Ch. 13: A Study of Accidental Incident Awareness

Twilight awoke in complete darkness.

She got up, then collapsed, gripping her side.  It was hurt—badly.  She looked down towards it, before being crudely reminded that she was blind.

Again, she attempted to get up, this time bracing herself for the pain.  What had happened to her?

After groping around for what seemed to be an eternity, she found a lightswitch, proceeding to try to turn it on.  To her dismay, it was already in its "up" position.

The power was dead.  Where was she?

Twilight cursed her luck, then continued groping until she finally tripped over some boxes, bringing them crashing down as the mare yelled profanities.

Before she could painfully get back up, she heard hoofsteps.

"What's going on?" Twilight heard a voice say as a light blinded her.  When her eyes adjusted, she saw her friend, Rarity.

"Ra..." Twilight started, trailing off.

Rarity glanced from her towards the floorboards, then mumbled something unintelligible.  Before Twilight could ask her to clarify, however, she left.

The door shut behind her, and Twilight heard the mechanical clicks of a locking system.

"She awake?"

"...Yes."

There was a pause, one only interrupted by Rainbow Dash sighing.

"Well...  I guess we better let her out."

Rarity looked at her incredulously.  "L-let her out?!  Surely—"

"Look!" Rainbow shouted, breaking Rarity's thought.  "We got a bucking army of Trotters out there, Roseluck's been bucking bitten, and Shade..."

It was deathly silent.

"Look...  I know Twilight—I was hoping you did too.  She wouldn't freak out like that over anything but mortal danger, or a deadline.  And how things were out there, she had a pretty bucking serious deadline."

The air never seemed to lack an abundance of silence.  Even Pinkie—who was standing on the top of the stairs to the basement, listening in—looked somber.

"What d'you suggest we do?" asked Rarity.

"Let her free—she's the closest damn thing to a leader we ever had."

"Scootaloo?  Scootaloo?"

"Y-Yes..?"  Scootaloo's eyes revealed darkness.

"Oh... Good.  You're awake.  I was starting to—"

The orange filly recognized the voice; it was Fluttershy's.

"Just a second."

A minute later, Scootaloo heard Fluttershy's voice whispering to another, higher-pitched voice that she instantly knew to be Pinkie Pie's.  She strained her ears to hear at first, but gave up when she realized it was fruitless; the two mares wanted to make sure their conversation fell on deaf ears, and they were all too good at it.

Scootaloo sat up in her bed and inspected her surroundings.  Her bed was surprisingly comfortable—an actual mattress.  She couldn't recall how long it had been since she had lay upon a mattress, but it was much more comfortable than a tent floor.  Scootaloo put her head back down and enjoyed this luxury.  Then, a light was cast over her as Fluttershy returned, this time with a flashlight.

Scootaloo squinted her eyes until they adjusted, and even then she could barely see.

"Oh," Fluttershy said as she redirected her flashlight upwards, "sorry."

"It's fine."

Scootaloo, now having more sufficient light, glanced around the room.  She was sitting on a bed—that much was already certain.  The bed was then surrounded by curtains, reminding her of a school nurse's cot.  There didn't seem to be much else in the room, or at least what she could see on her side of Fluttershy's flashlight.

Without anything else to inspect, she laid her head down with a soft thump.

...And then she saw it.

Up, on the ceiling, a little ways from where the flashlight's projection hit, was a large, red-covered splotch.

"Fluttershy?"

"Yes?"

Scootaloo pointed up towards the stain.

"What's that?"

There was a pause, the only sound being Fluttershy moving her flashlight.

After a sharp intake of breath, the light disappeared with a clunk.

Knock, knock.

"Twilight?  You in there?"

Knock, knock.

"Twilight?"

Twilight got up.  She walked to the door, pausing before it in a moment of hesitation.

Knock, kn—

Twilight swung the door open mid-knock, surprising Rarity.

"Oh!"

Rarity paused, obviously not sure of what to say.  Twilight couldn't say she felt any different.  Before anything happened—or didn't, for that matter—Rainbow Dash butted in.

"Twilight, we...  Look, it didn't matter what you, uh..."

There was utter silence.

"It just...  You need to tell us what happened.  We...  We don't think..."

"I killed him."

Rainbow Dash was taken aback by the sudden voice of Twilight, as though it had changed drastically from her imprisonment.

"I..."

Twilight sighed, then continued to speak, pausing on every other word as if each one caused pain to say—something that was probably true.

"I...came in, ready to unlock the main doors.  I saw Shade.  He had a gun, said I shouldn't move.  I remember...  Some sort of fight.  He somehow bruised my ribcage—" she pointed to her discolored chest "—and my neck."

Her neck had traces of green on it, and had swelled to the size of an athletic stallion's neck.

"And then..."

Twilight's breath became faster.

"And then...  I..."

Her eyes darted upon her friends' faces, first Rarity, then Rainbow Dash's.

There were footsteps on the stairs.

"Hey, there's still blood coming down from the..."

Fluttershy paused as she saw Twilight, who then burst into tears and collapsed.

"...Incident."