would have either run or tried to save us from each other. Her coat eventually went back to normal, so I lightened up. Once the flames vanished, she fell to her knees. I walked over to her and hugged her. That's when I noticed how tired I was from our fight."

Wow. "Then you kissed?"

"Nah. That didn't happen for a while. We laid there holding each other until we were able to get back up and rejoin the group. She had an image of calmness to maintain, so we kept it quiet for a while. When we got back to Ponyville, we found a place we could fight without bothering anyone. We probably went at it eight or nine more times before our first kiss."

"Really? You fought that much?"

"Yeah, and we would cuddle up after each and every fight. Though as time went on, our fights got shorter and our rest time got longer. I didn't notice or mind until our assignment about foreign plants. Rain and I went to our spot and did the assignment. Once we were done, I asked if she wanted to fight, and she said no."

"So you skipped to the cuddling?"

"I grabbed her and held her for a while. She kissed me on the cheek. So I grabbed the sides of her face and kissed her on the lips. We just laid there like that for a while."

"Wait. Wait. Don't tell me. Is that why you didn't show up for class the next day?"

Those red cheeks say everything. "We fell asleep while like that. The headmare found us, dragged us back to school, and only gave us a warning for missing class since we did the assignment. Then she told us we were free to explore our relationship as long as it didn't make the other students uncomfortable or get in the way of our studies."

"Did you ever fight after that?"

"Once. Someone she had a crush on got on her bad side, so she needed to let it out as much as possible."

Oops. That would be my prank gone too far. "I didn't even mean for half of that stuff to happen. It just did."

"Doesn't save you from her anger, though. Anyway, I need to get back to looking. Looking for nothing."

I turn to leave. Gallus.

"Hey, Silver. What's up?"

"What you said earlier, about-"

"Don't know what you're talking about." That smile says otherwise. "Just keep your wits about you and you'll be fine. Anyway, how are your memories?"

"What? We all touched the-"

"I mean from the other timelines."

"Oh. That. Well, things aren't exactly clear. I'm getting bits and pieces of other timelines, but it feels like I'm watching a string of random scenes cut out from two or three movies. Disjointed and obscure. It feels like I'm not able to access the field all that well."

"It's like any other skill. Unless you're naturally good at it, you have to practice and practice until you're good enough. Like me."

Wait. Is he saying... "Do you... remember something we don't?"

"Maybe, maybe not. Why do you want to know?"

"I want to know who I can trust."

*DING DING DING*

"The other's will be back soon. We'll talk later."

Author's Note

Hehehe. The best part of writing all of this is that I can slip foreshadowing in with red herrings, and you won't know which is which. It could be the heavy-handed not so subtle hints, or it could be the things you didn't even notice.

You won't know until it comes to pass.

Hour Three: Digging for Answers

"One two three four five six seven eight... We're missing someone."

Bramble's face goes pale. "Really?"

I scratch my head. "Yeah. One two three-"

"Did you count yourself?"

... "Nevermind. We're all here."

The others laugh. I can't believe I missed that.

Gallus rubs his head. "Alright, Smolder. What do you want to do?"

"I'm taking Rain and Yona through door 1."

A chill runs down my spine. "Are you sure about that?"

"Don't worry." Rain starts moving towards the door. "We'll be fine."

"What about the rest of us?"

Smolder shrugs. "I don't care. Just try not to die."

We watch the three of them go through the door.

"Um, if you guys don't mind, I'd like to go with Sandbar."

We all look at Ocellus.

"Well, it's either him and Silver or Bramble and Cozy. Those two pairs make 8, which each of us needs to get through. You go through door 3, and I go through door 5."

I'm going with Sandbar! If I go with Gallus, I can just ask him! If I go with Ocellus though-

"I'd like to go with Sandbar."

"Alright. That fine with you youngsters?"

"That's fine."

"We aren't that much younger than you!"

... Crap. At least Sandbar looks happy.

I helplessly watch Gallus go with our youngest members, leaving me with a... well, minor problem. I need to get Ocellus separate from us so I can talk to Sandbar.

"Silver! You coming?"

Ah! I rush over to the door and scan my bracelet into the RED.

"Don't do anything stupid, you two."

The door opens up and we step through. We quickly find the DEAD and scan it. We're in a geology lab... Wait. Didn't Ocellus die here in another timeline? I think it's because-

*CLANG!*

"Guys! Help!"

Yup. That's why. She's in a metal capsule in the middle of the room.

Sandbar's hoof connects with his face. "What was that about us not doing anything stupid?"

Ocellus is blushing from inside of the large metal capsule. "Just get me out of here!"

"We'll get you out. Don't worry." I grab Sandbar and pull him off to the side. This is the exact opportunity I needed. "Sandbar, can I trust you?"

He raises his eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

"I just want to know if I can trust you."

"Silver? Are you okay?"

"No. I'm not okay. I'm trapped in this weird world with eight of my friends, and I have a sinking feeling one of them put the rest of us in here. I don't care who that is at this point. I just want to know who I can trust. If I can trust anyone."

He's looking around. "Yeah. You can trust me."

I nod. "Then let's get Ocellus out of there." Successfully this time. I hope.

TIME TO SEARCH!

Hmm... Neptite, Mixitol, and Valital. I don't think I learned the names of the other two.

"A silver stone of the sea."

I look at Sandbar. "I think that's Neptite. It's a silver stone that generates water." The five stones the panels want are what make this trap work, but we can't get Ocellus out until we put them all in.

"I'll see if I can find it." He walks off.

I check the two panels I never saw.

A grey powder of silence.

A knocking stone.

... I don't know what either of those are. I'll just grab the Mixitol and Valital and let Sandbar handle those two. Huh. This stone is pretty. Oops! I dropped-

*Zzttt*

"OW!" I drop the pain stone. It sparks upon hitting the ground.

"Careful now." Sandbar approaches with a rubber square and picks up the pain stone. "This is Shock Quartz. It's designed to create electricity upon knocking or hitting something. This one, in particular, looks like it's designed to be powerful."

I watch him set it on the table. "One of the panels said we need a knocking stone."

"That probably is it, in that case. Just don't try to catch it if you drop it again."

He didn't need to say that. I know better than to hurt myself the same way twice. Oops, I dropped-

*Zzttt*

"FOR THE LOVE OF MINERVA!"

...

Sandbar has his head on the desk. I don't blame him.

I put the Mixitol and Shock Quartz in their respective holes. I wait for Sandbar to get over the stupidity surrounding him and put the Valital and whatever the last thing is in their holes. The five holes close and two more holes open up, as two trays come out of the machine.

*Ding* "These holes lead to mixing devices. Anything in the mixing devices will be injected into the subject. Lytherium on the left, Magnite on the right. You can only insert three stones before the seals close. Please keep the amounts as balanced as possible."

... Oh. Oh, I feel stupid.

"So we need to figure out-"

"No. I know what we need to do." I press the button on the front of the capsule.

She winces in pain from the needles, I think. Not long after, the capsule opens up and she steps out.

"Well, I'm out."

Sandbar is scratching his head. "How did that work? We didn't put anything in."

"It never said we had to. It said we had to balance the amount of Magnite and Lytherium, and 0 is balanced with 0." This also means Sandbar's earlier solution would have worked.

Sandbar stares at me, then at the capsule. "Wording things so that we assume something that could cause someone else to die. That's sadistic."

"The devil's in the details, you know. Or lack of details, in this case." Was that key in the capsule she was in? "Let's get going. We won't get anywhere just standing here."

I watch the two of them head to the exit. I guess I shouldn't blame myself for her earlier death, knowing Zero set it up that way. Once they have the door open, I start to follow.

Hello? Is someone there?

!?!?!? I look around. There's no one visible. "Hello?"

...

"Silver?"

I look at Ocellus. "Did you hear someone just now?"

Ocellus looks around. "I didn't hear anything."

"That was... weird." I hope I'm not going crazy.

We leave the room and make our way into a hallway.

"Woah! Hey there!"

I recognize that voice. "Gallus. You alright?"

He has a huge grin on his face. "Nope. Bramble's stomach turned inside out."

"It did not!" I'd be more worried if Bramble himself didn't look perfectly fine. "Don't make it sound like I died!"

Cozy doesn't look very amused either. "That is a proper way of saying what happened. Not that he's bothered by it."

Ocellus looks disgusted. "Did Bramble..."

"Right onto my back. I'm just glad there was a shower in there."

Gallus is snickering. "It may have kept me in the death trap a little longer, but that was freaking funny."

"No, it wasn't!" I'm not sure if that was Bramble, Cozy, or both.

The rest of us share a laugh.

"That didn't make it any less reckless."

I turn around. Smolder is walking next to Yona, who has Rain on her back.

"At least we all got out, right?"

"But you didn't know I could get you out like that!" Smolder looks at us. Staring at her. "What? I can scold my girlfriend if I need to."

Yona sighs. "Rain went into a side room that was a death trap. Smolder opened it from the outside, but Rain was already coughing a good bit."

Rain shoots us a smile. "I'll be fine. I just need a bit of rest."

I tilt my head and smile. "Well, some of us have to put our lives on the line to get us out, whether we want to or not. At least we all made it through this set of doors."

Ocellus looks at the ceiling. "That leaves doors 4, 6, and 8."

I don't know why, but... "I'd like to go through door 6."

They all look at me.

"We'll see what we can do, but let's at least wait until we find the next set of doors before we decide who goes where." Gallus pats me on the back. "Come on."

We head to the end of the hallway and head through the doors.

"The infirmary?"

We looped around. "Now where?"

Bramble turns to Gallus. "Gallus, you have that key, right?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah." Gallus holds out a key with a symbol on it.

"Oh, hey!" Ocellus holds out the key she got earlier. "The key I have has a similar symbol on it."

"We got one, too." Smolder holds out yet another key. "I'm guessing we need these."

The deer then looks at the yak. "Yona, you recognize those, right?"

"Yup. Those were on the door at the end of that hallway."

Smolder takes the other keys. "They're Draconic words. They literally translate to "This way next." No prizes for guessing why."

"No need to waste time here. Let's get going." Cozy leads us out through the doors.

Once we get to the door Bramble and Yona mentioned, Smolder moves to the front and puts the keys into their respective spots. After turning them all, the door opens up.

"Let's split up and find those doors." Smolder heads off in one direction. Cozy immediately goes in the other direction. We all split up.

It doesn't take long for me to find door 4. I don't want to go through there, though. Too much death in the other timelines. Not long after, I find door 6. I reach my claw towards the RED.

"What are you doing, Silver?"

Urp! Gallus is there. "Uh, hehe..."

"Why do you want to go through door 6 so badly?"

I look at the door. "I think it's because the other timelines, where I went through the other doors, all had something bad happen in them."

"Then change it. Don't let those other timelines come to pass. Go through with a different group, if you have to."

I look at Gallus. "Alright." I guess I'll have to convince the others to let me through door 6.

"Did you find all the doors yet?"

"Only this and 4."

"Did you pass by the waiting area?"

I shake my head.

"Find door 8 and come to the waiting area. That seems like the best place to meet."

"Alright."

Gallus leaves...

*Beep*

*Bzzt*

Oioioi. I head through the halls to find door 8. Once I pass by it, I start searching for the waiting area. I'm guessing it's that well-lit room over there.

"Look who's slow!"

I stop in the doorway. They're all looking at me. "I'm out of here." I turn around.

"Sorry! Sorry." Smolder rubs the back of her head.

Rain puts her hoof on her girl's shoulder. "And you say I needed scolding?"

"Well, it's not like she can go anywhere we can't find her." Gallus looks at me. "We're about to choose who goes where."

Cozy nods. "We decided to write down the door we want and decide based on that."

Ocellus looks up from the page she has. "You want door 6, right Silver? That's what Gallus put for you."

I nod. "Who wants what?"

She looks at the page and bites her lip. "Yona wants door 6. Rain wants door 4. Sandbar wants door 8."

Sandbar wants door 8? That doesn't sound good.

"You want 6... Cozy wants door 8. Gallus, Smolder, and Bramble all put "any." You guys don't make this easy."

Cozy wants door 8? Now I'm getting scared.

Gallus sighs. "Door 4 has 2, door 6 has 6, and door 8 has 3. Sorry, Ocellus, but this is all about who you don't want to upset. If you choose door 4, Silver would be forced through door 8. If you pick door 6, Silver gets what she wants, but Yona will have to change doors, and either Sandbar or Cozy will have to change doors as well. If you pick door 8, Yona, Rain, and Cozy will all have to change."

!!! There's only one choice she can make that will make me change doors! I might be able to go through door 6 after all! Just do this for me, Ocellus! Please!

Ocellus is looking me right in the eye. "Um... Uh..."

Oh, please, Ocellus!

She's looking away, sweating. "Well..."

Please!

*DING DING DING DING*

"I choose..."

Hour Four: A Poor Choice

"I choose... Door 4."

...

"I'm sorry, Silver. I know you wanted to go through door 6, but this way, most of us get what we want."

...

"Silver, please. We need to-"

"Didn't you drag me through door 3?"

"Huh?"

"I didn't get a say in that. Did I? Or did I imagine it somehow?"

"Silver, I"

"Whatever. I'll just accept whatever everyone else wants like a good girl." I leave the room. If they want to talk to me, too bad.

I head over to door fuck me and sit in front of it.

...

"Silver? Are you alright?"

"No."

"Well, let's go through, and you can wait in there."

...

*Beep Beep*

...

I scan my bracelet in and pull the lever. I'm tempted to stay out of the room just to spite them, but I go through. We scan into the DEAD. Good. I'm not gonna die in here. I head off to a side room to hide.

...

"Silver. Let go."

That's right. In another timeline, Sandbar killed Cozy using that cage there. It lifted her up and dropped her in the crushing machine, and I wasn't strong enough to lift the cage.

"Woah! That looks dangerous!"

I look at Sandbar. "You know what that is, right?"

He shakes his head.

"It's a crushing machine. You throw junk in it, and it crushes the junk down so it can be more easily reused or removed."

"Uh, I hope that doesn't include ponies. Though, knowing this place, it probably does. Oh, yeah!" Sandbar holds out a bag to me. "Cozy suggested you should hold on to this."

I take the baggie and watch Sandbar head back out into the other room. Come to think of it, Sandbar was acting strangely when he killed Cozy. As if Cozy had killed Ocellus or something. Well, it's not worth dwelling on. I just need to keep track of these baggies.

"Howdy." Cozy floats up to me and gives me three more baggies. "How are you feeling?"

"I'll be fine. I think I got most of my pouting out of me."

"Is there a reason you wanted to avoid me?"

I shake my head. "You aren't the one I was trying to avoid."

"Sandbar, then?"

"I'm worried that he's Zero. I don't have proof, but I have a bad feeling about him."

"Ehehe. Let's hope you're wrong about that."

"Why is there an ax?"

... What? Cozy and I peek around the corner. Sure enough, Sandbar has an ax. "Could you put that down?"

Cozy re-enters the main room. "Of course there's going to be a lot of weird stuff in here."

Sandbar sticks the ax in the box he's next to. "Why?"

Cozy shoves the ax in enough to leave just the head sticking out. "It's a storage room, you idiot!"

Sandbar's ears shoot up, then back. "Hey, don't be rude. And that doesn't explain why there's an ax."

I wave my claw around. "Guys, could you please focus? We need to get out of here."

They both look at me, then Cozy rolls her eyes. "Alright. Fine."

They both go to opposite sides of the room. All I can do is wait for them to bring me the baggies. I head over to the panel in the side room. It has some instructions on it, but I'm only concerned about the first part. It says there are fifty baggies, including the one in the case we can't open yet.

So, all I can really do is keep track of the baggies they bring me. And thus, I wait.

10...

15...

20...

30...

40...

45...

...

"Hey, Silver!" Cozy cries out to me. "How many baggies do you have?"

"45!"

"45? I thought we brought you 44!"

"There was already one in here!"

They enter the room with the last five baggies. I point at the case that has the last baggie and a key in it.

Sandbar taps on the glass. "How do we get this open?"

I look at the cage at the other end of the room. I look back at Sandbar as his eyes move up then over.

"Oh, man. One of us has to get in that cage?"

"What are you waiting for? Hop in."

We look at Cozy.

"Me or her?"

"You, Sandbar."

He looks right at me.

I give him a smile. "It's okay, Sandbar. I'll get you out."

He sighs and moves towards the cage. I thought he would be more resistant to the idea.

*Clang*

"Hey, Silver? Remember how I said you didn't need to worry about me?" I look at Cozy, who has the baggie from the case in her... hoof. "What I meant to say was, you aren't the one that needs to worry about me."

I shoot towards the baggie as she tosses it, but she gets in the way. Not by much, just by enough. By the time I reach the rail, it's gone.

"COZY GLOW!" I look at Sandbar. "YOU BITCH! HOW DARE YOU!"

I don't know what's more unnerving; Sandbar screaming, or Cozy Glow laughing.

"I'LL FUCKING KILL YOU FOR THIS! I'LL GET YOU! SILVER! SILVER, DO SOMETHING!"

I bite my beak. I tried in another timeline. I can't do anything.

"SILVER! DO SOMETHING!"

"I'm sorry."

"... DAMN IT! FUCK! WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF FRIEND ARE YOU SILVER? YOU BITCH! I CAN'T BELIEVE YOU!"

"Cozy... why?"

"Mmm... Let's call it revenge."

I hear him scream right before he's drowned out by the crushing of metal.

I sigh. It's done. I turn to take the key.

...

"Cozy, where's the key?"

"It should still be there."

Wait. "Was it tied to the bag?"

We stare at each other.

That face hoof means yes.

I turn around and leave the room. Once in the main room, I move to the exit door.

*Rattle Rattle*

It's still locked. How are we supposed to get out now? I turn around.

Cozy is biting her lip. "Are we stuck?"

I fly to the entrance door. It opens up, for some reason. "No. We just have to face the others." I barely see that ax from earlier. I really want to introduce it to Cozy's wing right now, but we still have to work together.

I head through, not bothering to check on the filly. As soon as I get back to the waiting room, my heart sinks. Smolder and Rain are there. I step through.

"Hey, Silver."

There she is. Ocellus is just off to the side. "Hey, Ocellus."

"Where are the others?"

"I'm right here."

!!! I immediately grab Cozy by the neck.

"Wah! What are you-"

I put my claw over her mouth. "Is there anything you want to tell them?"

I remove my claw, but she remains quiet.

Ocellus' eyes are as wide as dinner plates. "Where's Sandbar?"

...

I grab Cozy's mane and yank it. "Well? Are you going to tell her?"

Cozy's yelp of pain was followed by more silence.

Ocellus shoves past me and out of the room.

"Wait! Ocellus!" Rain follows her out.

I let go of Cozy and she follows Rain.

"Silver!" Smolder runs up to me. "What happened?"

"Cozy destroyed something we needed to get out, killing Sandbar in the process."

"What? What the hell was she thinking?"

I sit down. "I don't know. We should probably just wait, though. I'm sure Ocellus is giving Cozy a nice screaming."

"I think Ocellus should get a kill on the brat for that."

I want to talk back, but I don't disagree with her.

The first time through, Sandbar acted weird and killed Cozy Glow. The second time through, Cozy acted weird and killed Sandbar. What is up with that room?

"Hey, shouldn't Rain be back by now? I can understand Ocellus and Cozy Glow, but not her."

I look at Smolder, then sigh. "I'll see what's going on." I get up and head out of the room.

Huh? What's Ocellus doing here in the hall?

"Oh. Hey, Silver." She seems... calm.

"Uh, where's Rain?"

"She wanted to check something out in room 8." Scratch that, she seems robotic.

"Okay. I wanted to ask her something."

"She wanted to be left alone." ... Why isn't her face moving at all?

"Well, I needed to check something in there anyway." What kind of excuse is that?

"... Okay." She moves past... she has the ax on her back.

As soon as she's out of sight, I hurry to room 8. I barge through the door, knowing exactly what to expect.

Rain is lying on the floor of the room, surrounded by blood. I dart over to her and hold up her head. Her eyes are wide open, but they aren't moving at all.

I look around. I don't see Cozy Glow anywhere. I head into the side room. I see Sandbar's blood on the grinders where he was dropped into it. I slowly lift myself onto the rail.

There's another blood stain below.

"You shouldn't have come in here."

!!! OCELLUS! She's smiling, but not in a way that makes me comfortable!

"When I saw that blood, I knew what happened. I was mad. I needed to avenge him."

"Ocellus, stop!"

"I crushed two of Cozy Glow's legs and one of her wings before Rain jumped on me. We fought for a bit before I saw my new friend." She moves the ax from her back and lifts it up in front of her. "I like him, but I don't think Rain did. You saw how their first meeting went, right?"

I bite my beak. Is there any way out of this? AH! SHE'S APPROACHING!

"After that, I picked Cozy up and dangled her over the edge. Right behind where you are right now. I let her plead for a bit before dropping her in. It was quite fun to listen to."

I look at the crushing machine behind me.

"After that, I went to talk to Smolder. She turned unpleasant, so I had to treat her like I treated Rain. She put up a good fight until she lost her eyes. And axes are designed to take out thick things, so her scales weren't very useful to her."

I clutch the rail behind me with my right claw.

"I think we'll have a discussion with the others when they get out of room 6. After all, they deserve to know what happened, right?"

"And by "we," you mean you and your ax, right?"

"That's right. I just need your bracelet, and then I can leave."

I take a deep breath. "I don't have a way out of this alive, do I?"

"No, you don't." She lifts the ax above her head.

I put my weight on my claw and leap over the rail. The ax misses my throat but cuts my claw clean off. I drop towards the crusher.

"SIIIIIILVEEEEER!"

That scream... That makes all the pain I'm about to feel worth it.

*CRUNCH*

Ending 4
Changing a Changeling

...

......

............

"Uh, Gallus?" I look over at Cozy Glow. "Why... Nevermind."

I look at Ocellus. She seems perfectly normal. For some reason, I feel like I need to watch out for her.

"So, who's going where?"

"Yak want door 7!"

"I'd like door 7 as well." Huh? It feels like Ocellus just said something... strange.

"I'd like door 2." Rain holds up her bracelet.

"Door 2. Door 2. Door 2. Fine." Pfft. Smolder definitely said something strange.

We talk it out a bit more. Bramble, Sandbar, and Cozy Glow team up, and Gallus and I team up.

"Which way, Silver?"

"Door 7."

"Alright. Let's get going." Yona, Ocellus, Gallus, and I scan into the RED for door 7. Once through the door, we quickly scan into the DEAD for the room.

"Well, no time to waste."

"Yeah. Let's get looking."

TIME TO SEARCH!

*CRUNCH*

Hour One: Aftershock

"Uh, Gallus?" I look over at Cozy Glow. "Why... Nevermind."

I look at Ocellus. She seems perfectly normal. For some reason, I feel like I need to watch out for her.

"So, who's going where?"

"Yak want door 7!"

"I'd like door 7 as well." Huh? It feels like Ocellus just said something... strange.

"I'd like door 2." Rain holds up her bracelet.

"Door 2. Door 2. Door 2. Fine." Pfft. Smolder definitely said something strange.

We talk it out a bit more. Bramble, Sandbar, and Cozy Glow team up, and Gallus and I team up.

"Which way, Silver?"

"Door 7."

"Alright. Let's get going." Yona, Ocellus, Gallus, and I scan into the RED for door 7. Once through the door, we quickly scan into the DEAD for the room.

"Well, no time to waste."

"Yeah. Let's get looking."

TIME TO SEARCH!

Wait. Didn't I-

*CRUNCH*

...

......

............

"Uh, Gallus?" I look over at Cozy Glow. "Why... Nevermind."

I look at Ocellus. She seems perfectly normal. For some reason, I feel like I need to watch out for her.

"So, who's going where?"

"Yak want door 7!"

"I'd like door 7 as well." Huh? It feels like Ocellus just said something... strange.

"I'd like door 2." Rain holds up her bracelet.

"Door 2. Door 2. Door 2. Fine." Pfft. Smolder definitely said something strange.

We talk it out a bit more. Bramble, Sandbar, and Cozy Glow team up, and Gallus and I team up.

"Which way, Silver?"

I look at Ocellus. "Door 2."

"Alright. Let's get going."

I move towards the door, only for Ocellus to catch my wrist. "You're trying to avoid me, aren't you?"

"Uh, I-"

"I don't blame you. In fact..." Uuuuaaaaahhhh! "I think you made a good choice."

Getting away from her RIGHT NOW! I rush over to Gallus.

"Uh, are you alright?"

I give a smile. A very fake smile. "I'm fine!"

Ocellus is giggling. "I think she's just worried about what's through that door."

Gallus pets my head. "Well, that's fair. Don't worry. I'm here for you."

"That's comforting." My smile is still as fake as possible.

I scan the RED quickly and pull the lever.

*Bzzt*

"Silver! Wait for us!" Oops. I thought they scanned in.

I scan in and let the others do the same. Smolder pulls the lever and we head through.

As soon as we scan the DEAD, Gallus looks right at me, looking very pale. "Did Ocellus really make that face?"

"So I'm not seeing things!" I hug Gallus. "I think she wants to kill me!"

"Do you two... need some time?" Smolder is rubbing the back of her head. "We can handle this room if you do."

"Yeah, g-go ahead and solve the puzzle." Gallus turns back to me. "I'm really worried about what she's going to do. It terrifies me."

"I think..." I bite my beak. "I think she killed me in another timeline."

His eyes shoot wide, then he smiles. "So you're adapting to using- No! Bad Gallus! Not the time! The thing is, she actually killed you in two other timelines. The first one, she offed most of the group, leaving only me, her, and Sandbar. Then Sandbar killed himself to get away from her, leaving us stuck. She killed me in frustration."

What the fuck, Ocellus?

"The second timeline, Yona killed her, but not before she got half of us. Zero finished the rest of us off."

"Zero?"

Gallus nods. "He just showed up and started stabbing us. I don't even know why. It's almost like he wasn't happy with how we were doing."

That makes me wonder something, but there's a more pressing issue right now. "So how do we deal with Ocellus?"

He sighs. "I'm not sure. It seems like she's also using the Morphogenetic field, so I doubt there's a place to imprison her that she doesn't know about already."

Wait... "Do you really think she's doing the same thing we are?"

He nods. "Her snapping was way too sudden and didn't happen in most of the other timelines I've been to. It had to have been caused by something from the last timeline she went to before she went wild."

I rub my head. I wish I knew how to access my other memories more easily. "There's not something that could make using my powers more easy that you aren't telling me about, is there?"

His eyes go wide, then he looks away, scratching his cheek. "I haven't lied to you at all. Now's not the time to worry about our powers. Not while Ocellus is on the offensive."

He's right. I'll have to grill him later. "So if we can't imprison her, how do we deal with her?"

He shrugs. "Kill her? She'll probably get someone else before we meet her again, but it's best if we minimize our casualties."

"I don't know if Zero will let us."

Gallus tilts his head. "What-"

*CLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANGCLANG*

... What was I doing? I got distracted by my EARS BEING TORN APART!

"You guys ready? We are!"

Gallus leers at Smolder. "No! We aren't ready!"

"Whatever it is, it can wait." Rain jumps into the hatch leading down, followed by Smolder.

Gallus and I share a look. We are not ready to face Ocellus right now, but we aren't being given much choice. We reluctantly follow.

We all head down the hallway to the end, where the infirmary awaits. We step inside. The other team isn't here yet. I head over to door 1.

"Oh, hey guys." Oh, shit. "You guys beat us here, huh?"

"Yeah, we solved..."

I turn around. Smolder is looking at the other group. Ocellus has a freakish smile on her face, while the three creatures behind her look like they witnessed a murder. To be fair, they probably did.

"Where's Cozy Glow?"

"It's okay. I have her bracelet right here." And she lifts it up as if there's nothing weird about her having that.

Rain's eye is twitching. "What? Did she die?"

Bramble nods. "Ocellus took a weight and crushed her head in."

Smolder grabs the bracelet away from Ocellus. "What the fuck, Ocellus?"

"What's wrong?" Is she really that far gone?

"You killed Cozy Glow! You can't just do that kind of shit!"

"Hehehehehe." ? "Hahahahaha! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Smolder steps away from that... thing. "What's so funny?"

"You think I was wrong for doing that?" Oh, sweet Juno. The only thing wider than her eyes is her smile. "Cozy Glow was a problem. Problems need to be solved."

No one looks comfortable around her. I feel lucky I'm by door 1 and not next to her.

"There are certain creatures in this world that aren't worth keeping around. They won't do anything but cause trouble. And that's very unacceptable."

Oh, dear. She's very gone by now.

"How are they supposed to be handled? We can chuck them into Tartarus, but that just means they get to live until they can cause trouble again. They're better off dead."

I look at the door behind me.

"But you're going to try and tell me that Cozy did nothing wrong. She did. You may not remember it, but she did."

I crumble up a post-it note on a desk near me and toss it at Yona.

"And that thing she did was horrible. So vile. So evil! Hehehehehe."

Yona looks at me. I nod to the door behind me.

"So it was only a matter of time until she did something worse. And then what? Do we shrug and say we didn't see it coming, even though we did?"

Yona looks up, then nods.

"I'd rather take care of a problem before it gets too bad, rather than let the problem become something we can't handle."

Yona moves into position.

"But now she's in the past. No longer a problem. And we need to keep moving forward."

I scan my bracelet into the RED for door 1. "I agree with that much."

Ocellus looks at me. "Wha-"

Yona rams into her and smashes her into door 1. I quickly grab Ocellus' hoof and scan in the bracelet. Yona follows suit.

"Sorry, guys. We'll see you later!" I pull the lever and follow Yona as she drags Ocellus into the room.

"What are you-"

Yona throws Ocellus into the DEAD. Her bracelet scanned into it somehow. Yona rushes over, scans in, and picks Ocellus up. I scan the DEAD and pull the lever, deactivating our bracelets.

I look at Yona just in time for her to chuck Ocellus into a metal tube and slide it shut.

Ocellus wastes no time banging on the walls of her prison. "What are you doing? Let me out!"

I slam the top of the tube. "Not until you stop acting like a psychopath!"

"What are you talking about? I'm not acting any differently than normal!"

Oh, sweet Pluto. "Yona, one of us needs to talk her down. Do you want to handle the puzzle in the room? Or should I?"

"Yak will handle puzzle."

"Because you don't want to deal with the crazy?"

She puts her hoof on my shoulder. "Because if anyone can talk her down, it's you."

... I smile and nod. I have something important to do.

"I can hear you out there! DON'T CALL ME CRAZY!"

Ho, boy. I've got an uphill battle. I give the tube another good smack. "We're calling you crazy because you're crazy!" Ow. I think I hit the tube too hard.

"Shut up! You selfish brat! Don't act like you're better than me!"

Selfish brat? "I don't kill others for no reason!"

"I did have a reason! You didn't!"

Where did that come from? "Then tell me your reason!"

"You know my reason!"

"No, I don't! I wouldn't be asking if I did know!"

"Quit lying! We both know you know!"

I need to sit down. "Does it really justify killing her?"

"It does and you know it does!"

Why am I playing along with this? "Could you at least leave everyone else alive?"

"You're already getting in the way of our escape!"

Our? "You and who else?"

"YOU KNOW!"

"Sandbar." Yona knew. And, to be honest, I should have pieced that together.

Maybe she'll realize that I don't know everything if I act like I don't know anything. "So you think you can get you and your friend out by killing everyone?"

"That's how the game works! It's a killing game! You kill everyone else, and you get your freedom back!"

... It looks like Yona's not sure what she's saying either. "I don't think that's right, but if it is, wouldn't that mean only one of you two can escape?"

"Oh, I don't plan on leaving. I'll kill everyone for my precious, and then I'll kill myself so he can leave!"

THE FUCK? "Ocellus, Zero only said that we need to find door 9! He didn't say we had to kill each other to get out!"

... That is not a comforting laugh. "Even better! I can kill everyone else, and then get out with him! He'll be mine forever! FOREVER! AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

I bite my beak. Yona has three of the keys, but she put them down on the panel next to the tube. We really don't want to let her out. Not like this, at least.

*DING DING*

Not the time! Thank Vulcanus that my life isn't divided into chapters, because that's where the chapter would end.

Hour Two: Reasoning

... So Ocellus lost her mind. How am I supposed to reason with her? Think, Silver. Think...

"Her snapping was way too sudden and didn't happen in most of the other timelines I've been to. It had to have been caused by something from the last timeline she went to before she went wild."

Right. It would have to be something that happened here. I have to acknowledge that she can access the Morphogenetic Field at this point. Even considering that, she was perfectly sane when we got here and at the start of most of the timelines. So what happened that made Ocellus snap?

"You okay, Silver?"

"Yeah. I'm thinking."

She called me a selfish brat. Was there a point I was being selfish?... The last set of doors in the last timeline I went to. I wanted door 6 and shamed her when she wouldn't let me go there. Honestly, I was just upset because I knew something would go wrong. In hindsight, I can see why it came off as a selfish demand. And what happened after that...

"What I meant to say was, you aren't the one that needs to worry about me."

What happened after that...

"COZY GLOW! YOU BITCH! HOW DARE YOU!"

What happened is...

"SIIIIIILVEEEEER!"

Exactly why she snapped! Cozy Glow killed Sandbar in that timeline, then Ocellus killed her, Rain, and Smolder before trying to kill me! For all she knows, Cozy and I worked together to kill him. That's why she's treating me like I'm just as bad as Cozy.

"Did you realize something?"

I nod. "It's just a matter of if I can use it or not. I don't want to say the wrong thing and make it all worse."

Yona's scratching her head. "She keeps blaming you. Is there some way to throw that back at her?"

"How would that help?"

"If she thinks she's at fault, she might blow up for a bit, but she might go back to normal after calming down."

Huh... Can I blame her for this at all? That might work, but I can't think of anything-

"HEY!" She's banging on the tube again. "WHAT ARE YOU TWO SAYING?"

"Quiet down!" Think, Silver! Think! Is there some way you can make her think it's her fault? Think. Think...

"I choose... door 4"

!!! No! Wait! It's entirely her fault!

"HEY! DON'T TELL ME TO SHUT UP! YOU'RE JUST AS RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS DEATH AS COZY WAS!"

"By that logic, you're also responsible for his death!"

Silence. Fully expected that.

"WHAT? WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU SAYING?"

"I knew things would go bad if I went through door 8! That's why I wanted to go through door 6 in the first place! But you prevented me from keeping him safe!" Okay, it was Cozy I was trying to protect, but still. "So, by your own logic, you're responsible for his death!"

Waiting for a response...

"YOU FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT!"

Uh oh.

"DON'T FUCKING BLAME THIS ON ME, YOU ROTTEN BRAT!"

Shit. I don't think this will end well.

"I WASN'T TRYING TO FUCKING SPITE YOU, YOU SLUT! I WANTED TO MAKE EVERYONE ELSE HAPPY! I WAS TRYING TO SATISFY AS MANY OF US AS I COULD, AND MAKE AS FEW OF US UPSET AS POSSIBLE!"

I lift my claw to smash the top of the tube. She needs to shut- Yona? "Wha-" Her hoof is on my beak!

"I WAS TRYING TO MAKE EVERYONE HAPPY! STOP BEING SELFISH!"

Why did Yona stop me? Why won't she let go?

"I WANTED WHAT WAS BEST FOR EVERYONE! I WANTED... I... I..."

Ocellus is... coughing?

"I wanted... I... everyone..."

She's crying.

"I wanted... I wanted to make everyone happy, and then I... I... Waaahhhhhhh!"

She's... really breaking down, huh?

"Why would I... Why would I do that? What is wrong with me?"

I gently move Yona's hoof off of my beak and place my claw on the tube. "Ocellus? We're going to get you out, okay?"

She doesn't respond. I can still hear her crying. It's strange. Just a few moments ago, I was terrified of her, even with all of that metal between us. Now? I want to hug her.

I look at Yona. She's smiling at me... I smile back. I did the right thing. Not in the way I intended, but she should be back to normal now.

Yona and I take the keys she's already got and try them on the locks until they work... Ah! This one doesn't fit any of them.

"What? Are there fake keys?"

"No." I head over to the panel with a locked glass case over it. "This key goes to a different lock." I unlock the glass case and lift it up, then I press the button to open the door it's next to. "I'm going into this room alone. If the door closes, press that button. Hopefully, that will open it back up." I already know that it'll close on me. I just wonder if this is what Rain did in the other timeline.

Yona just nods... wait. Did she hear what I said to Ocellus? Did she stop me because she thought I was talking crazy? Or did she somehow know that would work? Did she know what I was talking about?... Uh, door door door. Don't worry about that, Silver. Just stay focused.

I walk in and open the box at the far end of the room.

*Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr*

That was the door closing. I put on one of the masks that fell from the ceiling.

"Plea-" *Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr*

Wow. Yona was fast about that one. I take the key from the box and head back towards the door. OW! Right. I should take this mask off.

I step out of the room and share a look with Yona.

"How did you know that would work?"

I shrug. "I didn't. I just figured it would be a bad idea for both of us to go in at once."

She looks away from me, then nods. "Let's get Ocellus out."

I nod. It looks like we only have two boxes to open up now. I start unlocking one of the boxes while Yona handles the other one.

It doesn't take too long for us to open the boxes and unlock the last of the locks. We slide open the tube. Oh no!... "She's just asleep."

I hear Yona let out a sigh. "Let's go."

I lift Ocellus onto Yona's back, then open the door out of here. As soon as I step through, I see Smolder, Rain, and... Sandbar.

"Yeah, the needles didn't pierce my scales at all. It's almost like they didn't-" Smolder looks right at us. Rain and Sandbar both turn to look once they notice where her attention is.

"Ocellus!" Sandbar rushes over to Yona. Or rather, to the changeling Yona is carrying.

"It's alright. I managed to talk her down. Somehow."

Sandbar grabs Ocellus like she's a plushie, closing his eyes and rubbing his cheek against her's. It makes me feel good that they... He's... staring at me. It looks a bit like he's mad at me. But I saved Ocellus! That should count for something, right? He's looking at his girl... His eyes are closed... He's breathing in...

"Thank you." Ah! There's his smile! That makes me feel fuzzy inside.

"Mmph. Sandbar?"

Sandbar looks at Ocellus. "I'm right here."

She's nuzzling up to him. "I'm sorry. I don't know what happened. I learned something horrible, and I just-"

Sandbar is shushing her. "It's okay, Ocellus. It'll be okay. We'll worry about that once we're out of here. Alright?"

Aww. She's smiling. "Alright."

I guess- AHH! Please tell me that was the first! Please tell me I just watched their first kiss!

"Silver, what was that sound?"

"She's a hopeless romantic. That's all."

Hehe. They know me so well.

"Uhh."

?

"Ahh."

That sounds like... "Bramble?"

He's looking me right in the eye. "I... I..."

Wait. Someone's missing. "Where's Gallus?"

His eye is twitching. Did something happen?

*Whump*

!!! Oh no! Is he alright? "Bramble! What's wrong? Did you hurt-"

"I... I couldn't..."

I lift his head up. "Talk to me, Bramble. What happened?"

"I... I..."

"I've been with him through all of the doors." Cozy Glow? But she's- "In every one of them, he wasn't able to do anything."

That's right. In another timeline, Cozy mentioned that he can't do the puzzles on his own. Which means...

Oh, no!

"Silver! Wait!"

Gallus isn't here, and Bramble can't do the puzzles! That means that Gallus is... Gallus is...

That's... not pretty. It's not as bad as I expected, but it's still not pretty.

"Oh. Oh, no." I look at Rain. "That's... not good."

I look back at Gallus. At least, what's left of him. "It's not. Go tell the others. I'll get his bracelet."

... Have I really been exposed to death that much recently? This is hardly getting to me now. Either way, we have to keep moving.

There's no sign of damage on the bracelet, even though it got soaked with acid. Though they're probably just coated in something that keeps them safe from acid. Or maybe they're made out of bone since that's all that's left of Gallus! Ick! There's not a bit of flesh left on him! Ugh... I guess I'm not as used to this as I thought.

I head back through the door, bracelet in claw.

"But if I hadn't killed Cozy Glow, she would have been there to help you with the puzzle."

"But I should have gone in that side room before he did!"

What a thing to return to. Ocellus and Bramble are both trying to take the blame for Gallus' death. I look at the other's reactions. Sandbar is biting his lip, Yona has her head tilted, Rain isn't looking at them, and Smolder looks annoyed.

"I, uh, got the bracelet." That's not gonna stop them, but I at least want to get their attention.

They both look at me. The look in their eyes can only be of guilt. That doesn't make me feel any better than whenever it's of accusation.

"Silver," Ocellus speaks first, "Who do you blame for his death?"

"It's me, right?" Bramble is practically asking me to blame him.

I can't have them acting like this. Not right now. "Gallus should have known better. He told me a while back that he wouldn't trust Bramble to solve a puzzle to save his life." Okay, Gallus didn't actually say that, but they don't need to know. "We can work out the details once we're out. Let's just focus on getting out of here first."

The two of them look at each other.

Ocellus sighs and looks at me. "You're right. We should keep going."

Bramble lets out a soft groan. "The sooner we get out of here the better."

*DING DING DING*

There's the next chime as if to remind us of how long we've been here. And how much longer we could be here.