Pocket Change

Segment Music

Change

Something's wrong. It's been three days now since Trixie showed up to school and no one seems to know where she is. I visited her residence only for the door to be answered by her very tired and dejected-looking father, Jackpot. His usual charismatic self was nowhere to be found and he just seemed to want to be alone. The strangest thing is, Trixie's cellphone ping consistently responds along the outskirts of Canterlot City, yet it just keeps going to voicemail. The only thing out there is Canterlot's Medical Research Facility, but why would she have gone over there?

It seems like Trixie's not the only one missing either. Missing person reports are popping up all over the city; they range from children to the elderly, but none of them are important figures. I think... people are deliberately being taken. The only reason this is just a thought is that every now and then missing people come back. But according to the people close to the returnees, they're not entirely the same. I know, I sound like a tin-foil head.

Things have been quiet at school, everyone's scared. Principal Celestia has started urging students to use a buddy system if they walk home. At this rate, a city-wide curfew will be instated which won't be good for me. CCPD says they're cracking down on the issue, but from what I've seen, they've hardly made any moves. Their inactivity regarding some things is concerning, to say the least. Hopefully, they're not in on this.

Rarity and her friends have been acting weird as well. Not weird like the returnees, just secretive. I think they're planning something. I would be worried, but I'm fairly certain they have superpowers.

Against my better judgment, I've already decided to go investigate the cellphone signal myself before the phone itself dies. I told Aria of my intentions and of the fact that I wouldn't be able to teach her for a while. This brings us to now.

"Remind me again why we're doing this at night," Aria groaned as we tracked through a wasteland toward the research facility.

I looked up from my phone and over my shoulder. "Because I'm tired of waiting. I said you didn't have to come."

Aria rolled her eyes in response. After a few minutes, we had arrived at the facility. Oddly enough, it seemed like the power was out. According to their website's front page though, they should still be open 24/7. I walked up to one of the doors and tried the handle; the door didn't budge.

"Damnit," I muttered to myself.

Aria tapped me on the shoulder before pointing at the ground a little ways away from the door. It was a phone, Trixie's phone. I picked the phone up and turned it over. The screen had been cracked beyond belief. Upon powering the phone on, I was met with the static and distorted colors of a broken backlight. No luck.

"So, what do we do now?" Aria asked as she turned to look at the front doors.

I had come all this way only to find the place to be closed. I was not going home now. Luckily, I have a bit of experience with breaking and entering. "Follow me," I instructed, walking around the left side of the building.

The place was huge, which was good in some capacity. The bigger the facility, the more opening there probably were. To the CMRF's credit, there were only a few. I stopped just under a vent, looking it over. It was fairly large, I could easily fit through it if I removed the cover. I looked over at Aria who was standing next to me with her arms crossed and looking bored out of her mind.

"Give me a boost?"

Her eyes widened as she took a few steps back. "You're not actually planning on breaking in, are you?"

I smiled coyly, whipping out a multipurpose tool.

"You almost done up there?!" She yelled up at me as I had just finished removing the last screw, balancing atop her shoulders.

I popped the lid off and tossed it aside before climbing in through the vent.

"Hey, wait up! What am I supposed to do?" Aria called after me.

I stuck my head back out to look at her. "Wait here in case anything happens."

She threw her hands up in the air and crossed them before turning around, leaning her back against the wall. I'll thank her later. Slipping on my smiling mask and tactical gloves, I continued through the vent.

Segment Music

I've been crawling through the vent as silently as possible for some time now. If the facility really did have no power then I wouldn't have to worry about being baked to death or shredded by fan blades. I wasn't exactly sure what the plan was, but I had a feeling Trixie was here.

It was dark so I had been utilizing my phone's flashlight to make my way through the maze. Also, ever since I entered, I've lost cell signal.

Eventually, I reached a vent that led to what seemed to be a storage room. There were still no lights on, but the flashlight revealed the room to be devoid of people. There was just one problem; the head of the screws was on the other side. This meant that I would have to use brute force, in other words, make some noise. Getting into a laying position, I kicked the vent with my right leg rather forcefully. I paused for a minute, listening for any hint of notoriety, but there was none. I repeated the process until the vent hung loosely by a screw. Silently, I removed it and hopped through, landing on my feet.

Unfortunately, my landing was met by a thick-sounding splash. Shining my flashlight down, I found that I was now standing in some green slimy substance that was almost translucent. "Gross."

I took a few pictures of it before inspecting the rest of the room. There was nothing else of interest so I searched for an exit. Oddly enough, there was a stack of boxes blocking the door to the room.

Moving the boxes out of the way, I suddenly heard a voice from behind. "No, stop! You can't!"

I whipped around toward the direction of the voice only to see a little girl crawling out from behind a few boxes. "Woah kid, you scared the life out of me," I said as I shined my flashlight.

The girl looked sickly, almost anorexic. "Put them back, put the boxes back," she pleaded desperately.

Hearing the growing desperation in the little girl's voice, I did as I was told. When I finished, I put my hands up to show that meant no harm. I also made sure to lift my mask up. "What's your name, kid?"

The girl fiddled with her hands nervously before replying. "Petal."

"Well alright, Petal. I'm Change. Mind telling me what a kid like you is doing in a place like this. Did your parents leave-"

"They didn't leave me!" She yelled feebly.

I took a step back at the sudden outbursts. "They didn't leave me," she continued, "the monsters took them, so I hid."

I was now a lot more on edge. "Monsters?"

At this point, the girl had begun shaking with what was probably fear, so I didn't push the subject further. "Petal, I have reason to believe a friend of mine went missing here. Unfortunately, I'll need to move those boxes to search for her."

Petal looked at the door then back to me fearfully. "Can't you just call the police? Mommy said the police can protect people."

I sighed before showing her my phone screen, revealing that I had no cellphone signal. It was strange though. Even inside the building, I still had no signal. I can understand the lack of signal inside the vents, but it was almost as if it was purposefully being jammed.

Lowering myself to the girl's level, I began speaking calmly. "I'll tell you what, I'll look for your parents too. I have a friend waiting outside, do you think you could climb through that vent and find her? Just go straight forward, can't miss her. She looks like a rockstar."

"Like...the dazzlings?" She said meekly.

I smiled at this. "Yeah, you know Aria?"

Her eyes widened a bit at this as her shaking stopped. "Aria's outside," Petal coughed, "she's my favorite," Petal said excitedly, yet weakly.

I smiled brighter. "Mine too, and she can sure as heck beat up any monsters. So, what do ya say?" I said, pointing a thumb behind me toward the vent.

Petal glanced at the door once more, then to the vent, and nodded. "Okay, I'll go. Promise you'll look for my parents," she said as she stuck a pinkie out.

I took her pinkie in my own and shook on it. "It's a promise," I picked petal up and lifted her up toward the vent, "here, let me give you a boost."

She looked down the vent once before violently shaking her head in defiance. "What if there are monsters in there? It's too dark."

We won't get anywhere at this rate. I began searching my pockets for some sort of light-emitting device only to find a few lighters. I wasn't about to give a little girl a lighter and tell her to crawl through a vent. Reluctantly, I pulled out my phone and handed it to Petal. "Use this, it's light's pretty bright."

Petal took the phone and crawled into the vent, turning around to face me. "Bye Mr.Change. Be careful, there's a lot of monsters," she warned before she turned away from me as she crawled further into the vent. I might come to regret that later, but at least the phone gave her courage.

What the hell man? Kids shouldn't have to deal with crap like this. What are these monsters she's so terrified of? This feels like the start of a Resident Ponyville game. I took a lighter out and flicked it on so that I could see. Maneuvering back over to the door, I moved all of the boxes out of the way and gripped the door handle, taking a deep breath. I flipped my mask back down. Slowly, I opened the door and stepped out of the room.

Off appearance alone, it seemed like a tornado had run through the place. More concerning, however, were the occasional splotches of red and the smell of copper in the air; it was blood. Yet, there was no one in sight.

"What the hell?" I whispered to myself, pulling out a pocket knife.

It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing. I just need to search around, but it was best to know where I was going first. Walking up to a wall with a map encased in glass, I found that I was currently standing in the West Hall of floor one. Why would floor one be specified in a one-story building? The facility was large, sure, but it definitely didn't seem to be taller than one story from the outside. Finding this a bit strange, I began searching the entire floor: every room, every casing, and every sign of struggle. So far, there hasn't been anything like a monster which was strange because Petal said there were a lot.

In the end, I was only able to find a few lanyards of various employees: Dr. Delilah Dusk, Dr. Cloud Sweeper, R.N. Cinnamon Spice, R.N. Amythyst Rose, and Dr. Chrysalis. Doctor Chrysalis was the only one not smiling in her picture; her eyes seemed so cold. I collected the I.D's just in case any of them related to Petal's parents. It wasn't until I entered the East Hallway that I discovered something odd. There was an elevator embedded in the left wall toward the center of the hallway. Judging from the control panel being lit up with L.E.D.s, it still had power. I called it with the press of a button, waiting for it to come up. When it finally did, it opened to a rather unappealing site.

The interior of the elevator seemed to be lined with that green goop that seems to have hints of black that stretched up the walls like a fungus. Aside from this, the elevator seemed to be in working order. The elevator was bathed in a green hue as the slime had managed to stretch over the ceiling lights. They flickered ominously as if warning me.

Given no other option, I stepped through, a wet spongy sound following my footsteps. Navigating the control panel, I was able to see that there were in fact more floors to the facility. There were two more floors under this one: Floor two and the basement. I don't think I've ever seen an elevator's floors laid out like this. I figured I'd cleared the basement first. If horror movies have taught me anything, it's that the basement is where the magic happens. I pressed the basement floor button only for nothing to happen. I tried a few more times and got the same result. I eyed the panel suspiciously, noticing something strange just off to the right of it.

It looked like an I.D. scanner, the kind the faculty members of CHS use on certain doors like the teacher's lounge. Using intuition, I began scanning the I.D.'s I had picked up earlier. I almost gave up when all of a sudden, the lock indicator on the scanner that had been red, turned green. Doctor Chrysalis' I.D. had worked, she must've had access to the bottom floor. Wait, why would the basement be off-limits to other staff members anyway? Probably has to do with top-secret research. Top secret research that might have destroyed the facility...

No turning back now.

I pushed the basement floor button once more; the doors began sliding shut. The slight disorientation that came with lowering elevation set in as I stood in waiting.

I know what you might be asking, "How is Change so calm?"

Well, the answer's fairly simple. I'm not. Fortunately, I pretty used to the sensation of adrenaline pumping through my veins from all of my thieving exploits. During those times, I found that fear and excitement were two very closely related feelings. It's just a matter of outlook to decide which one you end up with. Right now though, I'm on the border of excitement and fear, so I'm just feeling anxious. I'd be lying if I said I didn't want to leave, but I needed to find Trixie. She's my best friend. Hell, for a long time, she's been, my only friend. I owe it to her to at least search. Admittedly, her father's also taken care of me more than my own mother has. I hate to see him in such a distraught state, he doesn't deserve it. I have to find her.

With an innocent and friendly chime, the elevator came to a halt and the doors slid open.