The Experiment

A/N - Thanks for being patient, those few readers i have ^_^ Took me long enough to get this out, but it is 51## words long so hopefully you enjoy :D. There are some things that come up that might spark some questions, please comment any and all things that you are confused about, should i have forgotten to explain something important i will fix ASAP

"Your telling me you have come up with an escape plan involving a set of keys and a horrible chance of success?"

"Yep you see…"

"Don't want to hear it. I'll go along with it, but I don't want to hear a word." There's another cut off; you know I'm actually starting to like this girl/pony even though she does cut me off.

"Okay fine, my business is done here so unless you guys want something then lets go." I start towards the door.

"Actually, wait." She quickly scans the boxes, finding the one labeled 72724 she opens it. After rummaging through it all she pulls out a necklace.

"So, don't want to lose yourself either? Is it the usual, 'grandma's gift'?"

"No, it's just a necklace." She passes me in the doorway. "I guess I should go first since I know where I'm going."

Didnt see that coming…

Neither did I.

"Do you know where a airplane hangar is?" I ask, falling into step behind her.

"This has something to do with your crazy plan doesn't it?"

"Most certainly. Now, do you know where it is?"

"50-50 chance I do." She snickered.

BUUURRRRRNNNN

"Hey! It's not that funny. There are no odds when remembering things you either do or you don't."

I thought it was funny.

"I'll tell you if you up your 'odds' more."

"I might be able to put a 65% chance, but it's based off several variables, the biggest being if we get caught by Dr. Creepy or not."

*thump* damn doors!

"I'll have you know my name is not 'Dr. Creepy'," ahhhh shit. "it's Morgan free…

5 bucks he says Freeman

"…mondt, and you three are coming with me." 6 guards appeared from behind him.

Didn't see that coming either. Too bad I we can't just teleport away, unless you can?

Too complicated to teach in a microsecond. I think what you said is correct, we are fucked. Wait he just said fuck, while I keep saying buck…

Matter of opinion, I was merely quoting you. You’re the one with the problem, duh.

Wow these guys are strong. One has a good grip on my wings while the other leads me by my horn. Luke is being held the old fashioned style with his hands gripped behind his back.

Much to my surprise it took the remaining three guards to restrain Sarah.

On the appearance of Morgan, man not as creepy or funny as Dr. Creepy, she took off. One guard had her back leg trying to pull her down while the other was fumbling with his rifle. The last guard was holding up his arms in the expectation of capturing the pegasus.

If I had a physical mouth the jaw would be on the floor. This girl is the most. Please at least ask her on a date!

NO!

Then I will never stop bothering you about it. A large mental >:) appeared in my mind's eye.

DAMMIT, fine. IF we make it out of here, I will ask her on a date. Happy ass-hole?

Very much so.

Finally a small *pfft* was heard and a dart appeared on her flank. Sarah let out a yelp and fell to the ground. They held onto her legs as she struggled. After about a minute she succumbed to the drug and fell unconscious.

Morgan clapped his hands together. "Now that that is finished, I would like to show you what's actually going on here." He gestured towards the door he had just come out of.

The guards ushered us in, Sarah was carried in while another kept a gun pointed at her. They weren’t going to take any chances with her. Morgan was in front of our convoy while the final guard took up the rear.

The room we entered looked like a control room to me; computer consoles on desks were everywhere while a big window overlooked an expansive enclosed area

Apparently the villain is going to monologue for us, want me to try and block him out so I can teach you the teleportation spell?

Nah I want to hear what he has to say, maybe he will be idiotic and give away something.

My eyes refocus on Dr. Creepy, A.K.A Morgan. He is patiently waiting with his hands folded in front of him.

”Are you done talking to him? Then let's begin."

"Wait, you know about him? You said…"

"I lied. Actually I lied about a lot of things. Please hold all questions until I'm done, thank you."

My jaw closed, I'm really starting to hate this guy.

"So as you can see, we are in the control room. This is where we record all the data about the test subjects."

I snorted, thoroughly pissed at the guy. "Why do you need data on improving human life spans?"

"You fell for that crap?" Oh good, Sarah is awake. Must have only been a mild sedative.

She snorted. "Didn't believe it for a second, sure I followed along after a day or two, but after they started injecting me with stimulants I knew it wasn't for the preservation of the human race."

"Very astute Sarah, or should I call you by your proper name?" He leaned in close to her. I wanted to rip that smug look off his face and shove it down his throat.

No, shove it up his ass, a face like his deserves a good mate.

Apparently my anger at his antagonistic action towards Sarah showed because everyone was staring at me expectantly. Morgan smirked again, "Ohh looks like someone is in love." He pulled out a VERY familiar needle, and Sarah visibly cringed. "That's right, one false move and its horse land for her."

My anger subsided, as much as I hated this guy Sarah's life wasn't worth the reward.

"So where were we, Sky Strike?" Sarah tried in vain to look as small as possible. My mouth hung open, she had a pony inside her head too?

"Let the pony in your head drive." Wow that suddenly made sense now.

Morgan turned back to me and shook his head. "You probably have so many questions, but we have no time for that. On to the demonstration!" He looked towards a man at one of the many consoles and nodded his head.

The man typed on the keyboard a few times and nodded back.

"Go on, look for yourself at our great achievement." He gestured towards the window and the three of us were allowed to watch the proceedings on the field.

[Want to hear the inspiration for this?

Youtube Video

well there it is, enjoy the tunes]

Three doors opened on the left side of the field while the whole right side was one big door.

I looked expectantly at both doors, awaiting the arrival of whatever Morgan was trying to show us.

"Stallions and mares, I give you, project Fuse." Morgan's voice was overly dramatic.

Movement! Out of the left doors walked… three ponies, earth, unicorn and pegasus. I gapped as the right door disgorged a tank, a jet and some kind of mech walker with two large Gatling guns attached to it.

A large bell sounded and the jet shot off vertically along with the pegasus. The tank rolled towards the earth pony who in turn ran straight towards it. The Gatling walker thing spun up its death guns and collapsed into a rover type thing. I looked over to find that the unicorn was gone. I frantically searched until I saw it circling with the walker.

How?

Teleportation, duh. Sometimes you really are slow.

I blame you.

"As you can see, each type of pony is going against a different opponent." The tank had fired at the earth pony who nimbly dodged to the side.

A small smoke trail arced from the plane towards the pegasus as it fired a missile. As a missile neared the pegasus ran straight into it, and to my astonishment, caught it and proceeded to redirect it.

Damn, can we do that?

Maybe I can, but you certainly can't.

"Oh shit!!!!!!" The missile was headed straight for us. It exploded against the glass, which caused a boom to resound in the room. When the smoke cleared we saw that the earth pony had reached the tank and was kicking it fiercely.

The term is buck.

A lucky kick to the tank’s treads caved in the wheels, immobilizing it. The tank would be easy prey now that it couldn’t move to get a good shot.

The unicorn had a reflector shield up and was sending all the bullets back to their gun barrels. Though it didn’t seem like it was doing much it was still impressive.

The pegasus however, was playing chicken with the plane. Both hurtled towards one another at excessive speeds, neither showing signs of breaking off.

Several things happened all at once. The earth pony jumped on top of the tank and kicked in the barrel bending it so it was unusable and another missile arced from the jet. The tank then fired a round a second after its barrel was bent; the resulting explosion blew it apart. The unicorn sent a spear of white magic into the barrel of one of the guns of the walker thing, jamming it. The pegasus had caught the missile and had turned it around. Using it to boost its speed he slammed into the wing of the plane, completely shredding it off. The plane spiraled to the ground as the pegasus redirected the missile at the walker thingy.

You need a better name for that.

The unicorn apparently noticed the incoming warhead and disappeared. The missile impacted the mecha-walker a second later.

That was horrible.

The explosion that resulted was far greater than the tank. The windows we were viewing from immediately darkened to almost black. How the other ponies weren’t blinded was beyond me

The pegasus landed next to the unicorn and they walked back towards the left side, joined shortly by the earth pony. That is odd; I never knew what happened to him after the tank had exploded. As a group they strutted off the field through the middle door and out of sight.

“What… just… happened…?” Luke said mystified. Truthfully I was just as confused, he just beat me to the punch.

Morgan turned to the same man, “Please inform Thunderhooves, Firesteel and Starlight that they did a marvelous job as always and they might expect some new recruits if everything goes well enough.”

He turned his attention back to us. “That was what we have been working on for the past 2 months. Weapons, watching that silly show showed us that even though the ponies themselves were not deadly, their bodies were. So, using nano technology, we were able to reconstruct humans into all types of ponies.”

I finally found my voice, “What about me though, I’m a alicorn pony, why not a regular type?”

“Actually we aren’t finished quite yet, see…” He paused for dramatic effect, staring straight into my eyes. “we hadn’t experimented with ALL types of ponies. Doing a bit more research”

More like watching the show for entertainment.

“we found that there was a third type that we had not toyed with. You were and still are our final goal, the ultimate weapon of mass destruction.”

I backed up, trying desperately to get as far away from this crazy maniac as I could. What he was saying repeated over and over in my head. ‘Ultimate. Weapon. Mass Destruction. My slow, backwards progression was halted by a cold, dark wall. Sensing that I could go no farther I tried become one with the wall, pressing myself as flat against it as possible.

“Don’t be so surprised,” He slowly made his way toward me. “each pony was engineered to be particularly violent, your ‘pony in your head’ shouldn’t much different than the ponies in the arena.”

Shadow… you knew about this?

I had my suspicions but yes my natural instinct is violence. Fortunately for you though my dominant personality happens to be humor.

Soooo…

Yeah I’m about as violent, if not more than those ponies that just fought. Hell I wanted to kill Sky, I mean Sarah as soon as she made the first insult. Don’t worry, I’ll try my hardest to make sure they don’t influence you.

My breathing started to return to its normal rate. What the fuck did I do to deserve this karma? I've been reasonably good, well except for that one time, but the rest of it I tried my best to be good to everyone. I had a psychotic pony living in my head, a even more psychotic human trying to turn me into a war machine. My future existence flashed before me in first person view. Standing before a field, filled with the wreckage of machinery. Blood stained the ground, my horn, my hooves and my fur red. I looked up beside me, my mind grateful from the respite of the ghastly scene, only to find that accursed man staring down at me with an approving gaze.

I collapsed put my head in my hoofs and started crying. My inner consciousness retracted into the furthest part of my brain, cutting off all everyone and everything. It was a defense mechanism I had used earlier on in life to cut off everyone else so I didn’t lose control of my emotions.

Well shit I guess this means I have to fix this for you then…

The voice didn’t matter anymore; darkness consumed me as I shut myself away from the outside world.

Shadow’s POV

I felt the connection between us collapse; thread-by-thread of the delicate connection was cut away.

The consequences of complete and total separation were horrifying, at least from his point of view. Since I was the more dominant personality my consciousness would essentially take over the body. Alex as I knew him would be an innocent bystander as I lived the life that he now had.

I would not let that happen. I reached out and grasped as many threads as I could, tying them down to my mind and driving a mental stake into them so they wouldn’t not disconnect.

Satisfied, I contemplated the decision. Since Alex was technically out of commission my morals against assuming control of his body would not be violated. So I felt around for the ‘controls’.

I stood shakily to my hooves that I hadn’t used in so long; man it felt good to finally stand up. I moved my jaw around and explored all my muscles, reacquainting myself with them all.

“Congratulations Shadow! You have successfully assumed control of your host, now all I need is for Sky to do the same and for Luke here to get his own.” He smiled that ridiculous smile. How can someone look THAT stupid when smiling?

I furrowed my brows, “Sarah, I know your still there.” I whispered to her. She looked at me in disbelief. “I'm temporarily taking over for Alex as he is incapacitated, be ready to run when I say.”

“Shadow, you better not be thinking about what I think your going to do. Why would you leave, if you stay you’ll be given an army to command. All for you and at your disposal just give up this silly plan of his and let us have the girl and the boy. They mean nothing to you.”

I hesitated. He hit a nerve with that one; I really did desire what he had to give, but Sarah, Luke and freedom meant a lot to Alex so I would have to pass. That and I was starting to get really bucking annoyed of the ass hole standing in front of me.

“I'm sorry but I’m going to have to pass on that. Now if you’ll please excuse us we would like to leave.” I looked towards Sarah hoping she caught on. Luke still had his arms behind his back but he looked towards me and I saw that he knew where this was heading. Morgan’s Mouth was open in shock; apparently he hadn’t expected me to refuse. Good, confusing your enemy gives you an excellent advantage

His mouth apparently started responding again much to my disappointment. “I'm sorry that you think that, I was really hoping we wouldn’t have to resort to extreme measures, you see for some reason you’re the only alicorn we were able to create. After you they were either earth, unicorn or pegasus ponies. I'm not about to lose my star warrior when I'm this close.”

Well that sucks; I’m the only one on the planet. Can’t think about that right now; have to focus on getting Alex, Sarah and Luke out of here. Think about relationship problems later.

“Please hold him down, I don’t want this injection screwing up.” Dr. Freemont had pulled out a large needle and was flicking the pointy end in preparation.

“Nope!” Hm, maybe him and me are already starting to merge, if only a little.

I cued up my memory for the spells I once new so well.

One of the guards grabbed me around the waist. Not such a good idea for him. I sent him flying towards a wall with a propulsion spell. Thankfully Luke had caught the cue and had head butted the guard restraining him. With his freedom he scooped up an astonished Sarah and followed me out the door.

“Sarah, you have to tell me now. Where is the airplane hangar?”

“I… I… How do I know Alex is still there?” Damn her stammering is cute.

I looked through my minds eye for a moment to find his mind still closed off to the world. Maybe when he comes to himself I’ll have to get him to teach that to me. It would come in handy when… that’s odd. I can’t remember why that would be useful.

“I can’t really prove it, for some reason he has locked himself out of everything and put up a mental shield that I can’t break through. For now just trust me.” I pulled out the keys from the jacket that Alex had insisted on getting. “I know that whatever he wanted to do involved these keys and that we need to get to the hangar, he wouldn’t tell me anything else.”

She glared at me for a moment. I reciprocated with a blank stare. “Fine. Its this way.” She jumped out of Luke’s arms and zipped off to the left.

I wonder what the hay this boy has planned, apparently it involves some sort of plane but beyond that I have no clue.

Sarah sped off to the right, quickly followed by me and Luke. “So, are you really shadow? Or are you playing a prank on us?”

“Yes it is actually me, apparently Alex was very distraught over the fact that he would have to kill anypony. He jokes about it a lot but never actually means to hurt anyone unless he loses control.”

A door opened and I quickly dodged it. I thought about gloating my superiority over the wooden devils, but then remembered my companion’s plight and my mood dampened.

2 sharp right turns later found us in a long hallway lined with crossways. At the end of it was an elevator. Oh precious elevator, your our ticket out of here.

I was about to take a step forward when Sarah put a hoof against my chest. I wasn’t used to such an action but I withheld my temper, she was in charge of this escape. My eyes focused on the ground where I found a maze of red lines. Well damn, didn’t think they’d catch on to us that quickly.

“Thunderhooves, Firesteel, and Starlight report to the topside elevator immediately, be prepared to fight.”

Well there goes that plan. Ah fuck it! Luke yelped as I grabbed him and set him on my back. “Sarah I hope you’ve learned how to fly fast.”

“Don’t do it! We don’t know what will hap…” She was cut off as I burst down the hall, tripping every alarm possible. Luke was barely holding on and Sarah decided that this was better than waiting around for the dangerous trio to show up and caught up to me.

We made it to the doors with alarms blaring in our ears. Luke dismounted me and pushed the button

“Not enough time!” I forced the elevator door open with magic. Normally my magic would have been weak from lack of use, but necessity helped speed the process up a bit. We were about to pile into the elevator when I heard a rough voice behind me.

“Now where do you think your going?” I turned and faced the last 3 ponies I wished to see.

“Well we were about to go and try our luck at escaping but seeing you three has made me wonder if that is possible now.”

They chuckled at this. “You are quite correct, now how about giving up the mare and the man now?”

Some victories have to be made with sacrifices. Some of the threads tightened. Then I was yanked mentally back as a mental wave rushed over me. I was not prepared for this.

Wait, was that who I thought it was? I felt control of the body leave me as ‘I’ quickly hit the button jumped out of the elevator and saluted with my hoof.

“I’ll be seeing you guys later.” WOO Alex is back!

My POV-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I felt shadow’s inquisitive presence. Yes I’m fine now, I needed a moment to reconcile myself. Thank you for taking over for me. Now to deal with these misfits.

I took a defensive stance. All my sadness replaced with broiling anger and rage.

"Hmmm you may be salvageable yet. Even though you let those two escape you could still come back and accept your new role." The earth pony, Firesteel, said with a hint of sarcasm.

"Sorry to break it to you boys; and lady, I added with a bow. But I'm not interested in commanding a horde of ponies."

We were hoping you would say that." He grinned mischievously

Inside central control room-------------------------------

As was I." Morgan grinned; everything was going according to plan. If Alex/Shadow beat his top 3 generals then his orientation into fighting would be finished. If he didn't then he would be brought back so they could break his mind. His friends would then be apprehended.

He laughed. Silly fools, they should not have tried to escape, nobody outsmarted him. Even if they did escape there would be nowhere to go. The facility was located on the remote island of Gehenna somewhere in the 'cursed' Bermuda Triangle. He let out another chuckle. All those pilots and boatsmen never knew what happened. Situated on one of the hills that made up the island's geography was a giant radio antenna that blocked all but the most powerful signals. Even they had not been able to breach the outside while it was online. However they did have a prototype antenna loaded on one of the C-130s hidden in the hangar, it was scheduled for flight that afternoon sometime in the evening. If things kept up though, they might have to postpone the testing until after the current situation has been rectified.

He shrugged, sacrifices had to be made to achieve the ultimate goal. So was the gist of project fuse. Most of the people had been volunteers, Sarah and Luke to name some, while others had to be ‘persuaded’. Those people were the hardest to work with, they had to be strapped down while they broke his/her mind to allow the more dominant pony take over. If the pony was unwilling to assume control the body was injected with a formula only know as H. It gave the subject a huge burst of horse DNA that assumed control of the mind and turned it into that of a wild animal.

His attention turned back to the screen, Shadow/Alex was doing marvelously. Each hallway contained at least a 1 or 2 hidden dart guns that had deadeye precision. Should a patient try to escape they would be hit with a dart and knocked unconscious. They had almost activated them when Sarah/Sky had escaped from her scientist with Alex/Shadow, the fool. He had listened to her whimpers and now was paying for it with his life. No matter, Morgan had arrived just in time to halt the process. Should they need to be activated later they could, he had wanted to see how it would turn out. As it was he was glad he had not, the benefits to having him work in his more aggressive nature without training was beneficial. Now they would have less to work on when he was captured.

He turned his head as one of the technicians vied for his attention.

“Sir you might want to take a look at this.”

“What is it?” What? Had something gone unexpected?

He glanced at the screen; the alicorn standing fiercely in front of the elevator was not the same one he had strapped down to the table only an hour before. His eyes blazed red while his mane took on a more ethereal look. He eyes glared at the struggling unicorn floating a few feet off the floor. His expression displayed no malice or hate, just a small frown, as if disappointed.

“Sir, should I activate turret 3?” the technician asked nervously, the last thing he wanted was Dr. Freemont angry.

“It looks that way.” Morgan sighed, looks like he is a bit more unpredictable than he had first believed. He wanted him to be a killing machine, but he also needed starlight as well and he wasn’t willing to sacrifice her to do something they could do in a testing room.

Back in the hallway------------------------------------------------------

I glared at the offending unicorn in disappointment, she had not put very much of a fight up. After disabling her two comrades it was a simple move of pinning her horn to the floor, completely rendering her inactive. I was slowly choking her into submission. Her struggling form held about two feet from the ground. I moved her closer to me, letting more air into her lungs so that she could have enough sense to hear me.

“One. You do not TRY to hurt my friends. Two. You do not attack me.” My frown deepened.

My concentration broke for a moment at the swish of a panel opening behind me. I turned, still keeping a hold on the unicorn, starlight, but no longer choking her. A small rifle popped out of the slot that had opened, I saw it turn towards me. I grabbed it with my telekinesis and ripped it from its mount, crumpling it up then tossing it on the floor. My gaze returned to the helpless pony floating within my grasp.

“Please no, don’t kill me.” She had gotten back her voice and started crying. “We were only following orders you cant blame us, if we didn’t they would kill us!” Her head hit her hooves as she tried to cover her tears.

I raised my head, looking around the hallway. In a corner I found what I was looking for. A small black sphere hung from the ceiling. I grabbed it and crushed it.

In the control room-------------------------------------------------------------------

“Sir we just lost the camera!”

“WHAT!?” Morgan hurried over to the console, pushing the young technician away from it as he frantically tried to call up an image of that hallway.

Back in the hallway---------------------------------------------------------------------

I set her down, moved by her pleas, my knees weak. She collapsed to the floor, exhausted.

I heard frantic yelling. Looking around for the source I found no trace.

“Aghhh” I flinched, the pain tearing through my head was extreme.

It’s about bucking time! What the buck happened?

“I don’t know.” I was too exhausted that I forgot to think my reply.

One moment I'm helping you beat off these ponies and the next I’m shut out. My anger had been completely drained and I had no visual of what was happening. No offense but your body is engineered in such a way that I’m supposed to be able to take control whenever I want.

“Anger… it’s like a burning desire, an unquenchable thirst.”

Damn, please don’t go all poetic on me, it makes me want to barf. Since you don’t have any food in your stomach and I don’t have a body besides yours… well lets just say it would be awkward.

I shook my head. Where the hell did that come from anyways?

Do you mind driving for a little bit while I gather my thoughts?

Why? You seem perfectly fine.

I walked over to the elevator and pried open the doors.

I turned my head towards the strange appendages attached to my back. For one, I can't fly.

Hm, was wondering why I had to hold those up. He dropped them for a second tripping me. Oh yeah that's why…

Ass…

I try. Glad to see you loosening up though.

Well I can't even work those muscles anymore; unless you entertain waiting for grump squad to wake up?

I liked it better when you were joking around with me. Ah well.

My wings spread wide of seemingly their own accord. He experimented with them for a few moments, twisting this way and that, checking feathers and generally taking FOREVER.

Hey! If you knew how important this pre flight check was you would not be so grumpy. Now I'm actually going to need the entire package, almost everything affects flight patterns, the fact that we are tall doesn't help at all.

Can't you just do some mental magic and unlock it again like you did with the horn? Also, the we is kinda creeping me out.

If a mental being could give a look of astonishment and disgust, he would have. Unlock it?! Aaaannnd buck. You think I can just tell you how to move your wings and then you can fly?

Um… yes?

WRONG! My nostrils snorted. Your horn was just separated by a mental barrier, it wasn't a muscle so you didn't feel it. All I had to do was smash through that mental barrier. The magic works mostly through thought. Wings are a compilation of many different muscles, all doing something completely different. So many things affect flight, I cant just TEACH you how to do it in 30 seconds.

Mind = blown

Fine, i'll just say this, it will take at least two days to teach you. He starts mumbling. …only …mer… ier.

Gonna say it now, nope.

How did you… fine then, lets go.