Chapters Reunion Begins with a Glass of Mercury
"And then, with your scissors, cut the antennae down to only one-eighth to one-quarter inch … The antennae are hollow, fluid-filled structures with a nerve running down the center."
BackyardBrains, "RoboRoach Surgery Instructions"
Comrade Applebloom stood behind a podium. Before her assembled the Party, a term initiated into the lexicon by Dearly Departed Comrade Pinkie Pie. Commune Leaders from Las Pegasus to New Manehattan, leading professors from the Universities, party officials, and even, in the back, the shadowy and indistinct figures of the Ministry of Defense and Wellness.
This was it, the education that her sister had bought with revolutionary blood, the University position, years of struggle and strife. This was her moment. The day she'd give proof to the Secretariat that their faith in her was not mistaken.
She would not fail them.
"Good evening, Comrades."
"All hours are ours to decide," rumbled back the gathered Earth Ponies.
Applebloom smiled, "Tonight, you have been gathered to witness a demonstration of the latest advance in Practical Neuroscience. An advance which will finally win the Workers of Equestria independence from the bourgeois, unicorn scum that have oppressed us since the beginning of time."
The Head of Practical Neural Studies paused for the clopping of hooves against the ground. After a moment, she cleared her throat and continued, "Before we begin demonstrating the process, allow me to introduce the result."
Rarity stumbled onto the stage. Blood leaked from the scab that had once been her left eye. A wire jutted from the torn socket and went back to a box mounted on her back. Two additional wires emerged from the ruin of her horn. Once proud and white, the horn had been sawed off at the halfway point, and what remained had been cracked to the base. Semi-transparent glue rested in a raised globule and dribbled down the broken edges to rest on her skin.
A metal box was held onto her back with leather straps that went under her belly. The straps had not been removed in days, and most of the hair had fallen out beneath them leaving blistered and scarred skin.
The unicorn's good eye stared blankly. Her expression was slack and a trickle of drool fell from the corner of her mouth. The blood from her eye and the saliva from her mouth joined to form ropes of pink drool that gradually detached to the ground.
"What you see before you was once one of the most prideful unicorns in Equestria. A creature who denied the purpose of her existence to follow the folly of her individual will. A tool that chose to deny its use for the greater good of Equestria. A VILE LEECH SUCKING UPON THE BLOOD OF THE WORKERS!" Applebloom turned to face Rarity directly as she screamed the last line. The movement concealed her smile as the assembled Earth Ponies below joined her with catcalls and slogans. Sure, her science could stand on its own, but there was no shame in working the audience.
"Now," Applebloom turned once she knew she had absolute control over herself, "she is a productive member of our great society."
Applebloom pulled a white cloth from a large mechanical control panel. Covered with crude drawings, buttons and levers, the panel looked like it had been made in somepony's barn. In her laboratory back at Ponyville, now the Capitol of the Revolutionary Government, there was a more refined apparatus, but the purpose of this meeting was not to show off her finest. It was to demonstrate the technology was available to the common pony.
From the back of the control panel, Applebloom grasped three cables in her mouth. She walked over to where Rarity stood drooling and began connecting the cables to the box on the unicorn's back.
Rarity bucked as the second cable was inserted, and a feeble groan escaped her mouth. Applebloom spoke calmly, "Sometimes you may witness small erratic actions from your subjects. This is to be expected, as you are wired directly into their nervous system. Just wait for the muscle movements to settle and continue on." When the Unicorn calmed, Applebloom connected the third wire.
The Head of Practical Neuroscience returned to the control panel and flipped a switch, sending a current directly into the Unicorn's horn and spinal cord, causing her eye to roll madly in its socket.
From above, a plain white sheet lowered with a clattering whir. A projector broadcast the images perceived by Rarity's good eye onto the screen, showing a grainy black and white image of the crowd. They stared like indistinct, dark-eyed monsters, experiencing no shame as they watched themselves watch the agony of what had once been a hated Counter-Revolutionary.
"This is, of course, the result of using only those materials that are available throughout the Republic," her statement caused some movement among the figures in the back of the lecture hall. It was treason to admit resources or opportunities in the Republic weren't fairly allocated, but Applebloom wasn't about to let her work go under-appreciated, "Back in Ponyville, we have a more advanced set-up connected to Reformed Comrades Twilight Sparkle and Luna, which allows a finer degree of control for guiding the solar bodies."
"However, for the simple tasks required in local Communes, this method is more than sufficient. Witness," Applebloom pressed a few buttons on the panel, causing the white, ruined horn and the wires emerging from it to glow.
Rarity's gaze, as displayed by the projector, turned to the podium, which rose into the air. Applebloom manipulated the controls again, causing the Unicorn's head to twitch left, right, up and down, the podium moving in response to each gesture. Finally Applebloom struck a button on the panel, sending a jolt of electricity that shattered the Unicorn's concentration and caused the podium to drop.
The former fashionista nearly collapsed, but metal rods inserted behind her knee joints and before her hocks kept her legs from bending. Instead, she swayed wearily, the motion tearing the flesh of her legs and opening some of her stitches. Red trickled over fur that had once been snow white.
"Now it's time for the biology. First, you need a Unicorn, not that those are hard to find," Applebloom smiled slyly and the audience tittered. The Republic was still heady from the previous May, when one of the last Unicorn enclaves had been rooted out by the Ministry for Defense and Wellness. The picture of a bearded and frail Prince Blueblood being stabbed to death in his bed while his horrified wives looked on was still being circulated.
Sweetie Belle, her legs hobbled and most of her body bound with leather straps, was dragged onto stage by a member of the Ministry for Defense and Wellness. "She has already been soaked in cold water. This serves as a cheap anesthetic and slows down the movement of blood, allowing you to operate freely."
"The first step of this surgery, is also the hardest step. You need to insert your ground wire along the spine. There really isn't a clean way to perform this operation, so you just take a knife," Applebloom gripped a blade from the table in her teeth, causing her next words to mumble, "an' se' 'o i'."
The knife messily cut through the Unicorn's back, just before her hips. Blood welled up, and the Unicorn tried to whimper. Fortunately, all non-Reformed Unicorns were required, by law, to have their mouths glued shut. The glue had been reinforced with some quick stitching to insure a quiet operation.
Applebloom pulled at the edges of the wound with her hooves, revealing a space of white among the red. She released the knife and looked up, "As you can see … Darn, you can't see, can you?"
The Earth Pony left her former friend and led Rarity over to stand by the rear of her younger sister. Applebloom directed the former fashionista's gaze to down to the wound, which was now welling with slow-dripping blood.
"One of the most important parts of this step is not to do what I just did and walk away in the middle of it. You need a clear view of the spine before inserting the grounding wire, so we'll have to do a bit more cutting."
The screen projecting Rarity's view showed the knife returning to the wound, and the tan hooves widening and sawing until a flash of spine was revealed. When the cold wire was thrust into the opening, the younger Unicorn trembled. The metal pushed along her spine, ripping gristle from bone and scraping the column.
"Once you have the grounding wire alone the spine, it is time for the fun part."
This time Applebloom remembered to reposition Rarity for a view of her sister's head before cutting began. The witnesses were the entire reason for the exercise, no need to deprive them of a good show. Applebloom clutched a saw between her hooves and rested it against the white surface of her friend's horn.
"When cutting, you want to leave at least two inches, otherwise you will negatively impact the utility of your Unicorn. Normally, this operation requires two ponies, but why work when you have magic?"
Applebloom rested her forehooves on the ground and clutched one end of the blade in her mouth. She lifted one of her back hooves and hit a switch on the panel. The handle opposite her glowed with Rarity's magic. A second strike caused the Unicorn's head to bob up and down, drawing a few amused giggles from the male members of the crowd. The magically manipulated end of the saw moved back and forth as Applebloom lowered her end.
The bone cracked and chipped, releasing pools of blood and clear fluid. Sweetie Belle's eyes looked up, desperately seeking her friend or her sister. Pleading eyes. Begging eyes. Her mouth struggled against the stitching as she tried to scream at the agony tearing through her. Her head fought the restraints as she tried to escape.
"You may," Applebloom spoke over her terrified subject, "witness some involuntary reactions while cutting the horn and performing later steps. This is to be expected, as we are operating on the central nervous system. Do not worry, your subject is not in any pain."
This drew a few curious looks. How could they worry? Especially after the destruction and havoc the Unicorns had inflicted upon them in the past years. Everypony remembered the train bombings, the execution of civilians. The Counter-Revolutionary forces had drawn all this upon themselves by refusing the democratic decision to embrace the New Equestrian Republic.
The saw in her mouth kept her from speaking. With nothing to distract her during this part, Applebloom remembered the day before, when she had been told Sweetie Belle would be her subject for the demonstration.
It made sense. Making a Unicorn cut open her own sister would do away with concerns that the Reformed Unicorns were just playing possum. There would be no doubt after today that the will was completely conquered.
But there was another reason Applejack had chosen Sweetie Belle for this demonstration. She was testing her younger sister. Making her prove that she was an Apple and a true student of the revolution, and the imagined bonds of friendship would not replace that.
The horn was halfway severed now. Nerves twisted under the saw, clinging to the teeth and tearing free. A puddle lay at their hooves now, clear and placid as a lake in the Fall.
After Ponyville had elected to secede and join the spreading New Equestrian Republic, one of the first edicts had demanded all Unicorns be placed in the custody of one of their Earth Pony neighbors. Rarity had begged Applebloom to take her sister, assuming that the two friends would look out for each other.
All things considered, Rarity had made a good choice. A less politically connected pony wouldn't have been able to protect Sweetie Belle from being used as a political hostage, and a less loyal friend would have sold Sweetie Belle out for food. Instead, Applebloom had protected the life, if not the sanctity, of the Unicorn in her care.
Applejack had even understood, backing up her younger sister's decision to keep Sweetie Belle out of the conflict. Duty, honor, respect; all things that only Earth Ponies could truly understand. It was a ridiculous oversight typical of the old regime which named a flighty Pegasus as the Element of Loyalty. To be fair to the dead, there was no social virtue not perfectly embodied in the fields and homes of the Earth Ponies.
The horn clattered between Applebloom's hooves, laying in a pool of blood and cerebral fluid. Applebloom dropped her end of the saw, leaving Rarity to continue twitching the saw back and forth on the ground like a freshly severed limb.
"Before inserting your wires, you need to widen the opening. Fortunately, that can be done easily with a hatchet and a retractor," Applebloom said as she returned to the tray of tools, picking up the axe in her mouth. Two quick chops carved into the bone, opening a vertical crack that reached the skin.
Sweetie Belle's head jerked under each blow. She was desperate to scream, but her lips had been glued shut. She was desperate to vomit, but hadn't been fed in days. Her empty stomach heaved. There would be no peaceful death of suffocation for the Unicorn as her friend moved onto the next step.
"Bisecting the horn can cause a number of spasms in the muscles around the neck and body," Applebloom spoke as blood spattered, slow and crystalline from the induced shock, against the stage, "but you do not need to worry. The state of shock induced by the cold water prevents the specimen from experiencing any pain."
Applebloom pushed the teeth of a self-retaining retractor into the horizontal opening and squeezed the handle in her mouth. The crack carved into the horn spread, disgorging blood now with the transparent fluid.
Sweetie Belle was finally still. Given up. Her body had not been her own for years, and even her instincts began to accept the inevitable.
The Head of Practical Neuroscience guided Rarity around to a better view of her sister's destruction. A few adjustments on the panel zoomed the eye in on the opened horn displaying the newly formed orifice to the audience. Two bundles of nerves snaked up from Sweetie Belle's brain to hang, limp and torn inside the opening.
"There are two major nerve groupings in the horn of a unicorn, these can be compared to the positive and negative charges on a household battery."
The shadows of the Ministry for Defense and Wellness shifted again.
Applebloom continued, as if she hadn't noticed, "first you connect the left wire to the nerves traveling along the right side of the horn, then the right wire to the left." The clamps latched onto the nerves. They were not yet connected to a power source, so there was no direct pain. At least, nothing Sweetie Belle could distinguish from the agony of her severed horn. Two years before, she had finally been able to lift a pen and write with magic. Now ...
"Now we need to glue the opening. The glue we enjoy is the Laoctuuf Control Gel." Applebloom applied the gun to the tip of the horn, forcing scalding hot liquid against the bone. It dribbled down Sweetie Belle's horn slowly, like semen, sealing the cracked bone until it came to rest on her forehead. Her flesh reddened and her eyes closed in fear.
Applebloom sweated at this part. It was precision work. Too little glue, and the cracks wouldn't be secured. Too much, and it could go into the subject's eyes. Under normal circumstances, a bit of light corneal mutilation was nothing, but it wouldn't look good now.
Fortunately for both ponies, the glue set exactly as it should. Thirty seconds from heating to setting, perfect Earth Pony science.
"Before the next step, we'll return the specimen to water for a bit to re-induce shock."
The screen displaying Rarity's vision was half covered by her lid. The Unicorn, exhausted and in pain, was gradually fading from consciousness.
The tool was awakened by a fierce, electric jolt, but her legs were so tired. All she wanted to do was lie down, but the metal rods and bars held her upright and forced her awake.
A few more adjustments from Applebloom, and Rarity began lifting her sister into the air. Cloaked in the magic that had once been familiar, Sweetie Belle drifted a few feet into the air. The Unicorn swayed in the air, then dropped back to the ground. Her legs could not bend to receive the impact, and instead her knees grated painfully. Her lower lip stretched and ripped, giving her a bloody goatee. The lip itself now hung, loosened as if she had been struck.
Applebloom glowered and turned a dial on the panel all the way to the right. The batteries stored beneath purred like hunting cats as Applebloom pulled a switch, sending the electrical shock down Rarity's spine.
"There are times when you may have to discipline your Unicorn," Applebloom said, while Rarity's entire body gyrated in place, sparks scorching her once beautiful mane, "Fortunately, the panel is designed for that."
Rarity's bowels and bladder voided onto the floor, her mouth foamed and her good eye rolled desperately. The screen which had showed her vision flickered in and out from interference, then went dark as the eye rolled back in its socket. Muscles tore themselves to pieces against bone as they spasmed uncontrollably. Blood pooled under her already sagging fur, gradually adding a bluish hue to her white body.
Applebloom did not even turn to watch the violence in progress. Instead, she stared at her audience, daring them to doubt her genius. She left the switch in place until her nose caught the first foul odors of cooking flesh.
"Now, let's see if she fails a second time," she spoke calmly. Apparently untouched by the scene that had unfolded behind her back.
Sweetie Belle was lifted into the air, swaying as Rarity's grip on consciousness shifted, but the Unicorn made it safely to the ice cold water. Her muscles tensed as she splashed into the tank. The leather bindings on her neck held her head back, keeping just her mouth out of the freezing water.
"Alright. It will take about 20 minutes before we can continue with the eye removal and lobotomy, so we'll take a short break and then have a quick Q&A session."
As soon as the curtains were closed, Applebloom disconnected Rarity from the control panel scooted her off stage. The Unicorn's legs continued to spasm, uncontrollably. And now Applebloom could see the metal spikes in her subject's joints peeking through the welling blood to twinkle against the stage lights.
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Television Flickers with Another News Bulletin
"Hey, hey, they're rounding up the useless scum;
-Royal Downfall, "Lightning Strikes Twice"
Applebloom administered several injections to Rarity, mostly pain killers, potassium, and calcium. The Unicorn's muscles continued to tremble, and up close she reeked like a barely cooked hunk of meat.
The Head of Practical Neurosciences sighed. Her temper had gotten the best of her again. She stared into the blank eye, trying to deduce if there was some will at work there or if dropping Sweetie Belle had simply been an accident. Had she tried to spare her sister the fate that she had suffered? It was a futile gesture. Nothing can defeat the will of the ponies embodied in the Republic.
Although, it was possible to embarrass individuals by dying on stage. Applebloom looked around backstage for her assistant, but the drunkard was nowhere to be found. As usual.
She stepped outside. "Gallus? Gallus?" The alias of her other former friend.
Pegasi weren't allowed to rest on the ground, and had metal inserts placed in their knees at an early age. The inserts made standing excruciatingly painful, giving Pegasi the option of either flying or laying on their side. It drove them to fulfill their purpose, weather control. Nothing else. It was a sin to deny one's purpose in pursuit of the Republic's good, and the sin of laziness came particularly easy to winged ponies.
"Gallus?" Applebloom moved along the outside wall. It was dark tonight. Despite what she had said earlier about the Reformed Comrades managing the sun and moon, the best efforts of the Party, exercised through Luna and Twilight, were barely capable of keeping Daylight hours regular. There had been no stars above Equestria for seven years.
Stars were useless anyway.
Applebloom found the former Pegasus crouched amid the bushes outside the school. She had jabbed a metal rod under the scar tissue that had once been her wings, directly stimulating the nerves with an electric current. One orange hoof was between her legs, and on the ground before her was a picture of Rainbow Dash. An old propaganda shot, all haunches and sultry smiles.
"What the hoof do you think you're doing?" Applebloom struck the creature that had once been Scootaloo on the back of her head.
"I'm jess … I was … Iss not like you need me in there …" she pulled the rod out of her scar tissue, leaving a trickle of blood to run down her body. She swayed on her hooves, and her breath reeked of cheap liquor.
"What if somepony saw you? Do you have any idea how much work it took to remove your wings and forge papers saying you were an Earth Pony? You're going to throw all that away just so you can masturbate in the bushes?"
"I … no pony saw …"
She was always drunk and constantly reopening the scars from where her wings had been removed. Applebloom had given up on fighting it. Instead, she just allowed Scootaloo to disappear in the back of the room or outside the building, wrapped in a cloak or shadows. The orange pony preferred it that way. She never had to deal with being looked at, with other ponies thinking she was just an Earth Pony.
"You've got to help me with Rarity. I think …" Applebloom paused, "I think I might have shocked her a bit to hard during the demonstration."
They reentered the back of the auditorium. Rarity was still standing, but barely conscious. Periodically, the Unicorn would attempt to lift one hoof from the ground to favor it, but the braces in her knees kept her from doing so. It wouldn't have helped anyway, every limb was equally mutilated.
Scootaloo sobered by the sight. The creature should be dead. The only thing keeping her alive was the metal preventing her from lying down. Bloody urine dripped from between the Unicorn's legs and spread across the floor like a liquid shadow.
The former pegasus rested her head against the animal's chest and listened.
"Heart beat erratic, palpitations, she could go into cardiac arrest at any moment." Though Scootaloo was protected from the surgically installed blinders that were mandated for all registered Pegasi, she had found her own blinders. Focus on the job at hand until the rest of the world loses focus and disappears.
"I know that."
"How much voltage did you," Scootaloo burped and cleared her throat, "excuse me, how much voltage did you use?"
"All of it," Applebloom was ashamed of having her rash reprisal revealed to her assistant, "I turned the knob all the way to the right."
Scootaloo stared at her friend. The orange Pegasus swayed as much as the Unicorn, both caught in things they could never have hoped to control.
"Okay, so, okay..." she tossed her head, twitching her ears and struggling her mind into sense. Once more, she was pulling her friend out of trouble she'd made for herself. "Firs," she slammed her eyes shut and drooped her ears, releasing her hold on the world to spin freely in the dark for a few moments before returning, "she's got no bowel or bladder control left."
Applebloom was already grabbing the hot glue gun. Stitching would be better, but there was no time. While Scootaloo gripped the Unicorn's tail, Applebloom rubbed a rough towel between the subject's legs. She barely twitched as the hot glue slid the gun in and filled the offending orifice with molten plastic. Filling it out until the white liquid dripped down the her legs, scalding her flesh.
Rarity tossed her head as Applebloom repeated the process on her vagina, searing the edges and sealing them shut. After less than a minute the liquid had set, smeared with streaks of crimson life.
"She might make it another hour," vomit rose in Scootaloo's throat, bitter and forceful as an iron bit under her tongue, "but you'll need a replacement."
"And where am I going to get that?"
"Gimme a second," Scootaloo replied as she pressed her hooves against the side of her head, "Gimme a second," Scootaloo replied as she racked her brain once more, digging for the answer, "Gimme a ..." she paused, "Trixie!"
"I'm not about to use that-"
"She's the only post-op Unicorn anywhere near here. You keep … keep the operation going, and I'll run out to Filthy's and borrow her."
"She's barely a sex toy!" Trixie had been one of the first operations, and an ugly one. Part of why, instead of doing anything productive, she now served as the conversational piece for Filthy Rich, one of the Party's early supporters.
"Maybe, but she can still perform simple operations. You don't … you don't have a choice now. Ra- This one is done for," Scootaloo darted from the room, heading for the Rich's plantation home. Hopefully, somepony there was still awake. It wasn't about saving Applebloom, it was about saving herself. Or maybe, Scootaloo thought, she wanted to think of it the other way. Which of them was worth saving?
As Applebloom made her way back to the stage of the amphitheater she was greeted by a figure dressed in Ministry Purple. A hat with a wide-brim concealed her head, her face was vanished in a mask with only two reflective lenses marking the eyes. A cape hung from her neck and over her body. The official uniform of the Ministry for Defense and Wellness. It could be anypony under there, even a Unicorn or Pegasus who had bartered their species away to the Republic in return for the freedom to move freely.
"Comrade Applebloom," the figure's voice, like the voices of all members of the Ministry of Defense and Wellness, was flat and genderless, "We need to speak for a moment."
"About what?" Applebloom was already late to reappear on stage, she didn't need some MDW-idiot's lecture.
"You have made several comments, surely off-the-cuff and unintended, that may be seen as critical of the Revolution."
"I'm trusted to operate on Reformed Comrade Luna, the force that allows the sun to continue moving in the sky, but I'm not allowed to speak freely?"
"Correct," the being before her was utterly immune to irony, "If you make any further editorial comments … Your brother and sister have protected you so far, but their political reach only extends so far. Do you understand?"
"And what will you do without me?" Applebloom stomped her hooves petulantly.
"No cog is irreplaceable. Your assistant," the figure was interrupted by Applebloom's giggle, but it continued, "or a student will take your position just as easily."
"I get it," Applebloom couldn't resist being disrespectful, "keep my mouth shut and science. Can I get back to my lecture now?"
"Of course, we would not stand in the path of this glorious day for the Republic. But know that we can always wait. All hours are ours to decide."
With that, the pony vanished into the shadows.
"I hate it when they do that," Applebloom said to Rarity.
The Unicorn only drooled in response.
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Flints Light Up the Eyes of the Sainted Family
"Will you step in line or release the glitch?
-Silversun Pickups, "Panic Switch"
Applebloom returned to the stage. The wooden floor winked at her, freshly mopped and gay. There was no evidence of blood or feces on the floor. Offstage, she could see Sweetie Belle submerged in her tank, the icy water sapping life from her muscles.
The tan pony pushed through the curtains to stand before the crowd.
"We have time for a couple questions about the procedure so far."
"Can this process be used on Pegasi?"
"Sadly, no. For reasons that the Practical Neuroscience department are still working to discover, the eye-wire only functions on Unicorns, and we still do not have a very fine control of motor functions."
There was some disappointment from the crowd. The Pegasi had been a particular nuisance for the New Equestrian Republic. The nature of their work required a certain degree of autonomy. While sending agents from the Ministry of Defense and Wellness could keep their most dangerous antics at bay, there were still small rumblings of discontent. In the past year, the Overcast Wednesday Society had taken to shoving bad weather across Equestria every Wednesday. Numerous outdoor tea parties and picnics had been ruined, much to the consternation of the public.
"There have been," Applebloom was quick to continue, "advances in the use of remote operated disciplinary devices. As well, the Pinkie Pie Act has mandated that all Pegasi have blinders permanently attached to the sides of their heads. The Pegasi problem is well on its way to being curbed." Applebloom smiled and continued, "next question."
"Do the Unicorns operated on suffer any side effects?"
"There is a shortened lifespan, due to infection primarily. We are currently working with the Immunizations Branch to compensate. However, even now mares are capable of producing more than enough foals during their life cycle to maintain quotas for all farms and cities in the Republic."
A small buzzer on the podium went off, and Applebloom spoke, "Very good, there will be time for more questions later, but first we must continue with the operation."
The curtains were pulled back, to reveal Rarity already standing on stage. A thoughtful attendant had smeared her coat in white dye to hide the blood and fecal stains, but the creature still looked terrible. Fortunately, the convulsions and drooling had calmed. The glue was still holding, preventing her from leaking on the stage.
Careful not to overexert her subject, Applebloom used Rarity to lift Sweetie Belle out of the tank, lowering the trembling Unicorn to the ground as gently as possible.
Applebloom picked up a long metal rod with a slight curve to it. Sweetie Belle's eyes, heavily lidded, vaguely watched her approach. The scientist inspected the subject. She looked over the glue on the shattered horn, checking the wires for breaks or imperfection.
The metal rod drew no reaction from Sweetie Belle as it grazed her sopping fur. Applebloom lifted her head up to stare at the scab on the subject's back. The metal wire glinted against the stage lights as it emerged from where it ran along the spine. Red and twisted, the scab on her back was well formed.
The tan pony returned to the front of her subject, still in silence. The two friends looked each other in the eyes. Waiting. Applebloom was still stalling, hoping Scootaloo would return with Trixie before long.
The tan head pulled back slowly, waving the metal rod Applebloom gripped in her mouth like an antenna or a sword. She thrust the metal rod into Sweetie Belle's left eye. Blood poured out as the organic bag deflated. Yellow pus bulged and squirmed to freedom as Applebloom pushed the metal spike to the roof of the oracular cavity.
Not bothering with a clean gouge, she stirred the rod around, working the interior of her friend's eye out to leak down the soft, white face.
Sweetie Belle struggled weakly, but her strength had been sapped by the cold water. She reopened the wounds on her mouth and tasted copper as fresh heaves and agony rocked her mind from its stupor.
The Head of Practical Neurosciences released the rod. She turned to her audience and away from the suffering of her subject, "Thanks to recent advances by Comrade Freemare, the lobotomy is fairly simple and be accomplished at the same time the extraneous eye is removed."
With one hoof, Applebloom pushed the rod in a bit further, feeling it scritch-scratch along the skull until it reached the appropriate depth.
"In the past, lobotomies were a difficult, time consuming process that required special training. Now, it is simply a matter of point and hit," she said. A couple hoof pounds forced the edge of the tool upward, into the frontal lobe.
Sweetie Belle wanted to collapse. To die. Anything. Under normal circumstances, this part of the procedure would be performed while the subject was laying down, but Applebloom's sense of showmanship demanded otherwise. Instead, the Unicorn hung in her bindings, nothing but the locked joints of her skeleton supporting her as the point at the tip of the rod carved into her brain.
Applebloom withdrew the hook, pulling with it the remains of the eye. Nerves and veins hung limp and pathetic from the socket.
"Now is the last step, the insertion of the eye-wire. As I said before, we're not yet certain why this wire only works on Unicorns."
The Head of Practical Neuroscience inserted the last wire into the socket, feeding it alongside the optic nerve. "It is important, when inserting this last wire, not to push too far or too hard. You don't want it crimping."
Once the wire stopped proceeding, Applebloom picked up the hot glue gun again. This part made her nervous. Normal operating procedure would demand packing the wound with sterilized gauze and allowing at least a day for recovery. Normal operating procedure would also demand at least a localized anesthetic. All her requests to utilize normal operating procedures had been denied, and so she had to rely on backwoods tools. Butchery in lieu of surgery.
"One last squirt of our favorite glue."
As the hot liquid filled her eye socket and sealed it shut again, Sweetie Belle finally tore the stitching on her mouth and released a faint squeal. Quickly, Applebloom pushed the mouth shut again and squeezed resin over the bleeding orifice. Fur smoked and flesh cracked, but it silenced the offending noise before the audience could take note of it.
The squeal finally did to Rarity's heart what the electric shock could not. The white Unicorn began hacking violently in her throat as tingling numbness spread through her body.
"Before attaching the box and demonstrating her," the tan pony spoke loudly to draw the audience's attention, "we'll leave her to recuperate for a minute." She desperately gestured for the curtains to be dropped.
Applebloom didn't need to worry. The audience seemed to have been enjoying the torture, and she could sense the disappointment as the suffering disappeared beneath heavy cloth.
"Are there anymore-" she began, only to be interrupted by a hissing offstage. She turned to see Scootaloo waving for her attention.
Applebloom smiled at the audience in apology and muttered something about needing a bathroom break, before trotting over to her assistant.
"You'd better have good news."
"You're gonna have to stall them another few minutes."
"That's what I was doing."
"Oh, well, it's there's a bit of a complication." Scootaloo pulled the cloak off the figure beside her. Despite being anesthetized and restrained, Trixie had fought like a demon during her operation. The result was a severe botching of her lobotomy that immobilized her face, among other things. An eye dropper had been rigged to the side of her face to compensate for her inability to blink.
But worse was the sight of her flanks. Applebloom's face set in a mask at the sweat glistening there and ...
Her assistant attempted to explain, "I interrupted them in the middle of-"
"What? What did you interrupt?" The Head of Practical Neuroscience stood completely still.
"It was some sort of party. I ... well we're going to really owe him big time for borrowing her tonight."
Applebloom ground her teeth. This was ... They were ... Yes, she'd said the Unicorn was little more than a sex toy, but it was just a joke. It was supposed to be a joke.
"Are you okay?" Scootaloo waved a hoof in front of her friend's face.
That fucking pervert ... and a party … she had made it possible … The smell of sex assaulted her senses. Overwhelmed her. This was too much.
The sound of the assembly growing restless with this delay dragged Applebloom back into performance mode. "Clean her up and," Applebloom gestured at where Rarity had collapsed to her side, "get that one out of here."
Smiling once more, the tan pony returned to the stage, "so, as I was saying, we have one time for one quick question."
"How are the boxes produced?"
"We have a factory in Ponyville that will produce them for distribution. You'll be issued them ready made for installation. Easy as mom and apple pie." Her last joke brought no laughter from the audience. Even if they hadn't noticed the shadows vanishing from the back of the room, they wouldn't have been at ease enough for that sort of humor.
The curtains opened, revealing a slightly becalmed Sweetie Belle, although with one eye socket surrounded with reddened and twisted flesh, and a hastily groomed Trixie standing in Rarity's place.
"Attaching the box is quite simple once the wires are in place." Applebloom used Trixie to levitate a black box and lower it onto her friend's back. So close, she couldn't help but wonder what fate she was sending Sweetie Belle to. Given the crude workmanship, she'd never be accepted for University work in Rarity's place. Sliding under the Unicorn's white belly to tighten the straps, Applebloom's eyes wandered toward her subject's rear. The thought came back. They had been using one of her experiments for ...
Four wires were inserted into the box, and Sweetie Belled gurgled behind her sealed lips. The abuse the Unicorn had endured left her unable to do much more, even under the duress of an electrical current applied directly to her brain. Useless as the stars that had gone the way of the past.
"And, here we go," Applebloom shouted, flipping a switch on the panel. A few more adjustments, and the projector displayed the world through Sweetie Belle's remaining eye. Grainy, black and grey. The crude wiring in her head destroyed all sense of perspective, creating a world of monsters from her audience.
Applebloom turned Sweetie Belle's head to focus on the podium, and the wires glowed as the wooden structure lifted into the air. It hovered for a few moments before Applebloom sent a current down her friend's spine and dropped the podium.
Time to ice the cake. A few more adjustments, and the projected display split into halves. "With them attached to the same panel, we can issue orders to both of them at the same time."
Sweetie Belle lifted the podium while Trixie lifted the tray of tools. As the podium and tray jerked through the air, several hammers, knives and spare saws were flung toward the front ranks of the audience. None of the items reached them, but there were protests until Applebloom let up the assault by causing both tray and podium to drop back to the stage.
"Do you have any requests?"
"How precise is the control you have over them? For example, could you guide-"
An hour ago, the Head of Practical Neurosciences wouldn't have known where the request was going. Now she understood perfectly. Fine, give them a show.
"Of course. Allow me to demonstrate."
She used Sweetie Belle to pull one of the mops from backstage. The wooden haft lifted into the air, and after a few moments maneuvering she thrust it between Trixie's legs. The lobotomized Unicorn didn't even react as the wooden shaft penetrated. The white head bobbed suggestively as she abused her peer.
Applebloom smiled back, then slammed the stick as far as it would go. Trixie jerked, coughing slightly. Another vicious stab went further in. The Head of Practical Neurosciences kept smiling, daring them to smile back.as she ground the wood to pieces against the interior of the Unicorn. Tearing into the womb, pushing through it. Shredding sensitive tissues to pieces. Pouring blood became lubricant as Applebloom sought deeper into the body at her disposal.
Trixie was little more than a vegetable, but the internal stress caused her to collapse. The sudden weight of her collapse snapped the mop handle off inside her, and Sweetie Belle continued bobbing half the blood-soaked instrument in the air, like a retarded cellist whose instrument has collapsed to a bleeding heap on the floor.
The tan pony turned a dial back to the right, drawing a familiar purr from the batteries. "And I believe this concludes the demonstration. I hope you've enjoyed this evening as much as I have. All these things and more are available in Ponyville, if you ever get a permit to visit the capital." The last comment cemented her self-destruction.
Tomorrow morning, she would be in a brightly lit room; her head would be slammed against the concrete walls and water would be poured directly down her throat. The recriminations for this wouldn't be quick or easy.
Applebloom threw the lever, sending a continuous current through the body of her former friend. It was the last mercy she could deliver.
"Good luck on your surgeries!" Applebloom waved at the audience before departing the stage.
Hurrah, der Märchen ist Alle!
Applebloom stood alone in a hallway just beyond the stage. A shadow slid off the wall, creeping toward her.
"Do you think," it said, "that your little display out there changed anything? Or did you think you were invulnerable?"
The shadow was everywhere now. The Ministry Purple cape swirled out, banishing the world and leaving her with nothing but white lenses in a dark face. It was impossible to tell if it was the same pony that had spoken to her before.
"No," Applebloom replied. She had no interest in dragging this out or giving anypony satisfaction of seeing her squirm. When nothing further came, she asked, "Well, aren't you going to do it, then?"
"All hours are ours to decide. Even the hour of your death. For the moment, know that we've terminated your position at the University of Ponyville. It would be overly optimistic to expect employment anywhere else. I wouldn't expect to fair a welcome at the gates of the capital either."
The cape drew off of her, and it was gone. Vanished into whatever nightmare spawned shadowy government operatives.
As the former Head of Practical Neuroscience walked toward the back exit, she was greeted by the former Pegasus.
"I heard about your ..." Scootaloo wasn't sure how to finish.
"Everypony will have heard about it soon enough. I've been fired."
"Well, what do we do now?"
Applebloom turned back to her friend. "We?"
"You can't expect me to take your place up on stage, can you? Or work for whatever goon replaces you? Besides, how long do you think I could keep my race a secret?"
The night outside was black and empty. A formless abyss hung over the heads of the two ponies rendering them equals. Small and weak.
"We leave. Run away from them all, and keep running until ..."
"They find us?"
"I was going to say we die, but I guess it is the same thing."
