The mare opened her eyes to darkness, her eyes Slowly adjusting as she found herself in an emergency medical room, lying on a cold metal table. Computers and medical supplies surrounding me.

Where am I? She thought. Slowly, she rose to her Hooves, her wings unfurling. Jumping down she looked around her, her ears picking up a slight beeping noise behind her. Startled, she whirled around to face the threat, a mini-gun popping out from under her left wing. The weapon makingbher look down at it in surprise as Slowly it slid back inside her chest with a silent hiss.

What happened to me?!? She thought, slightly terrified by the weapon that came out of her. The last thing she could recall was a bright green light… and her name, Nitebeat. And then nothing. Shaking off the uneasiness and Returning her attention to the beeping noise, she looked upon a terminal. Curiously, she trotted towards it and Reached out her hoof to touched the screen. Suddenly the terminal beeped loudly and, slowly, a ponies face began to take shape as the background of some type of record library came into focus. Nitebeat stared, mesmerized, at the beautiful light gray unicorn mare. Her electric blue mane appeared disheveled and her face was full of a heavy sadness. Slowly she began to speak.

“This is the videolog of the element of honesty, homage. Dated June 5th, 5055. If Anypony gets this, I want you to know… we are sorry, so, so sorry. I don’t know why it failed… the research the twilight society did, found that it showed that it would work! But… as you see… sigh. So now all we can do is hope and pray that Somepony can one day fix what we caused… so, if Anypony gets this, please fix this. This has been homage, the element.. of honesty. Bringing you the truth no matter how much it… it hurts… End... End Log.”

With a sob, the video of homage ended. Nitebeat stood there, even more confused than before as the terminal powered down. Turning, she crossed over to a table containing sheets of paper and some sort of device with a screen. Grabbing the device, she found it quite easily fit to her left foreleg.

“Huh.” She said.

Suddenly, the thing powered on and began to boot up. She stared at the screen in wonder as an assortment of tabs opened up. One of which was the videolog of homage with an attached file named GOE_Layout #5345. With a shake of her head, she Turned her attention to the papers still on the desk. Shuffling through them, she noticed that they all seemed to be very old news articles, all talking about some sort of war. Grumbling, she set them aside.Then, realizing that there was nothing here to help her figure out where she was or who she was, she turned to the only door in the entire room. Slowly, she pushed it open with her snout and stepped into a sick and filthy hallway littered with long dead corpses and bones. Horrified, she carefully walked down the hallway, trying to avoid the corpses and stenches. Suddenly a voice rose from around the corner.

“Do you really think she headed this way?” A stallion spoke.

“Where else can she hide? Did ya not see them homes out there? Horrid..,” Replies a female mare.

Both ponies turned the corner, as the female ended her phrase. Nitebeat stood there, staring at the brown unicorn stallion and his bright pink Pegasus partner. Both were holding pistols and wearing some sort of black barding. Slowly they approached her as crazy grins spread across their faces.

“Well, well, Well. Look it, lancer. An alicorn. A very pretty alicorn… wanna bet she’s one of em’?” The pink Pegasus asked the stallion.

“Depends, Blossom Stream. What’s your name, cunt?” He asked her, pointing the barrel of his pistol to Nitebeat's throat.

Nitebeat grinned back. Answering him, she said “who? Me? I’m… Your worst nightmare!”

Whatever these ponies wanted and whatever they were doing, they definitely didn’t seem friendly. Grinning wider, Nitebeat tackled the unicorn and began beating him with her Hooves. The other pony raised her gun to the alicorn, loading bullets into the pistol, she took aim and began to fire. Nitebeat winched as one of the bullets clipped her right wing. Grumbling, she lifted her partner into her friends field of fire, causing him to squirm and struggle as the Pegasus’s bullets pierced his armor and started penetrating his skin.

“aughhh! Stop! Stop! It’s me!” The stallion screamed.

The Pegasus blinked and dropped her gun in shock, “oh my Luna! By Luna’s grace… no! No! N- Not again!” The Pegasus fluttered down and cowered on the ground in shock.

Nitebeat turned her attention to the still bleeding stallion. “please… w- Whatever, or whoever you are… have mercy…”

She grinned as her eyes flicker to black with red dots. “Sorry… all out of mercy…” nitebeat said as she grabbed his neck and snapped it.

Looking down at the Pegasus, Nitebeat grabbed the now dead stallion's gun and point it at her. “You,.. tell me where the buck I am and why your here…”

“Or what?” She replied.

Nitebeat gesture to the dead stallion next to her with her wing. The pony paled. “Per- perhaps we can compromise…”

Five minutes later Nitebeat was trotting down the hall the ponies had come from, their armor and weapons attached to her. A grin on her face.

“Ahhh… Safety.” Frowning, she looked back at the now two dead corpses. “To bad I had to kill them both… sigh. But better to be safe than sorry…”

**********************************************

Light had begun to shine through shattered windows as Nitebeat trotted alone in that twisted facility, killing ponies too stupid to run from her and the shotgun at her side.

“This place is like a maze… oh! Hellooooo…!”
She turned to a door, a neon sign reading exit.
“Well it’s about time!”

“Too bad. you're all out of time little filly…”

Nitebeat turned towards the voice and saw yet another of the bad ponies. Yet this one struck her as different. Her mane was cut short… her tail was braided with what she could only assume and hope were the bones of animals… and her coat wasn’t dingy… in fact, she looked almost like she came out of some of the old posters hanging on the wall rather than somepony who killed ponies for fun.

“Do you ever learn? I basically kicked most of your pals' butts!”

The strange mare laughed. “Oh that’s a good one! Oh wait… you actually believe I am one of them?!? Look who the dumb one is now!” she responded.
“Hey I ain’t dumb!” Nitebeat said, offended.

“Whatever… look… I ain’t one to kill ponies, but you're in my way… so why don’t ya step aside and allow me to get in that door behind you… hm?” She gave Nitebeat a look that sent her nethers’ twitching. She shook her head.

“Why? It’s just the exit door…” Nitebeat asked.

“Just the exit, huh? Then why is it that there’s synthetic voices coming from the other side? And that the exit sign is actually a TV with the word EXIT on it?”

Nitebeat turned back to the door and saw that this strange mare was apparently right!

“Damn it with all of Celestia's Hooves!!! Who would do that?!? I don’t even know where I am at!”

The strange mare just looked at me like I was crazy.

“You musta been hit on the head or something… your speaking like a marauder!”

“A marauder?”

“Basically a raider… but less crazy and more of an intellectually cold killer type…”

This time Nitebeat gave her “the are you crazy” look. The strange mare just rolled her eyes and stepped around her.

Lowering herself to the floor she began to pick the lock with her bare Hooves.

“Well… since yer not attacking me… mind if I ask who you are?” Nitebeat asked curiously.

“Snort. None of your concern…” she replied before glancing back at me and sighing. “I can tell you're not gonna let up… are you?”

“Nope! Kinda hard when ya got no memory of yer past or even where or what you are!”

“What are you talking about?”

“I- I don’t really know… I just… look… it’s not me talk… it’s you talk first.”

The mare grabbed a bobby pin and flicked it at Nitebeat's snout, the pin bouncing off harmlessly. Snorting she shook her head and sighed again.
“Whatever… the name is Starpetals. that’s all you need to know.”

“Well Star Petals! It’s an honor to meet you! My name is Nitebeat!”

“Weird name for an alicorn… tell me again how you ended up here?”

“I don’t necessarily know… I just kinda woke up here…”

“Woke up here… riiigght…” Star rolled her eyes at Nitebeat, clearly not believing a single word of her story. Nite shook her head, giving up on the explanation. "So… uh… where am I anyway?"
"Twilight Research and Development Complex. AKA, TRDC."

As soon as she unlocked the door, a blast of plasmatic energy shot out. Rolling to the side, star petals pulled out a sawed off shotgun from her saddle pack and took aim.

“Looks like we're not gonna get in without a fight.” She said.

“Hm… on second thought… you might have just gave me an idea. Since I'm the only one here… and what with this place being full of raiders and who knows what else… perhaps we should team up? You help me get what I'm looking for… I'll help you escape. Deal?”
Nitebeat grins, popping out a plasma rifle from her hoof. “Deal.” She said, as they both charged in to fight whatever had tried to blast them.

Author's Note

Achievement Unlocked: Wake-Up Up Call