Red's Looking Sus

Chapters

I was in Library, I didn't see anything.
I was busy doing my tasks.
Where?
I'm Skipping...
Vote them off.

I was in Library, I didn't see anything.

It was half past midnight, the air was still, the wind was slow, the moon was bright, and stars twinkled away brightly in the night sky. All the chambers, halls, and individual rooms of the Castle of Friendship were quiet as nopony visited this late at night, and even if they did, the front door was locked from the inside. Even still, somepony visiting now was very unlikely as the average Equestrian pony would be asleep at this late hour, dreaming away blissfully under a stary sky. However this did not apply to a certain Princess of Friendship. Princess Twilight Sparkle, in contrast to the general population, would take advantage of this peace and quiet to catch up on her studying and personal reading. It had become quite difficult to do anything that she wanted to do in recent times because of a much heavier workload placed on her shoulders by her obtaining the title of Princess of Friendship. This bureaucratic burden of hers wears her down during the day and even when the Sun goes away she's still surrounded by mountains of paperwork and scrolls that she needs to read through and or sign off on. And while she is grateful for the responsibility, she misses The times where she didn't need to worry about all of this. There's times she wishes she could return to the normality of just being a student beneath her mentor Celestia. There are even times she misses her old Library and the great memories she had there. And of course there even times when things get rough, that she wishes she wasn't an alicorn.

But here, at this late hour, she didn't need to be bothered by any of that. Because as far as she's concerned, this is as close to her past as she can get. And in being honest with herself, Twilight didn't hate staying up this late that much for many different reasons no less. Because it was late, and everypony was asleep, there was a lower chance of her getting interrupted by random incursions or invasion's by hostile forces. Plus on top of that, she enjoyed looking at Lunas night sky, which gave birth to a new hobby of hers. While she stayed awake through these late hours, she would count the shooting stars that screened across the sky while she read her books.

Twilight had been doing these late-night reading sessions for quite some time now, so even her free time had become routine, it was just another part of her life that needed to be done. Of course it was a routine that she enjoyed greatly, but it was still routine. Which again she didn't mind after all what is life without structure? But tonight she would find that her routine was going to be broken, in a very... well, odd way.

Twilight had finished her paperwork hours ago, which now gave her plenty of time to indulge in the reading material in her personal section of the castles library. She had curled herself up in a light blue blanket with stars and moons depicted on them in very scientific descriptions and diagrams, and she had brought a lantern that had been lit by Magic which she placed on the table in front of her which illuminated the immediate area surrounding her quite comfortably. There was a stack of books to her right which she intended on reading, while an open one was placed cover down in front of the lantern just before the edge of the table. The book in question was a thick hard cover of over a thousand pages.

Every page had paragraphs worth of text on them that seemed to ramble on about one topic in particular. A topic that Twilight had become quite familiar with over the years. Random acts of teleportation and how to act against them. Twilight would murmur to herself as she gently read out loud as to better understand what she was reading begin with. After all she was alone, and this was her Library, she could read how she pleased.

"Wild magical teleportal instances may happen for no reason at all. While independent study groups tasked with understanding this phenomenon have come up short, wizards and mages of the Canterlot Institute of magic say with certainty that these spots of teleportation dust are leftover residual energy from unicorn magic that pull themselves together and combine to Form invisible clouds of teleportation feed back. These clouds of background Magic usually make their way towards large conduits of raw magical energy. This means they usually surround powerful individuals that hold a lot of magic inside their core to begin with. It revolves around them like gravity until eventually making contact with their horn, it then funnels in through there and causes an accidental teleportation which could send the individual anywhere in time and space. While this may spell Doom for the individual in question there are ways to prevent yourself from getting hit by these clouds in the first place... First you must-" Twilight would suddenly stop reading out loud to herself as she saw something pass by her. It was out of the corner of her eye and it just barely got her attention, but it was noticeable enough that she looked away from the paragraph that she was reading.

Twilight would look around the area curiously, as whatever she saw wasn't there anymore. Maybe there was nothing there to begin with and her eyes were playing tricks on her because of the light from the lantern? She could have sworn she saw something though, it looked yellow and it was small and fast. She would look out into the empty Library scanning the bookshelves, ladders, and other tables for something that she could match the description of what she saw out of the corner of her eye to.

"H-Hello? Is anypony there?" She asked quietly. She shifted in her blanket as she peered her eyes from side to side. Calling out into the dark was just a precautionary method, if something was there hopefully it would have made a sound. To her this was perfectly logical. So, hearing nothing she went back to reading.

"Eh-hem... Uh, First you must-" Twilight saw the yellow speck fly past her again, this time it headed to the right of her. Twilight would waste no time looking around for it again. She knew she saw something this time, and she saw where it went. So using her wings she shed her blanket and grabbed her lantern with her horn Magic. She then jumped over the table and gave Chase to this yellow mystery.

Twilight was in a small Cave of bookcases that encircled and encased her from the rest of the library. It was her own little place of peace from it all. Because of that, her view of the rest of the room was extremely limited. The only reason she saw this yellow thing to begin with was because it passed in front of the entrance of her little hidey hole. But when Twilight popped out of this little space of hers, she could see everything that this circular Library had to offer, including what she saw run past her.

Speaking of, when Twilight shot her eyes to the right and looked down the line of bookshelves with her lantern on full brightness, she saw the mysterious yellow figure. She was expecting something bad like a changeling or villain that needed to be defeated like so many others that came before, but when she laid her eyes on what this creature really was she became more confused than worried.

For what she found was a very petite yet stubby looking bipedal creature dressed in a strange yellow suit that covered its entire body. It had a large glass dome for a face and a rectangular box shaped apparatus hung off it's back. It also had two floating hand like protrusions that hovered at its chest height. She could tell they were hands because she recognized the shape of them from the hands she saw back in the human world. But these hands were different, they were missing a finger and they weren't connected to Arms they were just floating about.

The small yellow suited figure was manipulating these hands into Reaching Forward towards the bookshelf. Where there the hands would take books off the shelves and bring them to its glass Dome of a face. It would then shake its head no at every book that it pulled before putting the books back.

"Uuuh. Hi?" Twilight announced herself to the figure cautiously as to not startle it while giving it a friendly hello. The figure turned its head towards Twilight and looked her up and down, it's glass dome of a face contorting and moving as if it were a pair of eyes, it seemed to be focusing on her. It's Dome then became more friendly looking as if it were happy to see her while it used it's free hand to wave at her while it mumbled something that sounded like a hello. It then turned back to pulling books off the shelf, looking at them, then returning the books after it was done.

Twilight watched this creature carefully as it continued to inspect every book on the Shelf. It seemed confused or troubled that it couldn't find the book it was looking for. She could also deduce that it didn't speak very well as the suit it was wearing muffled its voice. It was still able to talk however despite this, and better yet it understood her.

"Uhmmm. Can I help you find the book you're looking for?" Twilight was going to ask how this figure had managed to get inside her library to begin with but she figured she would cross that bridge when she got to it. She figured for now she would help this individual before asking any harder questions, while at the same time earning its trust by helping it find the book it wanted.

The yellow biped looked back to Twilight and nodded its head. It proceeded to then reach into it's back pocket and retrieve a folded piece of paper. It opened the piece of paper and presented it to her. It was a strip of lined notebook paper with a picture of a book drawn on it in crayon. The book in question to Twilight looked vaguely similar to a book that was indeed on the Shelf it was rummaging through. Her eyes shifted over to that book and she used her magic to levitate it off the shelf and down to the figure. The creature took the book and its open hand looked at it and appeared to smile through its glass dome. It then put the piece of paper back into its back pocket and took the book in both hands. It looked it over momentarily before it turned and began to Sprint away from her and headed towards the exit.

"Hey wait! Where are you going?" Twilight called out to the creature. But before it could answer it already left the library and entered the Castle shutting the door of the room behind itself.

Twilight confused about what just happened would immediately give Chase...

I was busy doing my tasks.

Twilight would immediately give chase after the book thief that slipped out of the library with her precious tome in it's tiny thieving hands. When she reached the set of doors that the yellow creature had exited from she wasted no time and quickly flung them open with her magic, while she yet again increased the brightness of the lantern so that it could illuminate more space in front of her.

But it would become immediately obvious to her that she didn't need to use the lantern anymore.

The hallway that connected the Library and bunch of other rooms to the rest of the castle was already perfectly lit from one end to the other. Every nook and cranny was cast in perfect white light that made everything seem opaque and washed out in comparison to its normal day-to-day brightness. This sudden change in light would blind the Alicorn as she gasped and shielded her eyes with her wings while she adjusted to the sparkling walls of her Crystal Palace. They had never sparkled this brightly before, and Twilight was sure of that as she winced and groaned.

She would recall back to the first day she stepped hoof in here, back when the castle first sprouted up from the ground, and even then the crystals weren't this bright. Something was obviously different about the lighting in this hallway, it was just too bright. And on top of that she could have sworn she snuffed out all the lights to the castle before making her way to the library. There should be no reason these lights were on, except maybe her little yellow thief turned them on, but why would it do that?

Twilight thought to her herself that maybe she could have forgotten to turn out the lights to this hallway when she entered the library earlier this evening, after all she was excited to get down to reading, maybe she simply ignored it. And maybe the lights really weren't as bright as she first thought. Maybe it was just her eyes playing tricks on her. After all she was going from one extreme, which was a dimly-lit library to another extreme, which was basically staring at the surface of the sun. This change in light exposure was the equivalent of being flashbanged, just without the ear deafening ringing.

But as she fumbled and stumbled forth to the closest wall, she would slowly but surely re-expose her pupils to the light once more, this time at a more manageable pace so that she didn't burn her retinas out. And soon enough, she could see just fine, but what she saw confused her.

This overbearing light didn't come from any wall mounted torches or something similar of that magnitude. Instead the light came from overhead ceiling lamps which buzzed lightly as they emitted their glow. Twilight had never seen these lamps before until just now, in fact she was sure that these lights didn't exist a couple hours ago. She didn't notice them when she walked to the library the many times she needed to today, or even after the sun went down before her, "Twilight Time," which means these were recently built within the past two hours, which was impossible to her.

Something Fishy was going on and Twilight was going to get to the bottom of it.

Using her magic to close the doors behind her, and to snuff out the lantern, she began to trot forward down the hall. Twilight placed the lantern on a near by table which stood beside a closed door to her right, she didn't need it anymore, especially if the rest of the castle was lit up like this. She trotted on while looking up at the newly-installed ceiling lights, puzzled by their sudden appearance.

"How could these ceiling lamps be installed so quickly, and what power source are they running off of, and why didn't I hear them being installed from the library, and why in Celestia do I need these to begin with!? They are entirely too bright and the wall torches were just fine! Does Starlight have something to do with this? Did she mention she was doing this? I don't think so... I don't remember her saying anything," Twilight mumbled out loud to herself as she trotted down the corridor passing locked room after locked room.

As she came close to the other set of doors at opposite end of the hallway, Twilight would glance down to her left as something caught her eye again, much like earlier with her book thief.

There crouching on its knees while it's hands reach into a circuit panel, was another one of those bipedal creatures. This one was white in color and over top it's protective suit, it wore a dirty blue mechanics outfit along with a yellow hardhat that sat slightly ajar a top it's head. Twilight would grind her trot to a halt as she looked down at the little creature in confusion and surprise, while it paid her no mind as it tended to its task at hand.

The task in question required the creature to install new wires to a damaged gap in the panel so that the power could flow freely from one end to the other. The task at its core was very simple, or at least simple to most intelligent life forms, which Twilight would soon realize that this, whatever it was, wasn't exactly the most qualified for the job. Zapping noises could be heard as the wires stretched and connected from point 'A' to point 'B' signifying that the wires were still live, which to anyone's health was extremely dangerous and excruciatingly painful for any bystanders near by to watch. Because with one false finger placement it's all over for the little guy.

It was also hard to watch because on top of it ignoring basic safety protocols, and despite the individual looking like a professional, it kept wiring the wires to the incorrect spots, even though the wires were color coated and it was clear where wires were meant to go. Twilight at first wondered what it was doing as she looked over it's shoulder curiously, attempting not to make a sound as to not disturb it. But upon figuring out what it was meant to do, she just sat back and watched it work. But as minutes on end went by and nothing seemed to change except the bipeds increasing frustration, and possibly even sadness at the fact it couldn't figure this out, Twilights patience grew thin.

Twilight groaned in annoyance as she stood up from her haunches and stepped over to the biped. She used her hoof to gently tap on it's shoulders so she could get it's attention.

"Uhm... Do you... Need help?" Twilight asked to the white electrician.

In response the biped looked up at her as it manifested a few comically large sweat drops down the side of its head, on the outside of its protective suit. It's glass dome then slowly glanced over at the panel, before it quickly snapped back over to her. It then nodded very slowly in an embarrassed manner.

Twilight sighed in response, "Right... Okay so, the red wire needs to go with the red wire, and, the yellow wire needs to go with the yellow wire, and so on and so forth... Just match the colors that's all your supposed to do," She explained to it in a very slowly and methodical way as to not confuse it further.

The white figure looked at the panel, it's glass dome glanced around it as it tried to understand what she was getting at. Twilight hoped that the electrician understood what it was supposed to do now, as explaining it again in greater detail would probably be harder than her just doing the task for it.

Unfortunately Twilights hoping got her nowhere. Because as the white figure reached its hand into the electrical panel again, it immediately grabbed a hold of the exposed copper wiring on the red wire and shocked itself. The current that was flowing through the wire at the time had been extremely high, because the moment it touched the wire it immediately jolted up off the floor and into the air and began flashing on and off like a light bulb in a cartoonish way, before its upper half exploded in a squall of gore while making a loud popping sound.

Blood. Sprayed. Everywhere. It sprayed all over the floor, all over the walls, all over the circuit panel, but mostly all over Twilight. It covered her face, neck, chest, front legs, and Hooves completely like a thin coat of paint. It dripped off from her onto the ground while she stood there completely shock, her mouth agape at what she just witnessed. She felt like she was going to puke after watching this horrible accident, but at the same time she was more surprised that its body reacted that way to begin with. The rest of its stubby now torso-less body laid on the ground while a single solitary bone jutted out from its remains, which to Twilight seemed biologically flawed. She should have definitely been able to see more of its skeleton than just one bone. But then again she didn't know what these things were, so that could just be their anatomy. One bone surrounded by a meaty bean body, incased in a suit.

But at the moment she wasn't exactly thinking about it's Anatomy. She was still speechless and emotionally frozen because her mind was still trying to get over the fact that she watched this thing died in front of her.

She just didn't know what to say, on one hoof a part of her knew that something like that was eventually going to happen if the creature continued to play with fire the way it was. But on the other hoof maybe, she should have explained the process of linking colored wires together in greater detail. But at the same time how could she have done that? The only way for her to have done that was for her to just do the task herself.

Maybe that's what she needed to do from now on to prevent these things from killing themselves in horrible ways. Maybe she would just need to do the task herself to keep them safe. This was her Mission, this was her goal, this is what she must do to preserve these little astronauts...

And she would do it!

And it started with completing this wiring task which, because of her superior intelligence she managed to do in only a couple seconds flat. Shutting the panel and stepping away from it, including over the body of the fallen creature, she ran away from it like greased lighting to the nearest restroom to clean the blood off her body as best she could. She hunched over the porcelain sink and turned the water on full. She grimaced as she watched the red liquid flow down the sink drain, but it also felt good knowing that the death of her electrician friend had been avenged.

She dried her coat with a nearby hand towel and stepped out of the bathroom, just in time to see another one of these bipeds, this time it was red, walking through the double doors from the rest of the castle. It gave her a wave which looked friendly at first, before it looked down to the body. The figure then audibly gasped at the sight of his fallen comrade and looked back to Twilight with a pointing accusing finger. It then quickly pointed back to the body then back at her again. This happened a couple times before Twilight realized what it was trying to get at.

"Wait! No no no no no! I can explain!" Twilight exclaimed as she knew where this was headed, but it was too late.

The red creature seemed to manifest a megaphone from behind its back and broadcasted something loud and clear all across the castle for everyone to hear.

DEAD BODY REPORTED!

Where?

Twilight was suddenly whisked away from the over exposed hallway, to a cafeteria that she didn't recognize. She found herself sitting on a bench surrounded by more colored figures. They were all the colors of the spectrum and they wore such strange clothing over top their suits. Some wore tuxedos and top hats, others wore combat fatigues and helmets. They were quite the interesting bunch Twilight thought to herself. Such differences between them yet, they all looked the same in the end, minus colors and apparel. Twilight tried to look around for the one in charge but she couldn't tell who it was or if there was even somepony in charge to begin with. She was about to ask, but she couldn't do that either because as soon as they all got seated, they began yelling at each other.

And for once, Twilight could understand them.

"Where?"

"Where!?"

"Wjere? ... Where?*"

"Location?"

"Where was the body found?"

"Hallway near Library."

"Where? ... Oh. Nevermind."

The voices sounded off one after the other as the hands of these figures begin moving about as if to accentuate their talking. They began pointing and gesturing to one another while they spoke.

"What happened?"

"Someone died Green."

"Oh. How do you know that!?"

"Because I'm the one who reported the body, and it said dead body reported across all our visors! And by the way, it's Purple.

"I don't know man that's kinda sus... How do we know you didn't self report?"

"Because I walked into the hallway, and I saw Purple next to Whites body!"

"Was anybody else in the area to verify your claims?"

"W-Well no but-"

"See!? That's sus!! Why weren't you traveling with a buddy!?"

"WHITE WAS MY BUDDY!!"

And thus the arguing ensued. Twilight really wasn't sure what to do at this point, so she just stayed quiet and watched these... things, verbally assault one another while their hands flew into the air, and slammed down onto the cafeteria table causing silver wear and glasses to jump into the air, spilling drinks and causing a mess.

This was truly chaos.

"Why the FUCK was Pink following me?"

"Because Cyan, I wanted to make sure you didn't die!"

"Why don't you want Pink following you?"

"I work alone! And how do I know Pink isn't the imposter?"

"Because I saw them dump the trash off the balcony! That's a visual task!"

"Bullshit I want proof!"

"What the hell do you mean PROOF!? We don't carry CAMERAS AROUND!!"

Twilights eyes glanced around the table. These guys were tearing themselves apart limb from limb with their words, and yet she remained quiet. If she was being honest with herself, there was really nothing she could add to the matter that would help the situation in any way. If anything she would just make it worse, so she stayed quiet still. But when her eyes crossed Yellow, her thief, she saw the book. It was sitting beside Yellow on it's seat, the top of its cover just barely cresting over the surface of the table.

Suddenly her eyes lit up as she got a brilliant idea, if she could just get that book and escape this cafeteria and somehow manage to find the way back to her library she might be able to continue her studying in peace without these creatures bothering her anymore. Hopefully, if she got back to her library and locked the door she would be able to isolate herself from this madness and it would eventually go away.

Things do tend to do that around here as of late... So she figured this was no different.

So that was her plan, it was a very simple one and it had many holes in it but, it was the only plan she had. Twilight had considered yet again trying to mediate in between the many different figures at the table but she figured that would be a bigger headache than it was worth. So her book re-snatching mission was a go, and now would be an excellent time to do it, as the blue figure pulled out a handgun and started threatening the brown one with it whilst pointing at the pink one. Of course Twilight didn't know what a handgun was but the way the blue one was using it to threaten it's colleague didn't exactly look friendly, and she figured it was only a matter of time before the barrel was pointed at her.

"YOU'RE GONNA BULLY ME, THEN TELL ME THAT I'M WRONG!? I KNOW WHAT I SAW!! PINK WAS FOLLOWING CYAN, AND YOU ARE VOUCHING FOR THEM!! THAT MAKES YOU SUS!!"

"HOLY SHIT!! Where did you get a GUN!?"

"I'M AMERICAN WE ALL HAVE GUNS!!"

"Oh yeah? Well, I'm American and I don't have a gun."

"Do you live in California?"

"Yeah why?"

"That explains it..."

She needed to make a distraction and she needed to make one quick. She figured walking around the table to get the book was out of the question, so she would need to go under the table in order to have a chance at grabbing it. But how was she supposed to slip away if everybody was arguing with each other?

Wait... Everybody was arguing with each other... That's it! Twilight would lean over to the figure sitting next to her as she pointed over at the blue one with her hoof.

"H-Hey uh, Black. Doesn't it seem suspicious that blue as a weapon with them? Maybe Blue is the murderer?" She gently murmured over to it.

The black-figure put its hand to where she figured it's chin was and would begin to rub it suspiciously.

"Yeaaah... That is a bit sus... You've got a good point Purple..." Black would then begin arguing with blue over that reason. She would then turn over to the figure on the other side of her to get them talking too, if she was going to make a big enough distraction she needed to make sure everybody was arguing with each other.

"Hey uhm... Orange! I think Yellow has some good points, but... uh... they were near Red when Red found the body. Pretty suspicious riiight?" The orange figure would hum for a moment as it thought about the implications of what she was trying to get at. Then it began to nod their head.

"Hey yeah, that's a good point, and every time I've seen Yellow doing tasks, the taskbar doesn't go up!" Hey Yellow! How come every time I see you doing tasks the task bar doesn't go up!?" The Orange one was now locked in conflict Yellow.

Now was her chance... everybody was arguing with everyone. They were pointing fingers, waving their hands about, and threatening each other with varying degrees of violence. And while she was against what they were doing, she just really wanted to get out of here with her book and herself in one piece.

So while the arguing got louder, and Orange was about to reach over the table and punch Yellow for insulting his mother, Twilight slipped beneath the table, and began low crawling under the aggressors above her. It was a lot quieter down here than it was up there but Twilight could still hear the bickering as if she were still up above.

"YOU'RE A BUNCH OF FUCKING IDIOTS!! RED WAS THE CLOSEST TO THE BODY WHEN WHITE DIED!! SO IT'S PLAINLY OBVIOUS WHO THE IMPOSTOR IS!!"

"oh. My. GOD. FOR THE LAST TIME IT'S NOT A SELF REPORT! PLEASE SOMEONE BACK ME UP HERE!!"

Twilight was doing her best to try and ignore the constant screaming from above as she got closer to her book. She would have gladly flipped the table over minutes ago and have set these creatures straight with a friendship lesson or two, if she had the patience to do so. But right now she just wanted to go back to studying. Plus, she didn't think it would do them any good.

For the first time in her life, the toxicity of this group surpassed Twilights ability to want to help reform them. Now that was a feat of epic proportions, and all they had to do was argue.

Twilight was now inches from her book as she slowly dragged herself across the linoleum floor of this cafeteria. Using her magic she gently levitated it off the seat and under the table with her. She looked at the cover of the book, and quickly flip through the pages just to make sure her precious tome hadn't received any serious damage while out of her care. And much to her Joy it had not. So now with her book held Aloft by her magic she turned around and headed back towards her seat. Of course she had no intention of sitting back at the cafeteria table, she wanted to get the heck out of here.

So as she reached her seat, she sneaked over top of it as to not make too much noise and would continue to low crawl away from the group, and slowly towards the nearest door that might lead her back to her Library. She could see the electronic double doors that would lead her to her freedom just feet away from her, she was so close to getting out of here she could taste it.

She was so close in fact that one of the crewmates looked over and saw her. It was Yellow, and once it realized she had its book, it immediately stood up in it's seat and pointed over towards her.

"HEY!! PURPLES GOT THE BOOK!! PURPLES TRYING TO STEAL IT!! GET THEM!!" Twilight fearing the worst, screamed in pure horror that she had been found out, and sprinted out the doors. She rushed out of the cafeteria as the sound of foot falls begin pounding the deck behind her.

"Oh sweet Celestia save me! It's my book for crying out loud! I just wanted some ME time! Where did you all even come from to begin with!?" She exclaimed as she continued to Gallop at full speed down the hallway.

Luckily she recognized where she was, it was the hallway that led to the royal banquette dining hall, which meant that her royal crystal décor, had been replaced with a mundane looking lunchroom. And while normally this would be a slap in the face to her, at the moment she didn't really care about that. For when a shot rang out from behind her, as a bullet whizzed by her head, only thing she could think about right now was making it out of here alive with all her limbs still attached to her body.

I'm Skipping...

Twilight was now at a break neck galloping speed. Pillars, rooms, and doors passed her on either side as she continued to get away from her pursuers that she knew were hot on her trail. She wouldn't dare look behind her back to confirm this, for fear of running into a wall. Plus she knew what was behind her, 9 very angry and armed creatures of varying colors with firearms and knives. She needed to get back to her library at all costs, for some reason she thought if she got back to her study cave, all these problems would go away. In fact she was counting on it! She didn't want to die at the hands of these creatures! Especially that Blue one who was screaming every expletive in the dictionary at her. She needed to get away and she needed to do it fast, because if she didn't they were going to catch up to her, and do who knows what!

Kill her? Violate her? Force her to read YouTube comments? She just didn't know! And quite frankly she didn't want to find out.

As another shot rang out from behind her, she spun around a corner and looked for a place to hide. Luckily for her, directly to her left was an open broom closet. She wasted no time and threw herself inside while using her magic to quickly and quietly close the door behind her. She hid amongst the cleaning supplies, brooms, and buckets and she listened to the mini foot falls pass by the door. She quieted and steadied her breathing as she listened, she could tell by the way they stopped they were confused by her sudden disappearance. She heard mumbling and arguing as the group figured out what to do now.

Then... the voices stopped and the group went away. Finally silence washed over Twilight, she didn't hear any more footsteps, she couldn't hear any more talking, and as far as she was concerned she was alone again and safe for the time being.

Twilight let out a deep sigh as she used her horn to illuminate the closet just so she could see what was around her. And as she did she spoke to herself.

"I need to get out of here and call for help... But who could help me? Spike? Starlight? Celestia? I have no idea, I don't even know where these creatures came from or what they really are," She sounded destitute...

"We're called Crewmates," A voice answered Twilight. She quickly spun her head to where she heard the voice and increased the brightness of her horn. What she would find is a purple crewmate sitting in the broom closet with her, its hands were clasped over its knees as it sat next to some cleaning detergent. Twilight went to yell in surprise but it immediately jumped forward and put his hand over her mouth while putting its finger on it's glass dome while it let out a hushing sound as it spoke while trying to keep her quiet.

"Alright look, you to Listen and trust me... I'm the only actual crewmate here, well besides White and Yellow... But, I'm sure they're both dead by now and if they aren't, then these impostors are more incompetent than I first thought. But what's important is that you are in grave danger, we both are, and if we don't get out of here soon, those impostors are eventually going to find us and they're going to kill us and take this castle for themselves. And yes... I'm sure you have many questions, and I'm sure I could answer them but we don't have much time so I'm going to have to ignore those questions for now and just give you the crash course of what's happening, and I'm also going to need you to go along with it. Okay?" It said to her.

Twilight with her mouth still covered while also having not many options left, decided to give in and listen instead of indulging in her curiosity. She shook her head up and down has she kept her eyes planted on this crew member.

"Alright so... For some reason this game decided to have a glitch, and spawn way more imposters than their were crewmates at the start of the round. And while normally that would result in an imposter victory right off, the game continued forward like normal. At first it was fine, I did all of my tasks, I hung around security and watched the cameras with Yellow, I went to the admin office and watched over the complex from there and everything seemed hunky dory," The crewmate would remove his hand from Twilights mouth and she stayed quiet as she listened to his story.

"But when I witnessed Pink and Teal starting to argue with each other about either of them taking the last slice of Pepperoni Pizza from the cafeteria, and both of them pulled out knives, I was convinced something was wrong and that both of them were imposters. I went to run and press the emergency meeting button but Blue barged into the room and threatened both of them with a firearm. This game only had one imposter scheduled... yet somehow, we ended up with 7. And to make it worse, all of them are getting more and more violent and aggressive as the night goes on," Twilight was at a loss for words. Not only did she find out that she was trapped in some sort of game, but she also now knew that these imposters we're getting more and more aggressive as time continued forward. Which meant, it was only going to get worse.

"Well, what can we do?" Twilight asked the purple crewmate. The astronaut put a hand to his chin as he thought. He then lit up like a light bulb as he snapped his fingers.

"I got it! We need to trick the imposters into voting each other off so that the number of imposters and crew members become equal enough for us to turn the tide on them and get the upper hand," He said. Twilight thought about this.

"Okay... But how are we supposed to convince these impostors that their fellow imposters are imposters..." She asked, questioning the wisdom of her crewmate friend. He would think for a minute before hatching another idea.

"We need to play with their emotions through mental gymnastics. We need to create false narratives for them to try and convince themselves that their crewmates so that the imposters will have no quarrel with either killing them or voting them out," Twilight would quickly interject.

"You know you keep mentioning voting people off but I don't know what that means," She said, scratching the back of her head in confusion.

"Okay so... when you vote somebody off you convince everybody else in the party that they are an imposter. They hold a vote and if the votes outweigh either skipping or somebody else getting kicked off, that person is chosen to be shot into space, or kicked off a building, or thrown into lava," Twilight would Grimace at all three of those options.

"Dear Celestia... So violent. Can't we just turn them over to the authorities?" She asked, the dome on the purple crewmate would become cross with her.

"Trust me... These things are dangerous and need to be destroyed. If we continue to allow them to live they will wreak havoc on this world. They are beyond redemption or rehabilitation by any institutionalized organization. I've seen many like them before now, they can't be trusted," It said while pointing a finger at the door as if gesturing to the whole group in general.

"Okay okay... It just, doesn't feel right..." She said, while she sheepishly looked over her shoulder.

"Believe me... once these things are gone you'll be able to sleep better knowing that this filth has been rid from your world," He came back.

"Alright, I believe you. Plus once they're all gone I'll be able to get my castle back, which I'm not too happy about it being changed the way it is. And I still don't know how they managed to do so much construction and under two hours... it's just physically impossible for anypony to move that fast," The crewmate would then smile proudly as he put his hands on his hips while he boasted to her.

"I wouldn't underestimate us. We can be quite quick with our repair and construction work if we really get down to business. After all we built a research base on the planet Polus in less than 24 hours and it has every amenity under the sun. Then again everything we construct usually needs to be repaired shortly after... It's like Chinese bootleg construction... Eeeeverythings made in China," It said as a few sweat drops slid down its head, while it looked off to the right as if avoiding eye contact with her. Twilight became confused again.

"Uuuh... What's a China?" She asked, as she rubbed the back of her head again in confusion.

"It's uh... Uh... Not important. What is important is that we start with our plan, just follow my lead and we should be okay," The crewmate said as he stood up holding a hand down to her offering to help her to her hooves. Twilight looked at his hand then accepted his offer standing up shortly after him.

"Alright, I'm trusting you let's do this!" She said as she shook his hand with her hoof.

Vote them off.

Twilight and the Purple crewmate walked down an empty hall together. This area was uninhabited by the out-of-control Rogue imposters, so they we're free to walk at their own pace and not have to worry about running into them. They talked quietly to themselves about their plan.

"I just want to make sure I understand it completely before we go ahead with it. If we mess up it could jeopardize the whole operation..." Twilight voiced her concerns to the purple crewmate. The crewmate put his hand on her shoulder, and gently tapped it while giving a thumbs up with his other hand.

"Don't worry, just let me do all the talking, and you go agree with whatever I say. These 7 imposters work off of crowd mentality, if enough people agree with a narrative they'll just go along with it. They're like parasites, clinging to a host body to fit in, instead of forming their own opinions," Twilight would furrow her brows.

"These imposters don't seem like the smartest bunch. I mean, what kind of pony would just go along with whatever ponies say without voicing or forming their own opinions? What's so wrong with thinking for yourself? What's wrong with going against the status quo? What's the problem with thinking differently than others, even if what you think isn't popular to certain groups? It just seems silly to me that ponies will stay complacent with just going with the flow, even when the flow is self destructive," Twilight would say as the crewmate looked up at her.

"You know everything you just said sounded very specific as if it's happened to you before. You want to talk about it?" It asked her with genuine concern. Twilight shook her head.

"No... Let's just get rid of these imposters. Maybe it'll make me feel better," The crewmate removed his hand from her shoulder and walked a bit faster in front of her.

"Oh trust me. You and I both will feel a great sense of relief once these creatures are out of our lives," Twilight sighed quickly before holding her head up high.

"You're right. Let's do this," Twilight said with confidence.

The two of them immediately barged into the cafeteria. It was empty as all the other imposters and unsuspecting crewmates were out and about either performing tasks or looking for Twilight and the purple crew mate. The two of them walked forth to the center table and opened the glass dome of the emergency meeting button together, before both slamming their appendages down on the big red button.

EMERGENCY MEETING

In the blink of an eye, all of the other inhabitants of the castle arrived at the cafeteria and sat down at the table. Everyone was here including the only other crewmate, Yellow. For some reason the rogue imposters didn't seem to notice Princess Twilight sitting there with them next to purple. They also didn't seem to notice the fact that purple wasn't at the last meeting. There were a lot of key things that these impostors were overlooking, luckily the things they were overlooking worked in Purples and Twilights favor.

"What happened?"

"What's going on?"

"Has anyone seen my shoes?"

"Where? Oh wait... There isn't a dead body,"

"WHY THE FUCK DID YOU CALL A MEETING?"

"What?"

Purple would take a deep breath as he placed both of his hands down onto the table. If he was going to do this he was going to be resolute and smart about everything he said. He needed to focus and keep his head on straight. He looked over at Twilight and gave her a nod. She returned the nod, and he looked back to the rest of the crew. It's show time.

"Alright everybody listen up. I'm going to make this very simple and get straight to the point. Orange vented,"

"What? No I didn't. I've been in reactor this whole time and there isn't a vent in there,"

"U-Uh... Yeah! I saw him vent into reactor!"

There was a moment of pause as the imposters all looked over at Orange with their eyebrows beneath their glass domes beginning to raise. Purple would then go on to explain how he hadn't seen Orange do any tasks, or that the tasks he did were non visual ones.

"Yeah but... I haven't seen you doing any tasks Purple how do we know you aren't an imposter?"

"Because, all of my tasks are already done and I've been chilling in security with Yellow. Plus, yellow saw me do the Medscan,"

"This is true. I did see him do that,"

"Okay well that's great. But I don't see what that has to do with me venting while in reactor,"

"Hey now, I never said where you vented I just said you vented. I never said you vented into reactor. And I thought there wasn't a vent in there?"

"W-Well I.. I... T-there isn't! I just-,"

"Ladies and gentlemen... Your imposter,"

Yellow has voted. 7 remaining.
Black voted. 6 remaining.
Green voted. 5 remaining.
Purple voted. 4 remaining.
Teal voted. 3 remaining.
Pink voted. 2 remaining.
Red voted. 1 remaining.
Brown voted. 0 remaining.

"Awww you guys suck ass..."

Suddenly everything faded to black for Twilight. At first she was scared, she couldn't see anything. She was going to call out for help but before she could, Twilight would then see a vision of the Orange crewmate standing on the edge of a balcony on the castle of friendship. She recognized this balcony, it was the highest on the center spire closest to her bedroom. She then saw the purple crewmates step out onto the balcony with it. She then heard... a voice, come from from purple that sounded nothing like the voice she had heard before. And while the purple crewmate spoke its hand grew 10 times its original size and swung back behind itself, winding up for a massive strike.

"I like yah cut G,"

The hand then swung down with mighty speed and force and made a loud clapping sound as it slammed against the Orange crewmate as it was hurdled off the balcony and into the air with break neck speed. The force of the impact of the hand on its body had warped its upper half, leaving a dent in it like it had been in a car accident. With such escape velocity and speed it had no trouble leaving the planet's atmosphere and entering into deep space. She would watch it slowly spin and twirl through the empty void as it got further and further away from them.

Orange was an Imposter.

Twilights vision would then fade to black again but would return shortly after. She would find herself back in the cafeteria sitting around the table with all the other crew members and imposters. She looked around to try and figure out what just happened, but another emergency meeting was called.

This time Pink was the one to get voted off after Purple convinced the rest of the crew that they had taken 3 slices of pizza instead of their rationed two slices. It was actually quite easy to convince the rest to vote them off. It was actually almost instantaneous. The moment Purple mentioned that pink had taken 3 slices instead of two Blue slammed his hand down on the vote button and nearly punched pink in the face. Twilight thinks the rest of the crew voted Pink off out of fear of Blue as just after he slammed his hand down on the vote button he started going on a rant.

Then it happened again...

"I like yah cut G," *SMACK*

Pink was an Imposter

Then right after that vote, yet another one was called.

"ALRIGHT. KNOCK IT OFF. I'M TRYING TO DO MY DAMN TASKS AND YOUR MAKING IT VERY HARD FOR ME TO DO THEM WHEN YOU KEEP CALLING THESE DAMN MEETINGS,"

"You know Blue. You've been awful hostile and quite frankly suspicious this whole time. And how come you constantly go along with what everybody else says. And most importantly, why do you have a gun with you?"

"STAY STRAPPED OR GET CLAPPED!!" Everybody including Twilight looked around at each other in silence, or possibly out of fear. He was clearly the most unstable out of the lot, and most defiantly a imposter. And the longer he stayed here, the more hostile he'll become. So the following actions weren't that hard for anyone to do. The fact that they didn't do it sooner was purely to use him as leverage in voting the other imposters off. But now that he was officially off his rocker. He needed to go.

"..."

"Uh-huh..."

Yellow has voted. 6 remaining.
Black voted. 5 remaining.
Green voted. 4 remaining.
Purple voted. 3 remaining.
Teal voted. 2 remaining.
Brown voted. 1 remaining.
Red voted. 0 remaining.

"OH YOU MOTHER FU-"'

"I like yah cut G," *SMACK*

Blue was an Imposter

And thus... The voting came again and again. The subject matter for each imposter getting kicked into space was different for every single one of them. The Purple crewmate managed to convince even the most stubborn of the bunch into voting off their friends despite the fact that everything he was saying was purely fabricated. Everything that he was saying was completely made up and yet the imposters continued to go along with it. Twilight reflected on this and recalled the many times in the past in her life when ponies just went along with whatever the loudest guy in the room said. Its was, jarring to say the least to see it broken down to its very basics here, as if she were to learn from this. Purple barely had to convince them at all for them to go along with what he said. It was almost as if they lacked the proper intelligence to formulate their own reasoning.

Regardless of the implications Twilight was happy to watch the groups numbers slowly dwindle. Eventually, the last imposter Black, was flung into space by purple's almighty hand. And when that happened Twilight found herself on that balcony with Purple and Yellow all standing there staring up at the night sky. It was over, that was the last imposter, which meant that the crew mates had received the victory that they deserved. Twilight could finally breathe easy now.

The night had flown by them for as they looked off into the distance and up into the starry sky, they could see the sun rise slowly beginning to manifest on the horizon. It had been a long night filled with screams gunfire and social implications...

But it was over now. Twilight turned around to talk to Yellow about the reason behind him wanting her book, but when she turned to locate him he was gone, which just left her and Purple standing there on the balcony while the sunrise got brighter as the stars began to fade.

"Hey... Where did Yellow go?" Twilight asked Purple as she looked around for the crewmate.

"He went back to the lobby. The round is over, therefore he exited the game and went back to the main menu," Purple said as he watched the sun come up.

"Oh. I see, wait... if Yellow disappeared, why aren't you disappearing?" Twilight asked as she looked over at Purple with a confused look on her face. Purple turned to her with a hand on the balcony. She could tell he was smiling by the way his dome arched.

"Oh Twilight, you still haven't noticed it yet have you... think back to how many crewmates we voted off and how many of them died, there were ten of us..." Twilights stopped and pondered what the Purple crewmate said.

"Alright so... During your explanation inside the closet and further explanation in the hallway towards cafeteria, you said that there were ten of you in total... And we just got rid of... eight of them... and White was the first one to die after he got electrocuted at the wiring panel, and yellow and you... are crewmates..." Twilight would think long and hard about what the Purple crewmate was trying to get at. Before suddenly she got where he was going.

"Wait a minute! You plus Yellow and the rest doesn't make ten! It makes eleven! Which means that you, aren't a crewmate and you aren't an imposter! Who are you!?" Twilight said as she lit up her horn to defend herself from this mystery crewmate.

The mystery man would not be intimidated by her display of force, instead the crew member laughed. But it wasn't malicious laughter no, it sounded like motherly laughter, laughter that she had heard before many times. Laughter that she only remembered hearing in Canterlot when she visited the princesses. The purple crewmate would begin to glow a dark blue, and would start to morph into the shape of an alicorn.

An alicorn with a star spangled mane, and deep blue eyes.

"Princess Luna!!" Twilight would mediately extinguisher horn as she jumped forward towards the princess as she grappled around her into a hug. The princess of the night would greet her with a hug in return.

"Hello Princess Twilight. It is good to see you," She said as she embraced the younger Alicorn. Twilight would then leave the hug and would stand before the princess of the night.

"Wait... So that means... This was all a dream? None of this actually happened? I'm asleep? Which means I'm back in my library, sleeping at my table," She asked. Princess Luna would nod her head.

"Yes... That is where you reside at this time. You fell asleep hours ago, and I saw through into your dream tonight that you were having a nightmare. So I figured I would insert myself into your story and assist you, making first contact with you inside that broom closet," She said as she ran her hoof through Twilights mane. Twilight would smile from her doing this, enjoying the fact that she went out of the way for her just to help.

"Thank you Princess Luna! I really needed the help back there. Things were getting out if control! I couldn't handle it on my own. Thanks for stepping in," Luna would smile brighter as she nodded her head.

"You're very welcome Twilight. And I hope you've learned a lesson about how crowd mentality works. Just because everypony thinks one way doesn't mean you can't form your own opinions, and think how you please. In todays modern world, ponies often forget the fact that they don't need to go with the flow and accept the status quo. Sometimes it's okay to be a bit of a rebel, or just embrace your traditions," Twilight smiled and nodded to her in return.

"Yeah. Especially when your life is on the line and things could go very bad for you if you aren't careful," She said as she stood beside her wiser, taller friend.

"Very true Twilight. Celestia would be proud of you if she were here. But, I think it's time for you to wake up. My time here grows short as the night grows short as well," She said as she would begin to fade away, "Please come visit us soon, we miss you up here in Canterlot," Twilight would give Luna a big hug before she grew to ghost like to hold onto, as she laughed.

"Okay... okay, I'll come up the moment I have some free time!" She said as her dream would begin to fade around her, and before she knew it she found herself back in her Library.

It was much brighter in here now as the sun began to shine through the many windows in the ceiling of the great library. Twilight had indeed slept the greater portion of the night away. And much to her dismay she had not gotten the chance to read all the books she wanted to that night. She had instead slept all of her free time away. But while she was slightly annoyed, it was nice to see Princess Luna again. Twilight Would stand up, shedding her blanket for real this time, while stretching her body and her wings out. She for real extinguished the lantern that was still Illuminating the area around her, while she fold the blanket neatly into squares. She put all of her books back on their respective shelves in alphabetical order, and stepped out of her book cave into the greater library.

She'd just have to read them... tomorrow night. And hopefully she won't have anymore dreams about astronauts.

Author's Note

I would like to thank you all for coming along for the ride. It's been an honor making this story for you all to enjoy. And I hope you will stick around for more in the future by checking out some of my other work, especially my other game related fanfictions.

Remember to stay classy.

~Calex