Author's Note

(CW: This chapter contains post-mind-breaking, depiction of an anxiety attack, mentions of ableism, and medication.)

Heel-Face Turn

"Sweetie Belle? Sweetie Belle!"

A voice echoed in her ears as she awoke. As she slowly opened her eyes, she saw her friends standing above her sans Mysty. Wonderspark was shaking her gently.

"Wha....what happened?" Sweetie asked groggily before feeling a dull pain in her head.

"You hit the ground pretty hard," Wonderspark explained. "While most of us were ushered through the rest of the process, Rarity ended up carrying you on her back."

Rarity.

The name sent a wave of memories rushing back to her; the Glimmering Gems company, the stew, Poppy's operation, all of it overseen by two ponies she had admired for years. And the one that hurt her the most had the audacity to take care of her even remotely. She tensed up.

"Where the hell is she?" she growled.

"She and Twilight lead us back in here," Ophiuchus said. "And told us to stay until they came back. Then they just left."

"How long ago was that?"

"Too damn long ago," Scarlet huffed. "And Mysty is still in her stupor."

Mysty.

Sweetie Belle tried to get herself back up, only for her legs to cave as a tingling went through them. After she shook each of them out, she stood up.

"Where's Mysty?"

"I'm right here...."

The voice was familiar, but now it was in an airy tone and one that sent chills down Sweetie Belle's spine. Looking over in its direction, she saw her purple unicorn friend. Mysty looked okay at first glance, but then she noticed her eyes; they were now mere pinpricks with a glaze over them, as if stuck in a permanent dissociation, staring into some hypnotic abyss. Her mouth was also stuck in a true neutral position.

"M....Mysty?" Sweetie Belle's stomach folded in on itself in tension.

"Hello, Sweetie Belle." The once-lively and loud unicorn was now speaking in an airy, almost-semi-robotic tone, hardly above a next-to-normal speaking voice. "How are you today?"

It was then the white-coat unicorn noticed something around Mysty's neck. A crystal with a flower-bouquet charm inside, placed on a silver chain.

"What's.....what's that you're wearing?"

Sweetie Belle was certain of the answer, but still couldn't believe what she was seeing, and she was terrified to have the answer confirmed.

"What's what I'm wearing?"

"That....thing around your neck," she answered, pointing a trembling hoof at the charm.

Slowly Mysty tilted her head downward and held the charm in her hoof,

"Oh. This? My twin sister Poppy made it for me. She pulled out her horn and then cloned it to make this necklace for me," she responded before robotically looking up, a broken smile slowly forming on her face. "She's so sweet. Maybe I should do the same for her when I see her later."

A blizzard froze Sweetie Belle's veins as she heard this while a small tear formed and fell from Mysty's eye. She began to tremble as she felt her heart racing. Her breathing became shallow and her vision tunneled. Immediately she cantered over and grabbed Mysty, shaking her like a rag doll.

"Mysty, snap out of it!" she exclaimed in horror. "Please, snap out of this!"

"It's too late, Sweetie Belle," Scarlet said firmly.

"No, no, no, it's not too late!" Her tone was becoming more erratic as beads of sweat formed and cascaded down her body. "I can snap her out of it! I will!"

"Sweetie, it's useless."

"It's never useless. No, I can save her! I just need to use--"

"Sweetie Belle, it's too late!"

The scarlet unicorn's shout broke Sweetie from her tunnel vision, but her heart continued to pound and her chest was now beginning to ache. Was she dying now? No, she couldn't be. She was too young.

".....Scarlet, my chest.....oh sweet Celestia, I can hardly breathe...."

She collapsed to the ground, her legs weak as she placed a hoof on her chest. Everything was now beginning to echo and blur again.

"Am I gonna die?" Sweetie could barely hear herself speak as the other three cantered to her side, her whole body was now trembling and she felt a tingling sensation in her hooves. "What's wrong with me?"

"Where's your medication?" Wonderspark asked.

"How is that gonna save me?"

"Did they take it from you?"

"Wonderspark, my chest hurts!"

"Does anypony know what happened to our satchels?" Wonderspark yelled out.

There was no response.

"Somepony get a worker or a guard or something, my friend's in trouble!"

Out of the blue, a midnight-violet unicorn cantered over to the metal doors and banged on it violently, only making Sweetie Belle shake even more.

"Open the fucking doors!" she snapped in an accent identical to Scarlet's. "There's a pony that could be dying!"

"Midnight, calm the fudge down!" A ginger unicorn rushed over and tried to put her away, but she whirled around and with one swift motion, she bit into the ginger pony who gave a cry. "Do you have to do that every single time I try to intervene?"

"Iridescent, she could be fucking dying! Try to think about others for a change!"

Midnight continued to bang on the doors, even resorting to kicking it with her back hooves and swearing loudly in a language Sweetie couldn't understand, and she wasn't sure if it was because of the distortion she was now experiencing. The banging only served to increase her anxiety and more beads of sweat formed. If she was dying, it was taking her body far too long to shut down, at least to her liking.

After a few minutes, two disgruntled worker ponies casually opened the doors.

"Alright, what's going on?" one of them sighed apathetically.

Midnight glared furiously at the workers, protective anger practically radiating from her.

"We have a pony that could be dying!" she snapped as she pointed a hoof in Sweetie's direction.

The workers took their time walking over to Sweetie Belle, who still heard all of the sounds in echos and the room was still blurry. She could barely hear Wonderspark explaining the situation to the workers as she tried to focus on regulating herself, or if she was dying, make herself as comfortable as possible in her final moments. Ophiuchus sat down beside her to give her some comfort, or as much comfort as he could given the circumstances. Soon the workers began to walk away and Sweetie Belle vaguely heard Wonderspark, but it was as though she was being held underwater and Wonderspark was trying to speak to her from the surface, only briefly being able to hear the words "satchel" and "water."

Several minutes later, the worker ponies returned with Sweetie Belle's satchel, tossing it at her like a rag doll along with a bottle of water. Wonderspark frantically searched through it until she found the small bottle of pills Sweetie Belle brought for her anxiety. As if on autopilot, Sweetie Belle took the medication and poured down some water when Wonderspark handed them to her. The effects kicked in in a matter of minutes and while her heart rate was slowing down and the chest pain was receding, Sweetie Belle also felt the familiar fatigue side effect of her meds. But she didn't care. Another reprieve from whatever fate Twilight and Rarity had in store for them was much-needed, especially after having seen such a broken pony, the shell that one of her best friends had become. Her eyes fluttering, Sweetie Belle laid her head on the floor and closed her eyes.

Sometime later, she slowly awoke to the agitated whispers of her fellow Pass 30s. As she opened her eyes, she could see the blurry frames of each of them. The multiple clops all around the room felt as though they were drums, now playing on Sweetie Belle's head. It was clear that whatever they were waiting for still hadn't come yet.

"Yo, I've been waiting for forever in this bitch!"

A stallion's voice cut through the drum orchestra like a knife. It was the same as Scarlet and Midnight's, the latter of which was attending to Sweetie Belle.

"Are you okay?" Midnight asked softly, her voice full of genuine concern for a unicorn she barely knew.

"....Barely," Sweetie managed to groan out. "...I'm Sweetie Belle."

"Midnight Flames-Seer," she replied. "St. Hoofian."

"That's a new one," Ophiuchus commented.

"We only got the test system placed last year," Midnight said. "I honestly didn't think all ten of us would make it this far....poor moia kokhana, though."

Midnight turned to a navy-blue unicorn on crutches; Sweetie Belle could just barely make out a scroll and quill cutie mark on his flank.

"My darling Harrow.....he never stood a chance in the kinesthetics' exam and the instructor knew it; same for Astro over there....."

A space-violet unicorn was also there on crutches, a cat and planet cutie mark on his flank. With him, he carried a machine of sorts, with which he was typing to those around him.

"Those sons of bitches....." Scarlet growled.

"My thoughts exactly....that's why I cast a pushback spell during the test...." Her voice trailed off slightly, almost as though she was ashamed of her purposeful failure.

"I did the same, so did two more."

While all of this was happening, Sweetie Belle noticed Wonderspark looking around the room as if she was trying to figure out within it exactly why they were still waiting here, and more importantly what for. At the mention of Astro, she'd also caught a glimpse of his device. After a bit more studying, she recognized it; it was an adaptive communicator. She turned to Midnight.

"Has Astro had that device with him since we got here?"

She nodded, and the gears continued to turn in Wonderspark's head.

"So they want us all to talk...." she theorized.

The other lucid ponies looked at her.

"Hm?" Scarlet wondered.

"I know that device; it's supposed to help ponies who have a hard time speaking or can't speak communicate with other ponies. Most of our stuff was taken, but they let him keep his communicator, so I suspect that they want us all to be able to communicate with each other."

"How perceptive of you...."

Everypony whirled their heads up to the balcony to see Twilight Sparkle and Rarity enter.

"I'm not surprised, considering you passed the comprehension exam, but I am impressed that you figured it out at all," Twilight said. "Yes, indeed, we want everypony to be able to communicate for this little....test of ours."

"Test?" Wonderspark asked.

"Yes, darling," Rarity said. "You see, as Doctor Borealis mentioned yesterday, there are a few students who passed top of their class in the comprehension exam that are here amongst you. Your mission is to find and single them out."

"How are we supposed to do that? We don't even know what we're looking for!" a unicorn from Seaward Shoals exclaimed.

"You will be given two hints," Twilight said. "The first is that there are three of them, and the second is that they are from Canterlot University. Whichever pony or ponies single them out will be set free."

And with that, the two walked back through the balcony curtain, leaving the mass of frightened 30s to figure out what to do.