The Beginning of the End [Closed]

Monitors flared to life, casting a sickly green glow on a grizzled old unicorn as he established a connection. One by one, the monitors shifted from the standby image to video feeds, broadcasted directly from several robots to this room. Outside, it was night, a blanket of black covering the landscape as the cloud barrier prevented the moon from illuminating the ground. It was near-total darkness outside, the perfect cover the unicorn’s specially designed robots.

Built for stealth, the modified Mr. Gutsys silently hovered across the landscape, looking for any potential...recruits, for the unicorn’s plans. Soon, one by one, the robots found potential targets, either alone or in groups. From his control room, a smile played on the unicorn’s face.

“Yes....these will do nicely.”

He sent the command, and on cue the robots activated their integrated Stealthbucks, turning invisible and moving in on their targets. They didn’t stand a chance, before any of them could notice anything blue beams of electrified-magic struck them and induced total-body paralyzes. While they laid their, wondering what the hell was going on, the robots descended on them and injected them with sedatives that quickly lulled them into a deep sleep, letting the robots pick them up and carry them back to their master.

From his control room, the unicorn turned away from the monitors and with a thought and telekinetic flick opened the door to the room outside, a much younger unicorn wearing a lab coat looking up from the pipbuck on his wrist as he exited.

“Sir?” he asked “Did you find some?”

The elder unicorn chuckled. “Indeed I have. Prepare the room, we need to have everything ready for our guests.”

Yes, perhaps these will be the ones to clear the way. And finally, he’ll be able to bring his plan to fruition.

And change Equestria forever.


The abducted ponies, zebra, and griffon finally awoke hours later, minds still cloudy and limbs somewhat unresponsive from the sedatives. They found themselves all in the same room, laying in identical beds and stripped of their armor and equipment. On top of that, they also found themselves all wearing metallic collars securely clamped to their necks, a single, small, blinking red gem on each one. As they looked around, they find chests at the end of each of their beds that, upon further inspection, are revealed to contain all the equipment that was removed from them.

The room itself is relatively unremarkable, metal walls, floors, and ceiling, with flickering lights hanging from the ceiling. Those who grew up in a stable would actually find the setting familiar, it’s much like the rooms of the underground complex they lived most of their lives in. There appeared to be only one exit, a sliding metal door much like the ones in the stables that was locked. There were no other obvious means of escape.

A dull, hazy light. Muffled noises. Vague feelings of warmth.

Zestari’s mind went through a review of what she remembered. She had gone up to that new hamlet to do some trading and on the way something had spooked her. She remembered something about blue lights and the sensation of floating but couldn’t work out why.

But after that, nothing. Just brilliant, Zestari, she admonished herself and sat up trying to work out where she was.

Before her was a large grey room, however it began wobbling in front of her eyes and she placed a hoof either side of her head to steady herself. There was also something uncomfortable on her neck and she tugged on it absent-mindedly. Wait. It was a collar! She made a horrified gasp, and grabbed at the collar more desperately. It was a slave collar! It must have been! Her worst nightmare had come true! She climbed from the bed and staggered to her hooves and finally noticed the other victims of what she could only guess was a slave ring.

What in Tartarus was going on?

“Hello?” she called out, her voice sounding very small in the metal room.

"Ugh...my head.." Scrap muttered before sitting up. Noticing where he was his mind kicked into panic mode, after the panic subsided he tried to piece together what happened and take stock of his surroundings.

"Ok, I was on my way back from a trader after buying a prism rifle and some plating to go under my lab coat, I felt a pin prick and now I'm here." Glancing around the room he identified the others still laying unconscious around him "Hmm...I know everypony here and they all seem to be wearing slave collars like mine." Scrap though a he got out of his bed and checked the case on the end of his bed.

As he was reclaiming his stuff he heard a voice call out hello.

"Who's there? Do you know whats going on?"

*yawn* Cross woke up from what was delightful sleep when some crazy red-maned unicorn started to panic "Who are you!?!?!......Where am I?!!?!" Pointless, rather boring questions like that.

Cross forced himself over the bed, but then shock dawned on him as he realized his mask and cape were gone, he was completely nude aside from one blinking slave collar. He looked around the room, the beds were filled with other various sleeping figures. The room itself was nearly stripped bare, Cross took some time to notice every detail, there was a door.....there were beds......and chests.

Cross went to the chest, and inside he found his gear and his cape, and tried walking to the door.

"So hey, I wish you luck guys, I'm going to be getting, I'll leave the door open if I can......"

*FLASH*

"OWWWWWWWW!!!! Fuck You Door!!!!!!" Cross blinked, he hadn't gone anywhere but for some reason his head hurt, and the spell didn't work

Looks like he'd be stuck with these ponies awhile. Some were unfamiliar, but he remembered Kes, somehow Kes and Cross always managed to find themselves together. There was that white annoying pegasus who tried to follow Cross everywhere. There were other assorted ponies that Cross didn't really know or cared to mention, but in the last bed there was a blue mare.

"....Damnitttt..." Cross started looking for any way out, anyway, even a mousehole.

Starry Night was here, which means he was in trouble, because that mare scared the buck out of him.

"Ugh... Sweet Celestia, what a weird dream..." he said as he sat up Lyra-style off the edge of his bed, his eyes still closed. He opened his eyes and blinked the sleep away, only to stop and clench his eyes shut and open them again.

"...What?" he asked to nopony in particular as he got off his bed and looked around the room he was in. Metallic walls, beds, each with ponies (one with a griffon) and a hooflocker at the foot of them. He went over and opened the one in front of his bed to find his saddlebag with the Ministry of Peace emblem on the side. He tried to levitate it out but...

"GAHH! FUCKING TARTARUS!" he yelled as his head filled with pain. He rubbed his horn with his hoof and shook his head. He picked up the saddlebags with his mouth and set it on his now vacant bed and took inventory. All of his equipment was there. He slid on the saddlebags and took a look at the residents of the room. There was Cross Roads, Scrap Parts, and a zebra who's name he didn't remember, along with several other ponies still out in their beds. He walked over to Scrap, who was probably having a mental breakdown from the looks of it. "Hey, you're Scrap Parts, right?" he asked, trying to get his attention onto something he may or may not recognize. (From Starry's party)

Sky awoke and fell off the the bed, from the yell that came from a blue pony, she knew as techno. From the floor, Sky had an annoyed look on her face, trying to make sense of the situation. "Why did you yell, i was sleeping over here. And...." Sky finally realized she was locked in a room with other ponies, a zebra and a griffin, she knew as kes. "Ok now i see the reason for your yell."Sky sighed as she felt something on her neck, it was a collar and it had red gem, that glowed. "you got to be kidding me, a nice flight in the wasteland lands me here."

Sky looked at the end of the bed to see a chest, She walked towards it. It opened with a click and inside was her security armor and pistol with whatever ammo there was for it. "at least, they gave me back my stuff." Sky muttered to herself as she got to equip the armor, on herself.

When Kestrel finally came to, he had to almost pry his tongue off of the roof of his mouth. Being knocked out for so long and sleeping with his beak open had nearly glued it in place. Didn't take long before the spit was flowing again and the gryphon was able to flick his tongue about with ease.

What in the name of the Void had happened to him? Last thing he had remembered was sitting down to eat some dinner after picking off a few radiers with his rifle.

A rifle who's distinct weight was now missing from his back.

That got the bird to sit up almost instantly. His claws ran over his form feeling for something, anything that used to be his. Rifle, armor, ammo, knife, mask, collection, whiskey. All of it gone; only thing still on him was his Pipbuck. He felt naked in a way. Especially his face. He was so used to the comforting weight of the mask he usually wore, resting there, hiding the scars of battles long past. Now...now it was gone.

Swallowing a bit Kes felt the familiar weight and constriction around his neck. A slave collar. Whoever had kidnapped him had slapped a slave collar on him.

Glancing around Kes noticed that he was in some kind of cell, and that he not alone. There were a few familiar faces here, Blue, Sky, Red, and that Zebra...she seemed familiar too. The big predator also noticed that there were an assortment of Footlockers scattered about as well, one for each of the cell's, occupants.

At Sky's mention of the contents of the footlockers, Kes immediately set about opening his up. Inside, randomly clumped together, was all of his gear.

And his mask.

Starry woke up slowly from a very pleasant dream. She took a deep yawn, which was interrupted right in the middle by the sudden realization that she was in somepony else's bed, and wasn't wearing any clothes. Her eyes went wide, as she took a brief glimpse of where she was laying.

It was a single bed, which came as a great relief. She did not want to relive that mistake. Before she could catch her breath though, she felt the weight around her neck. She lifted a hoof to get a feel for the collar. She couldn't actually see it on her neck, but she also remembered being knocked out by that robot, with some sort of energy weapon. Starry loved robots, but she certainly didn't like that one.

She got off the bed and onto her hooves, and realized there were other ponies in the room. They were wearing slave collars. She knew what that little gem in the center did, and it was not pleasant. That must be what Starry was wearing. So she had been abducted, just like all these other ponies. "Augh!" she exclaimed, "What is that, three times in two weeks? I must be the unluckiest mare in all of Equestria!"

Starry looked around the room, she recognized all of these ponies from the party. Suddenly, her eyes fell on Cross, and something snapped inside of her. "YOU!" she shouted, and she suddenly burst across the room, and tackled him. She pinned his forehooves to the floor with her own, as she shouted accusations down at him. "What are we doing here? Why did you bring us?! Wasn't it bad enough that you abducted me from my own birthday party?! Oh, hi Techno, it's nice to see you again. What do you want from us, Cross?! Why were you fighting with those slavers?!"

Kes had just finished securing his armor, weapons, and other gear when he looked up and saw Red get tackled by Blue. Seems that Starry still held a grudge from the Stableton incident(s). Great, now he had to put up with those two being at each others throats while he was here.

Turning his gaze back downwards towards the footlocker, Kes kept his hearing trained on the two. Not like anyone else was doing anything else interesting at the moment. Carefully Kes pulled out the final thing inside the container, the well worn and scuffed Mask that he usually wore. His gaze usually hard and frozen seemed to flicker, just for a moment, as he looked it over.

The moment did not last however and soon enough Kes's scarred face was again hidden beneath the strange accessory.

Shutter slowly pulled himself up, his small body practically collapsing out of the bed, and hitting the ground hard, clearly still woozy.

"Oh Luna...what happened?"
He mumbled, as he looked about the room, his eyes falling on several familiar faces...including one wearing a respirator that was far TOO familiar...

"YOU!"

Shutter shouted at Cross, trying to quickly to pull himself to his feet, ready to attack...only to swiftly collapse again due to his body not being quite ready for sharp movements. With a groan, the Earth Pony slowly tried to pull himself back up again, only to now notice the collar around his neck.

"What the hay?" He mumbled, before hearing a similar "YOU!" from a very familiar voice, and the sounds of somepony being tackled to the ground hard.

Quickly, he looked up, seeing Starry was now on top of Cross! And...wait a second...both of them have these collars too!

"Starry? What are you doing here? What's HE doing here?! ...Actually...better question...what are all of US doing here at all?!"

He asked, trying once again to pull himself up, his wobbly legs starting to find a grip on the floor.

The other ponies and Kes got up and started moving about but Scrap didn't notice after he saw Cross try and teleport out the room. After seeing this one of Scrap's eyes started to twitch and he curled up into a ball.

"AAAAAHHHH WHY CANT I CATCH A BREAK? I'M A GOOD PONY" Scrap screamed inside his head before his thoughts devolved into the nonsensical drivel that comes out of the mind of a broken pony.

Scrap's mind was still reeling with gibberish when Techno's question broke him out of his temporary madness. Somehow he managed to mumble out a confirmation to Techno's question before he returned to cradling his prism rifle.

Techno sighed and patted Scrap on the back. "Hey, just take it easy." he said in a comforting manner. He walked over to Starry and Cross, who were on the floor, with Starry shouting accusations at him, along with a greeting for him. "Nice to see you too, Starry. I know we all hate Cross, but he's got one of these collars, too. He's not nearly as much without magic, and I'd say we're going to have to team up and work together to get out of here." he said, trying to convince Starry to get off of Cross. He turned to face the other residents of the steel room. "And that goes for all o' you, as well." he said to everyone else.

*BAM* before Cross could throw himself out the way Starry was on top him screaming at him. He couldn't take it! but for some reason he couldn't teleport, leaving only his horn to flicker a magenta light. Cross didn't have any choice he looked at Starry, he hadn't even put on his mask, it was still in his pack.

"Look Starry I'm sorry, I had to do it, without me Stableton would be dead!! Don't you get it?!?! I never even killed anypony!! Everything I did, I did for a good reason!" Cross tried to break free, but somehow she gained a surprisingly large amount of strength in her rage.

"Starry, without me, all of you would be in collars....well, not these collars!! but Red Eye's!! Stableton would've burned, If it wasn't for me you never would have been prepared"

*FLICKER* *FLICKER* *FLICKER*

The damn teleportation wasn't working, if Starry didn't believe him then this could get bloody fast, and he had no intention of letting any harm come to her. All he could do was wait, and so he waited for the group's ultimate judgement.

"I'm sorry it had to be you!!" He cried out

He hated being this vulnerable, no plans, no strategies, only other ponies deciding his path....

"Check the memory orb in my pack, it proves everything!!!"

With the others moving about, Zestari was slightly more releived and even more so when Sky discovered that their gear was located in the crates at the end of the bed.

Looking around, she recognised Sky and Shutter, And Starry was currently standing over a pleading unicorn that Zestari had seen before, but didn't know the name of. There was also that griffon from Starry's party and there were two other unicorns she didn't recognise. One, blue with a teal and red mane and the other was a grey unicorn with a red mane who was currently cradling his weapon.

Rummaging through the crate for her stuff she waited for the blue unicorn to finish his part about working together to get out, then introduced herself to the room. "I'm Zestari. And I'm guessing no-one knows how we got here?"

"LIES!" Starry shouted, very closely to Cross's face. Their noses were nearly touching. "I want the truth about why you were working with those slavers! I want you to confess! CONFESS!"

Starry did have to deal with the uncomfortable truth that her capture, and subsequent release, was what granted Stableton the time it needed to prepare. It would have been a slaughter otherwise. Still, Cross must have had a different motive for her release! She didn't want to think that he did that to help, that was just too far-fetched. Plus, she just didn't want it to be true.

Kes turned towards Zestari, ignoring the goings on between Blue and Red right now. He gave the zebra a short shrug to answer her question; at least she was actually worrying about that detail and not about past grudges.

Kes did not have a damn clue what he was doing here or who had captured him, but he did intend to find out.

Still cradling his new rifle and rocking slowly back and forth on the ground, Scrap's mind was waging war upon itself. A small voice amidst the chaos of his brain was telling him that he needed to pull himself together and to get up off the ground and make himself usefull, that voice was combatted by another stronger voice telling Scrap to keep panicking and to delve deeper into the madness. Eventually the voice of reason won out and Scrap picked himself up off the floor.

Following Zestari's example he introduced himself to the crowd.

"Ouch, Starry can you get off!?! Here!!" A small bluish orb floated out of his pack.

"Please Starry!!! I'm sorry, I had to do it, just take the orb and then you'll see!!"

Cross tried to struggle some more but Starry wasn't letting him go at all, so Cross floated the orb right into Starry's face, separating the two.

"No! I refuse to let you go until you've explained yourself!" Starry shouted at him. "And what is this thing? Get this out of my fa-" Starry had focused her magic on the orb, intent on moving it, but had activated it by mistake.

Her expression suddenly went blank as she was sucked into the memory. Her body went limp, and she fell down on top of Cross. Starry was going to be out for a while.

Cross looked nervously up, Starry was laying on top of him, but he was just as scared of her faking. All he could do was stare up at the ceiling and blush brighter than his cloak

"Um....Starry?" He really hoped the memory orb proved he did good, he hurt alot of ponies to save them, all he needed now was absolution, it would take awhile, but hopefully he could get each of them to forgive him....

Starry was taking awhile, she must've been in the orb...but Cross was still too afraid to move....

"Hn, finally." Kes thought to himself, watching as Starry slumped over like a brahamin in the heat. He was wondering when the little dispute was going to end. Now that it had the big gryphon had some peace and quiet in which to think.

He was trying to guess who had taken him, where he was, and why he had been chosen in the first place. The slavers of Filly gave Kes a wide berth, always had after his escape; so it was not Red Eye. Had to be somepony else, but who?

There was an audible smacking sound as Zestari facehoofed after seeing Starry go limp from the memory orb. "Wonderful. How long is she going to be in that memory for?" She shook her head, "You know what? It doesn't matter," she pointed at Cross, "You're carrying her until she wakes up." She rubbed the side of head as a headache flared across it, it was making her grumpy.

"And if you so much as think of ditching her somewhere, I will encourage this rather large griffon here to see if we can pry off your slave collar. Consequences be damned."

She turned towards the griffon hoping to get some form of approval from him before turning and rummaging in her saddlebags. If she didn't find something for this headache, there was probably an equal chance she'd go crazy around the other ponies in here.

After announcing himself Scrap looked at what was going on in the room around him, all the others seemed to have composed themselves. Scrap noticed Cross levitating a memory orb towards Starry and her subsequent collapse on him.

Scrap was gonna go intervene but Zestari beat him to it. Scrap decided to make himself useful, if only to keep the himself from having another breakdown.

"Guys, we should probably start looking for a way out of this room."

Everpony was staring at him, so he wriggled free of Starry but there was still the problem of transporting her, holding a telekinesis spell that long would be horribly tiring. Worst off all, they were forcing Cross to carry her for their amusement....Cross took up a bitter expression but at least he could be useful here yet....

Cross took all of Starry's gear and stashed it in his pack, but he had no idea on what to do with the mare, he couldn't have her slipping and getting hurt.

So Cross did the only thing he could do, he pulled out his rope, strapped Starry to his back and tied the tightest knot he could find, maybe too tight. At least if she slipped Cross could HOPEFULLY balance himself before they both collapsed.

Now that Cross thought about it, he didn't really remember how much of his memory he put into that orb....He made it right before the battle so it couldn't be too bad, but what, he couldn't remember for the life of him, memories did he put in that orb? He gritted his teeth, too many things had happen recently?

Cross staggered in a zig zag line, trying to reach the doorway. It would have been pretty humerous to watch the unicorn carry the blue mare on his back had it not been for the laugh-and-die stare he tossed out.

And the jets of fire from his mask did nothing to ease the tension in the tiny room....

"Whoooaaaa.......oops..." Cross fell over and now Starry was drifting off his side. His horn flared, wrapping her up in a magenta glow, trying to fix the setting but the suggestive rolling was a bit too much and Cross was blushing, but anypony looking would've presumed that was from the hood, let alone him feeling embarrassed.

As Cross struggled to keep the unconscious Starry balanced, and everyone else watched, they could all hear faint voices coming from the direction of the door, growing stronger.

“Sir, I still think it would have been better if we just asked someponies to help instead of abducting them.” said a young, male sounding voice.

“Couldn’t risk it. Your average pony can’t be trusted, and I’ve spent too long looking for this to let somepony ruin everything.” replied the second, another male, but one who sounded much older.

“But sir, aren’t the collars a tad....Excessive?”

“Insurance. Now be quiet Malachite, its time we greeted our guests.”

There was a beep and the door slid open, revealing a young, dark green unicorn buck wearing a labcoat standing in the doorway. Behind him the group can see a much older, grey unicorn buck wearing a thick robe over his body.

The green one, ‘Malachite’, had his mouth opened as if he was going to speak, but then he saw Cross standing right in front of the door, Starry on his back. His face then froze, before assuming an expression that can best be described as, ‘What the fuck?’

The older unicorn however kept his composure, and simply said “If you and your fillyfriend expect to keep your heads on your shoulders, you should back up.” His voice was gruff and weathered by age, and his face left no room for quarter.