My body was pressed tightly against the tight confines of the metal box I had been placed in. My breath bounced off the walls as I stood in darkness; the light that emanated off me being my only means of sight.

Even then, there was nothing to see but a wall in front of me.

A familiar rapid sequence of distorted, synthetic beeps sounded outside of my containment, instantly hitting me with dread... and many others...

"No, wait!" Someone else called out from outside my box. "Please, no!"

I closed my eyes as tears shed... There was no fighting Orientation. It was going to happen regardless...

"Please! We'll do anything you tell us! Just- AGGGH!"

The beeping quickly, and without warning, shifted to an ear piercing, droning shriek with a mess of distortion behind it.

I grit my teeth as the veins in my head bulged and throbbed from the violation to my mind.

The other subjects in the boxes with me screamed and cried, as if they were getting slaughtered.

Some, perhaps were. It wasn't so uncommon for subjects to die from Orientation. I just had to hope I wasn't going to be one of them...

The sound twisted and morphed as it worked to take control of us. Warping around itself as the beeps worked tirelessly with an amplified strike. Like needles repeatedly jabbing through the skull and into the brain.

"PLEEEEEEEEEEEEEASE!" A mare nearby screamed at the top of her lungs. "STOOOOOOOOP!"

A heavy droning soon fell in the mix, rising and falling. Like heavy furniture being dragged across a steel floor of an endless room, where no walls could contain its echoed screech, allowing it to carry on for what felt like would be eternity.

My legs buckled under my mass as I finally joined the others in screams. Needles stabbing endlessly into my psyche with each beep... I couldn't take it anymore...

Had I not been squeezed in the tight, suffocating confines of the box, I would have collapsed entirely.

The beeping and synthetic scream came to a stop, but in its place, the drone rose to an even higher, ear piercing shriek dramatically. My mind felt like it was going to burst. My eyes...

Warm blood trickled out of my nose... Tasted the metallic flavor...

Obedience is...

Fuck, no... Please...

Obedience is mandatory... I live to serve. Live to satisfy the desire of my masters. My body is theirs to do with as they please.

Stop this... I can't do this anymore... I'll be good...

I promise...

I will die for them.

The scream fell away, and all that remained was silence...

It wasn't until a minute later that a klaxon blared, and the walls that pressed against me fell away. I collapsed for a moment, gasping from the pain as many others around me did.

There were some who ceased to move. The one on my left was the zebra I rode the tram with. A familiar face, even before our exchange the day prior...

To the right, a unicorn.

But before me...

... A filly. She ceased to move. Her eyes, motionless as a dark red dripped from her lips and nostrils. Tears obscured her gaze into the Afterdeath...

Many others had fallen with her, but the majority of us were still breathing.

The doors to the room we resided in slid open, and one by one, in single file lines, Warhorse units stepped through, rounding up the subjects that survived.

The ship rumbled and shook softly as the engines gradually went quiet.

We had landed. This would have been the first time I ever set hoof outside of the towers.

I wanted to feel grief for the filly, but... even through the control of Orientation, I knew she was better off dead. Better off than the rest of us...

I envied her...

<>

Upon the hatch to the battleship opening, and the ramp lowering, we stepped out at the order.

The air was hot, and the atmosphere glowed a reddish orange.

The walls were jagged and crude, made of rock, but on one face, there was a golden steel with a design carved in a professional manner. I couldn't quite make it out from here though.

Machines stood guard like the floodlights that were positioned here, waiting to be given an order or activated. Metal crates laid scattered along the stretch of land, and in the distance behind us were more vessels like the one I disembarked; landed and sleeping.

Humans wore masked suits the likes of which I never saw before. Yellow, rubber-like suits with a transparent pane of what looked like glass or plastic over their face.

Almost all the subjects with me stared in awe at the steel structure as they walked.

Upon reaching the ground, a powdery substance stained my hooves in that same red-orange color.

I shook a forehoof around in attempts to shake it off my clean form, but the moment I did, I heard the charge of a pulse cannon behind me.

"Keep moving." The War unit behind me demanded.

Without question, I complied.

There was a slab in the floor just before the metal wall; bearing the same warm color as the main sight.

I had suspicions that the slab buried in the ground was just another part of the structure.

I looked up to find the ceiling was missing. Instead, way up, was a red sky. The walls stretched on for a great distance, squeezing that sky into the size of the nutrient pills we took. Choking it.

My eyes felt criss-cross as I continued to stare in bafflement. I soon began to stumble out of dizziness as a result. I quickly shook my head from the mind trick and averted my eyes back to the peculiar design on the wall, now that I could see it better.

There was a sun. A moon. And then Equus.

But the sun seemed to scorch Equus. Below that resided a series of strange looking ponies in a single file; each one looking more similar to the last, until ending on one that looked like a proper pony. With folded back ears, glowing fiery hair, and a bulkier mass. Like me.

Ships that I was all too familiar with surrounded another Equus. This one, however, wasn't burning by means of the sun. Instead, explosions seemed to cover the surface in many areas.

Deep within that planet resided a variety of towers, each of different size. Over it, a strange symbol consisted of four crooked chevrons. Two pointing up, and two pointing down. One big and small in both directions.

There was an egg inside a pony that took up a lot of the space on the wall. A pegasus with her wings... out... stretched...

My legs almost stopped functioning as my eyes lingered on the code on her flank...

012...

What...?

"Little Phoenix is waking up now..." That strange voice spoke in my head.

What the fuck was I doing on that wall...? They... whoever made the mural, got me exact to my appearance... They even got my ear piercing right! What the fuck was happening here...?

Behind her... or me, rather... was a hammer and wrench, crossing presumably at the middle.

Beside 'me' was another of same size. A zebra. The same zebra I knew even before the tram...

268.

I glanced around to find him among us still, and he looked just as confused as I felt about seeing the two of us up there.

He turned to me, his mouth hung open as his brow knit. He quickly turned away once he saw I was staring too, but the Warhorse units that escorted us didn't seem to care this time.

I made a brief glance over my shoulder at the Warhorse unit, but still, they gave no reaction to me. They were staring right at me, they saw me staring, just as the War that accompanied 268 paid no mind to him looking at me.

I took a step closer to him, but still, there was no warning or violence.

Another step, and still, nothing. Another. And another.

268 glanced at me, his eyes then wide with terror.

"What are you doing!?" He hissed in a whisper. "You're going to get us killed!"

"I don't think we're in danger." I replied in the same volume. "We're important. We have our ticket."

He looked at his War unit, and then mine, only to find they didn't care about our contact. He let out a sigh.

"Besides..." I added. "We just went through Orientation. We wouldn't be able to talk to each other even if we wanted, unless they wanted us to talk. Let alone take a step out of line."

"Right..." He sighed again, rubbing his temple. "Right..."

"I think they want us together."

"Most likely to open the weird wall thing. Seeing as we're the keys..." He spoke softer, as if he wished not to be heard.

"You saw that dream too?"

"Keep your voice down!" He hissed again, leaning in close. "They don't know we had it. I want to keep it that way."

Odd... he didn't seem all that shocked to discover I had the dream. I certainly was.

We both looked at the mural as we continued to approach.

"I don't know what's more baffling..." He whispered, his eyes flicking between our portraits. "The fact our existence was predicted, or that you're pregnant with a bundle of tentacles..."

Wait, what?

I spun back to the mural to find he was shockingly right. There were lines within the egg that formed tendrils. Upon second observation, I discovered some were sticking out from its shell.

That was... worrying...

The extra subjects ahead of us were lined up near a rock wall, while 268 and I were pushed forward, towards the slab in the ground.

The Humans stood at a distance as we neared the structure, observing. To a point, even the War units stopped following, yet all eyes were now on us.

We looked at each other for a moment, and then at the structure.

"Guess we're going alone then..." He muttered.

"I'm with you." I said back. "Not alone."

He smiled wanly with a brief glance, then started forward. I stayed by his side.

Up close, there was even more to discover. But so much was happening in the mural that it was hard to follow.

It seemed entire stories of... what was that...? Other universes? Were being shown...?

Okay, that was... weird.

Stories of Humans. Stories of ponies. Stories of races I wasn't at all familiar with. Stories of a giant beast that bore the strange chevron mark, and a vortex of sorts. Stories of a weird, glowing cylindrical object, like a power core.

Stories of nukes, the annihilation of entire species, and the birth of others... Stories of ends and beginnings...

Stories of consequences and stories of demons... Stories of forests conquering a world and driving it to madness...

Stories of stars...

It was all just one massive story, tied together.

And we were... a part of it...

All connected somehow...

Level with our chest were two intricate hoof prints spaced far apart from each other.

"I'll take the left one." 268 stated as he approached the strange button.

I approached the right, and as we put our hooves over the slots, we turned to each other.

He nodded, and together, we pressed our hoof into the wall.

Something buzzed and clicked overhead, and the ground softly rumbled behind us.

I looked over my shoulder and found that the slab in the ground was rising as an open , circular doorframe.

Upon reaching the length it was designed for, it ceased, and a red beam shot out from the chevron symbol on the mural to a black but shiny gem built into the top of the frame.

Red electricity danced around the inside of the doorframe moments before the atmosphere in the middle was torn asunder by a red-rimmed, expanding vortex. Black filled the middle. The same vortex seen on the mural...

I took my hoof away, staring intently at the vortex portal that we had just opened.

"Yet another prophecy fulfilled..." Vector stated. "This is a really bad idea. It's clear now they really were the key, we shouldn't be doing this."

"I second that..." The other beside him noted.

Some murmured in agreement. Others didn't.

"Alright, one of you, or preferably both of you, go in first." One of the other Humans - an unfamiliar voice - said as he stared at 268 and I.

"Yes, master." We both said in unison as we approached.

"Wait, no." Vector stepped up. "We don't know if there's any long term effects yet. We haven't tested its signature."

"We're taking a shortcut." The other Human snapped a look at him. "The higher ups want this now, and by the stars, the last thing we need is them coming down here and making a mess of everything."

Vector sighed, looking back at me.

"Unless you'd like to go in first...?"

His eyes grew wide in terror.

"That's what I thought..." The other Human turned to me. "If either of you make it on the other side and find that the place is safe to venture, then come back and report."

"What's the report on the radio signal?" One of the other Humans asked, looking at a War.

In response, a static hissed abruptly from the unit.

"Of course..." Feris rolled his eyes, looking at the Human in question. "It's been hissing static for hundreds of years, what made you think today was going to be any different?"

"Piss off." He snapped in retaliation. "We just opened the gateway. There was a good chance it could have changed things. I wanted to be sure... not that I have to explain myself to you, Feris." He spoke his name with strong resentment.

"012, before you go..." One of the other Humans started, his hands meeting behind him in a formal stance. "Is your piercing made of metal?"

"No, master." I said with the shake of my head. "Plastic."

"Good. Don't wanna risk the chance of detonating the rift if metal comes into contact with it, let alone the entire area..."

"Carry on, you two." Vector said, before nodding to the War units in the area. Simultaneously, their pulse cannons began to charge, aiming at the rift.

We both turned to the vortex stuck within the frame, to which 268 took a deep breath and stepped forward, fading deeper into the tunnel of black. The red around the portal brightened momentarily, but that was the only reaction to him.

I closed my eyes and followed, having not the slightest clue what to expect on the other side.

Assuming I reached it...

Author's Note

Orientation is based on the following link: Wavves - Goth Girls