Cutie Mark Trials

Twilight twisted and turned in her luxurious bed while she looked at the other's sleeping conditions. Her queen sized bed with a heated blanket covered in stars from her favorite galaxy, specially made and imported from Saddle Arabia. Gel pillow perfectly hoof-knit with a picture of the moon on both sides. Bed frame crafted with mahogany wood from the innermost layer of the Everfree Forest. Fit for a queen with the darkest of bags under her eyes. Ironically, the whole bedstead was a gift to Twilight from Princess Luna. It didn't seem quite right. Her friends had to sleep in mediocre bedrolls while she slept like royalty. She would ask her partner to get at least enough mattresses and blankets to let them all sleep comfortably, but Princess Luna already had a lot of troubles on her hooves.

Twilight was restless. Why couldn't she sleep? Last night she slept like a baby foal after feeding time. She couldn't possibly be an insomniac, right? If she was, she could simply grab some pills from the medical supplies room. She would need to go there soon anyways to get some odd, white powdery medication for Trixie. Trouble staying awake, Twilight guessed. Though, Trixie would say parasprites were after her, or some other crazy story. Twilight hated the green see-through liquid pills, the way they felt going down her throat. And half the time their sole purpose was failed. Sleeping pills that failed to work. Worth the bits to have them sitting around for no reason.

She decided this time she would get up and stretch her legs. That would be good. Most of this week she would or had been sitting down all day, monitoring the Lunar Games and tapping a button to have food or drink delivered to her. Or writing a certain type of letter to Luna. Love letters mainly, but they could be serious at times. Today she'd also have to go into the arena and "clean up" some bodies.

Twilight placed a hoof on an end table next to the bed and drowsily stumbled onto her back hooves. The chill concrete floor caused her to jump back onto her bed. She peaked her head under the bed frame and tried to adjust her eyes to the darkness under. Twilight procrastinated a couple minutes then sighed in random frustration. The urge of using magic to illuminate the space flashed through her mind, but she realized the spell would most likely wake her friends during the attempt. Her hoof searched for a pair of warm slippers that Spike had given to her as a gift on her last birthday celebration.

As she pulled the slippers out of their hiding place, they warmed her hooves like a scarf on Hearths Warming Eve. Twilight could hear quiet clops behind her as she went through the automatic sliding doors, her own hushed by the black material covering her hooves. She turned around and stared at her follower. Applejack. "What's up?" Twilight yawned then rubbed her eyes. No state to start an arument, the one she was in. Applejack waved a hoof then wiped her mane out of her eyes as a strand dangled in front of them. "Can you not sleep either? Jeez, I feel so tired but my mind won't let me sleep."

The blonde mare stretched her legs out and looked back up at Twilight. "I actually just woke up. I'm still a little sleepy though. You wanna' talk and trot? I mean, so we don't wake them up." She said in a whisper, trying to make the least amount of noise ponilly possible. There was a significant change in room temperature as she slid past Twilight. Probably 20 degrees different. Twilight stepped through the door, leaving it to slide shut. "Do you know why they keep it so cold in here?"

Twilight shook her head. "No. I'm wondering the same thing myself. So what do you want to talk about?"

Applejack looked around the tight hallway painted light gray, almost white, checking to see if there were any cameras watching their conversation. "Why do you do this? Help in the Lunar Games? It's horrible what Luna makes them do, the fillies and colts. Give me an honest answer, please. Whatever you say, it won't ruin our friendship."

Why had she helped? Everyone has a motive for what they do, but what was Twilight's? She thought for a moment, her tired mind making it even harder to think. "I know. Applejack, I know. It's terrible what I do here. I should be banished to Tartarus, shouldn't I? Have you ever loved someone so much that you can't say no to any ideas that they produce, even if they were wrong? That's the way I am. With Luna. S-so why do you do it?" She turned her head to the ground as small tears formed in her eyes then rose her gaze back at Applejack wearing a weak smile on her face.

Applejack put an arm around Twilight's shoulders. "No! There isn't anyone here that deserves to go there! Get that nonsense out of your head! Even if you did something this horrible, everyone makes mistakes, whether they're big or small." The motivational speech seemed to cheer her up a little more, causing a bigger smile to form and the tears to be far between each other.

"I guess I had to get that off my chest. Thanks for the speech, it helped a little. But why do you help here? You don't seem like you would do this without any strings attached. For Apple Bloom?"

Applejack nodded and sighed as she looked at the glass doors they passed. "Yeah. I do this for Apple Bloom. My sister must be scared out of her mind about this, the possibility of death at another's hooves. But there's something else that forced me, and well, everyone else to come here..." She shut her eyes and shook her head. "There's the kitchen. See you later Twilight." Without another word she trotted into the dark room and opened a fridge.

"Wait! Why else did you..." Twilight stopped herself before asking the whole question. Nobody would have heard her except the guards she was approaching, for the doors were sound proof. Time to make a mental note of the question, if she would be able to remember it anyways. She slowly trotted in front of the guards and waited for them to respond. They didn't even twitch. "Hello? It's Twilight. I'm here to get some meds." She waved a hoof in front of the one on her left.

"Quiet Miss. Sparkle. Some of our men are sleeping in this hallway, new recruits for the Cause." The stallion with an odd armband put his arm on top of hers and lowered it. "Put your eyes in front of the retinal scanner." He moved aside and revealed an electronic panel with an eye scanner. She stepped into the goggles and looked at the darkness of the space. A green light shined in her eyes for a couple of seconds and identified her. The scan was a positive. "Hold out a hoof. Blood test. Luna has tighter security over the meds now that we have new recruits." The other guard handed him a small syringe and a clear circular tray, probably used to hold the blood. There was a tiny prick felt as he calmly took a blood sample. He squirted the blood into the tray and inserted it into a slot in the wall. They all looked at it like a foal at a guest speaker in the school, Twilight noticing a purple light scanning it and a small metal tube that sucked the blood into who knows where. The machine made a few short noises before part of the wall slid up and revealed the words "Twilight Sparkle." The tray slid back out on the guard's hoof. "Proceed."

Twilight waited for the steel door to slowly slide into the wall, amazed how fast Luna had tightened the security. Just yesterday, the only thing she had to do to get in the med room was say the code phrase, "For the New Lunar Republic." The antiseptic smell filled her nostrels as she stepped into the room and scanned the white metal shelves attached to the same color of wall. It was claustrophobic to say the least, were Twilight's thoughts. She grabbed the sleeping pills and powder from the shelves and stepped out. The pony with the red armband held a hoof in front of her. "We also have to check withdrawling medicene." He slid the boxes next to each other so he could read the names. "Sleeping pills. For you I'm guessing? And methamphetemine? Oh right, for Lady Trixie. You're good to go." Lady? What kind of title is that?

Twilight slipped her slippers under the bed after she delivered the powder to "Lady Trixie." She reached for the box on her end table and pryed it open while she bounced onto the bed. The remote on the stand dimly glowed red as she ordered for a glass of water. It slid out of the wall while she put the green pills on the back of her tongue. As she washed down the pills, the familliar feeling of them sticking in her throat went through her, as always a false feeling. She pulled the sheets over her body and squeezed her eyes shut, hoping she would go out soon.

Apple Bloom opened her eyes as she woke up, trying to move her body after the long slumber. The stasis from Trixie held her in an uncomfortable pose as she desperately tried to stretch her leg muscles to get rid of a cramp. She tried to speak to the other Crusaders, but like her legs, her jaw was unable to move. She was helpless, the only thing she could do was wait to get unfrozen and live with the cramp in her hips.

The light pierced Twilight's eyes as she regained consciousness, causing small tears to form in her eyes while she blinked them away. She wiped her eyes and slid her eyelids open slowly, burning them like any other morning. The warmth felt good though. As she kicked her sheets off top of her, she was surprised to find that the room had been heated to a pleasurable 75 degrees. She yawned and looked beside her to see that all of her friends were awake. What time was it? Twilight looked at the digital clock above the door and was startled about the time. "9:00? I'm late to the clean up!" She jumped out of bed and ran down the hall trying to rush to the Block B entrance for the game-makers to enter the arena.

The same guard with the red armband stood guarding the titanium door. "Miss. Sparkle! What's the rush? Princess Luna has delayed the clean-up to eleven. Take your time. Oh yeah! Miss. Applejack is waiting for you in the kitchen. Your other friends are... Preparing? For the clean-up, they're preparing. Have a good day, Twilight." The happy chime in his voice genuinely annoyed her. It was okay earlier, but it was getting on her nerves now. How could you sound happy when you know you've practically killed whoever knows how many innocent foals?

Twilight trotted through the opening to the kitchen and waved at a groggy Applejack. She blinked a couple times then burped. "Oops! This apple cider bucks hard. Even harder than the stuff at... What was it? Sweet Apple Acres or something like that? Hi Twilight! What brings you here? Want some cider?" Applejack slid her mug of cider to Twilight as she sat on the other side of the marble table.

"Uh. No thanks. What do you want AJ? That guard outside told me you wanted to talk. What's up?" Twilight attempts to slide it back over to Applejack, but the mug stops in the middle of the table. Twilight stood up to get a plate of breakfast. She grabbed a porcelain plate from the counter and took a blueberry muffin out of a basket full of muffins. She took a nibble of the muffin as she trotted back to set the plate on the table. "You ever had one of these, AJ? Believe it or not, it reminds me of my library." She considered what she had just said and decided to abandon the idea. It would get too sentimental for her likings. She poured a glass of cold water for Applejack.

Applejack looked at the floor as Twilight set the glass next to her. "Death. Punishment by death." She gripped the cup tightly in her hooves as she sipped water out as if it was a sippy cup.

"What was that, Applejack?" A puzzled look appeared on Twilight's face.

Applejack dropped the glass on the floor, causing it to shatter. "What I was going to tell you earlier today is..." She fought hard to keep the tears in, failing as she thought she had won the battle. "Luna... She said if I didn't join the Games... She threatened to kill me. She would make sure Apple Bloom would die in the most horrible way. So I said okay, and here I am. Twilight, you will not like what I'm going to say next, okay? But I'm going to say it anyway. I'm getting Luna back for this, even if it's the last thing I do." Rage flowed through her words as her tears relieved the stress of it all.

Twilight stepped into her and Applejack's block with a bag of some spray around her neck. The spray was designed to make sure the bodies wouldn't decompose and to harden the skin so if a foal was hungry and resorted to cannibalism, they would be forced to find a new body, or break their teeth. She threw the pack onto the ground as their squad of ten ponies, excluding Applejack and herself, reached the bloody middle of the block. As a few new recruits saw Featherweight's open body, covered with flies eating away at his organs, and Diamond Tiara's eyeless body with a slit throat, swimming in a pool of blood, they ran back to the hall they came from and lost their breakfasts. The others observed the mess before them then grabbed a can of the spray.

Applejack grabbed a can and looked around the room to see if there were any other bodies. She looked at the Crusaders stuck in the blue stasis and murmured a prayer for them, mainly Apple Bloom, but not praying for the others would be cold. Then she took off the cap and started to spray the navy blue gas onto Featherweight's gory body, listening to see if there any interesting conversations floating around. "Damn, look at that! Sexy fillies in a sexy pose! Hey, Cloud, look at them! They are gorgeous, just look at their beautiful cli-"

The other stallion, probably Cloud, interrupts the other stallion. "Okay, god! I don't need to hear your sexual fantasies. It's bad enough you're actually drooling at their behinds, but telling me how you'd screw them is just fucked up! Seriously, I actually have a wife and filly at home, and I have to hear you planning on how good their rears are. When we get out of here, you should be glad that I won't report your ass to Celestia herself!" He shakes up his can then looks into the dark corridor ahead of them.

The stallion who was attracted to the fillies ignores Cloud and continues describing the "perfection" in fillies. "Just look at the one in the middle! Perfect red mane, perfect bow in there, adding to the perfection of her. Hell, if I could sneak in here during the live Games, I would. Imagine, what's her name, Apple Bloom in front of you, unaware of your presence. Quietly sleeping. You bend down, then lick her vag- Gah!" Applejack dropped the the spray and pinned the pervert to the ground.

"I will break your tiny little neck the next word you speak about my sister or her friends! Do you realize what they've been through? And here you are, describing your sick fantasies! Do you understand what I just said? Do you!?" The white skinned stallion nods his head, his orange eyes shrinking, then blows a bit of his gray mane out of his eyes. She took a deep breath and released her grip on him.

He stood back up, looking at Applejack, then took the bottle back in his mouth. An unintelligible sentence was directed towards Cloud and he turns around and checks one of four corridors for bodies. He trotted a few steps into the dark corridor before hearing an odd noise. He stood in confusment of where the source of the noise came from. Suddenly, a saw blade flew out of the wall and drilled half-way through his head, staining his coat and the wall with blood. Twilight and Applejack looked at the scene, Applejack with a slight grin on her face, as the lifeless corpse slumped to the ground, blade still wedged in his head.

Apple Bloom slid to the ground as the stasis released the grip on her. She stretched her legs and shook Sweetie Belle, hoping to wake her up. When she realized Sweetie Belle was too deep in sleep, Twilight came over the intercom and woke both Sweetie Belle and Scootaloo from their sleep. "Welcome to the... Third day of the Lunar Filly Games...?" Static fills the speakers for a couple seconds before Twilight's voice returns. "Yes. The third day of the Games. To Block B, you might see a male gamekeeper near the center of your block. We forgot to turn off the traps for that hallway. He stood still too long and got killed by a saw blade. There honestly isn't much else to warn you about. Oh right! You might want to make a mental note of this. If you don't find an 'exit' by the end of tomorrow's Game day, something bad will happen. Officially, I'm not allowed to say what the bad thing is, but, block B, we'll meet later. Am I forgetting anything else, Dash? No? Okay then. Embrace imminent death."

Why would they meet, Twilight and the Crusaders? Rainbow Dash was the only mare they had encountered, and she was only in the arena to drop off the tools, and maybe she wanted to kill Diamond Tiara, but that wasn't her objective. Was that even allowed, a gamekeeper coming into the arena to contact foals? Maybe Apple Bloom was overthinking this. Twilight wouldn't hurt them if they met. There would be no reason, and Twilight isn't murderous. "Lets go back to the other door." They all knew what door Apple Bloom was talking about. The one where Silver Spoon was crushed between the doorway.

Sweetie Belle covered her eyes as they returned back to Silver's death scene. Scootaloo covered her nose when they came across the gore and was amazed when she looked at Apple Bloom, as she seemed a little bothered by it, but hid her disgust effectively. "How are we getting past this? You want to simply trot around it or do we have to cut through?" Scootaloo quickly gazed at the strung up intestine stuck in the metal door's teeth. A click sounded and metal blockades slid out of the corridor, blocking most of the way, except a small section with the small intestine in front. Scootaloo rose a hoof to her face.

Sweetie Belle uncovered her face and let our a shrill cry, "Oh come on!" She looked at her friends to see their reactions. Scootaloo was in the middle of a face hoof, and Apple Bloom was frowning and shaking her head tenderly. "So we're cutting through, aren't we? I hate this. Nothing can be simple, everything is twisted or gory." The decaying smell of flesh caused her to vomit then cover her nose.

Scootaloo unbuttoned her bag and searched for the scalpel she dissected Featherweight with. All she could find was their blood stained socks they removed after their razor wounds stopped bleeding. "You guys have your tools? My thingy is gone. Scalpel, I mean. Sweetie Belle, do you have your saw?" She double-checked her bag again to see if she missed the last time, only to find an extra energy bar and the same socks. She rose her head back up to Sweetie Belle.

"Nope. Apple Bloom, do you have the stabby-thingy... The syringe?" Sweetie Belle turned to Apple Bloom, who was pulling glass shards out of Silver Spoon's eyes with a purple face, probably holding her breath so she wouldn't smell what caused Sweetie Belle to vomit. "Why? As a weapon or something?"

Apple Bloom dropped the shards next to Scootaloo's hooves. "Something like that. If we run out of the razors, I think we could use these to set off traps. I don't even know how I come up with this, and I don't want to know." Apple Bloom pushed her apple cider to the side as she scouted out the syringe. As she grazed her hoof across the bottom of the bag, the needle pricked her, causing her to let out a quiet, "Ow," and raise the tube and plunger out of the bag. "I have it," Scootaloo yanked the needle out of her hoof, making Apple Bloom wince. She slowly turned her head towards her friend and let out through clentched teeth, "That kind of hurt. A lot."

Scootaloo looked down at her hooves. "Sorry. I thought pulling it out would help. Guess I pulled too hard, huh?" She directed her attention to Sweetie Belle with a slight blush on her cheeks. "Change the subject!" She gritted through her teeth. "Now. Please."

Sweetie Belle raised a hoof to her chin and thought of a less touchy topic. A grumbling came from someone's stomach. "Whose stomach was that? It wasn't mine. Was it yours, Apple Bloom?" There was an awkward silence before a voice broke the silence.

"That was mine, sorry about that. Relax, it's me Twilight. I used an invisibility spell to sneak in here. Was that a good subject change?" Twilight appeared out of thin air behind the fillies. They all turned around and stared at her black outfit. The sleeves entirely covered her limbs and the collar stood up 3 inches from the bottom of her neck. Jewel incrusted slippers covered her hooves and small diamonds dotted down her spine to her tail. "This is a new dress I was gifted. I don't think Rarity worked on it, this, I don't think, is her style." She flattened the collar onto her back and wiped dust off a sleeve. "You fillies look like you've just seen a ghost. I know how to get through that barricade. And I'm sure you know how too. Except, you aren't strong enough to get it out, and that's why I'm in the arena with you, to help you out and hope I don't get caught on camera. We can talk later, if you want to anyways." She turned around and signaled for them to follow along her path.

When they arrived in the center, Twilight took a look at Featherweight and bowed her head with her eyes closed and with lips moving, uttering a prayer for all of the foals who had lost their lives to this unworthy cause. She cleared her throat and turned to the fillies. "If I knew Luna was going to drag me into this mess, this hell, I wouldn't be here in the Games. These aren't even games, this is physical and mental torture, both for the Keepers and the foals, atleast, that's what I think. I'm sorry I dragged you into this bedlam." There was a moment of awkward silence before someone spoke up.

"It's okay Twilight. Better now that we know you dislike these trials. Can we get to this exit you were talking about on the intercom before we have a full conversation though? It's not good knowing that a trap is our greatest enemy right now, right?" Apple Bloom said in a comforting manner, or atleast as comforting as she could manage. Twilight nodded and walked to the white stallion's body in a hallway in front of them.

Sweetie Belle circled the corpse and raised a hoof as she would in school to ask a question. Even she didn't know why she did this. Twilight, playing along, looked around for other hooves and called on her when she saw none. Optimism would be good for everyone in this sadistic situation, Twilight thought. "Who was he? This man? He only looks like a teenager." Sweetie Belle said curiously.

Twilight thought in her mind for awhile. She knew it was a new Keeper, but she hadn't known his name. There were too many new recruits to keep track of. "I don't know. Maybe he has an ID on him that we can check." She slid off her slippers and stepped in his pool of blood to reach into his uniform pocket. As she stuck a hoof into the pony's black pockets, she felt the now cold blood soaked into the fabric. Twilight's hoof tapped a piece of plastic as she pushed it against his body. A purple aura glowed around her horn as she used a levitation spell to extract the ID from his pocket. She brought it in front of her and read it out loud to the fillies. "Name: Omega Rain. Age: [REDACTED] . Eyes: Orange. Coat: White. Mane: Gray. Class: Recruit. He was young, too," She sighed. "I saw how he got killed. He may have chosen to participate in these, but even he didn't deserve to die this young, even though how he was acting was immature." Twilight slid the card behind her and continued on with her plan. "Come help me pull this blade out of him. We'll cut through with it." She cast a spell to protect their hooves from being cut up and gripped a side of the saw blade.

The Crusaders trotted into the blood, disgusted, and took hold of another section of the blade. "On three. One. Two. Three. Go!" They all heaved as strong as they could, failing to cause anything more than more blood to spill from his skull. Twilight repositioned her hooves and took another pull at the blade, causing one tooth to dissect from his skin. "Well, that's progress. Let's try something to make this easier. Keep on pulling at it, and I'll use my magic to follow along. Before you say anything, I'm just going to say sorry for not thinking of that sooner." Twilight divided the magic between use of protection and tug power and jerked her head backwards, as if it added extra strength to the group's brawn. As the blade tore from his head, blood ran from the gash, along with red-white skin tearing from his face and attaching loosely to the blade.

Sweetie Belle examined the stallion's face, only to be introduced to the sight of a dilated eye slipping from the broken orbit, connected to the optical nerve, making her hold back her breakfast. "Can we just go now? I want to get out of here as soon as possible." She turned to Twilight and tried to unsee what she had just seen. But that was the kind of thing that a foal, no, anypony could never unsee. Just like everything else in the hellhole they were forced into.

Twilight bustled over the outline of blood, highlighting the otherwise gray stone floor crimson red. Her quiet incantation returned to its hiding place, Twilight's horn, and recharged its energy for later purposes. The reddened saw blade gravitated to the insipid floor with a ding sounding throughout the area, splatting distinct blotches of red like blots of paint on canvas. Blood could be considered paint in this prison of stone walls and dismembered ponies could be considered a magnificent work of art. To some sick bastard anyway, possibly a deranged cannibal. A soul derived madpony who considers decapitated and gouged foals to be a masterpiece of sorts.

Twilight waited for drops of the liquid to rain to the ground and gathered into uneven cracks before she wiped the remainders into the dark fabric hugging her body. "Yeah. You can never be too concerned about time. I just wish I had a watch," she said as she slid her hooves into the padded slippers. Apple Bloom lugged her numb legs through the puddle and flicked blood at the wall before using Twilight's uniform like a towel to rub claret from her hooves. Twilight opened her mouth to expostulate her decision but sealed her lips together when Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle copied her action. "Let's go!"

As Twilight wrapped her magic around the saw blade, Scootaloo rose her forehoof in front of Twilight's chest. "Didn't you say you wanted to avoid being caught by the cameras? I'm guessing they're all over the place and you're not even disguised, let alone invisible. What's up?" Twilight bit her lip as she said this.

"I guess you're right. But are you going to deny help from me? I guess you won't let this go. To be honest, I don't care anymore. All the time I've been in here, before, it wasn't enough to take effect on me. But, the couple hours I've spent in here made me realize what she is doing is terrible. Forcing foals through this is a horrendous feat." She looks at a camera and says, "Sorry darling, but it's true!" Sweetie Belle tapped her on the shoulder, obtaining her attention. "Oh, right. Sorry. Well, let's move on!" Her cheeks turned a barely noticeable light shade of red.

"Twilight? Twilight, are you here? It's Luna!" Princess Luna roamed through the hallways and stuck her head into every room she thought Twilight could possibly be in asking the question in her royal Canterlot tone of voice. As she passed a room with a plaque reading "Keeper Quarters", she backtracked and looked with disgust as she saw Keepers in a slumber or gambling bits while playing Badlandian Poker. When one of the four players folded, he glanced upwards at the vexed face of the Princess, and wrapped his forelegs around a pile of bits and pulled the pile backwards, golden bits clinking together and producing a sort of jingle as they descended into a leather bag. "What is this? You play some obscure card game while there is work to be done around the facilities? You receive good pay to work here and a protected identity while there are hard working ponies out there. Disgusting! Don't just sit there! Get up and do your jobs!"

As one stallion passed by Luna, she raised her foreleg to his chest. "Cloud, may I have a moment with you?" She stepped aside a bunk as the other stallions proceeded out the quarters, each grasping their leather bags of bits made available from their "good" job attending the arena while foals were asleep and services around the base. As they made their way out of the room, Luna punched the door control then sat on the lower bunk of the closest bedset. "Sit." Nearly a second after, she positions herself in a way one pony tries to seduce another one usually of the opposite sex. Cloud glances at her posture quickly, laying on her side, left forehoof holding her head up, right foreleg arching towards her waist area, then scratches a wooden chair out from underneath the table and faces himself towards the metal door.

"Cloud, so as I understand it, you want to receive a larger profit, yes?" Luna rolls onto her back while Cloud unnervingly nods his head. "You do. And with the death of an employee, we have some money to spare. I have a job for you to perform and we can give you that raise you've wanted for a while now. Now, while it may not be highly conventional, we can change the contract a little to let this pass 'legally'."

Cloud appeared puzzled. "You know that I would get all the money I can get to support my family. What is this task you have in mind?" He shuffled his haversack around nervously with his legs.

"It depends on your preference. For a moderate raise, separate Ms. Sparkle from the three other fillies she is giving an unfair advantage. Or for an even larger raise, get in the arena yourself and execute Twilight."