Truly Evil?

Ician glanced towards the door suspiciously. On the one hoof, he would really like to eavesdrop on them, if only to make sure they weren't keeping any sensitive secrets. On the other hoof, he needed their trust right now, and he wasn't the best at sneaking anyway. He resigned himself to staying in the room where Dusk was, but that didn't stop him from keeping his sword close by and staring at the door suspiciously.

Diamond smiled at June. she has a very basic grasp of vespid, her grammar is lacking. He clicked his tongue and switched to vespid, though it seemed to flow smoother and seemed softer than June's. "I rarely speak vespid, though I had to learn phrasing very quickly during the Canterlot wedding incident. I learned my first bit of real vespid from my father, who in turn learned from queen Nyxia. The rest of my education was done by queen-in-waiting Ambrosia. I wanted to talk about you though. You see, when I was on the mental plane, I took a glance at you. There are three types of 'auras' in the mental plane; Sentient, which is blue, Non-sentiant, which is orange, and Hive-mind or Changeling, which is green. I saw green in your blue aura. It concerns me deeply."

June was quiet for a moment.  Her Vespid education was quite lacking.  She'd never found a unique use for it, other than talking to Darryl.  And Darryl's vocabulary was... limited.  But she'd understood enough of Diamond's question to know what was happening.  She sat down, taking off her sunglasses.  The silver in her eyes showed Diamond a small reflection of himself, and she spoke in Equestrian.  "You're going to need a bit of a background.  It gets kind of complicated.  You already know my eyes are silver, you saw them during the love potion.  The reason I have them is because I am not a normal pony.  My species is called the figments."  She paused for a second, choosing her next words carefully.  "Figments are... well, the most accurate word is imaginary.  We have some physical presence, quite a lot in fact, but it's all powered by the idea of us, in the minds of others."  A weak smile.  "Kind of like how changelings get power from love, but with thoughts and more magic.

"The 'hive mind' you saw in my aura was my mental connection to you, Dusk, Ician, and every living pony who has ever known me.  It's how we..."  June didn't want to say feed, that just made her sound like a parasite.  She searched for a bit, and found an acceptable word.  "It's how figments get their magic."  She looked Diamond in the eyes.  "Any more questions?"

Diamond felt a strange emotion from her 'hive mind' statement. It felt very similar to one of his own, yet it was different in some way. A strange, Cheshire cat-like smile came over his form, revealing that many of his teeth were actually fangs. Then he began to laugh, a deep, disturbing, seemingly alien-sounding laugh that was littered with fragments of vespid. He switched back to speaking Equestrian. "No more questions. It seems you've felt the same pain as I have, with us being abominations in the eyes of the uninformed public. You did more than answer my questions. You confirmed that you're not like them." He gestured to Ican and Dusk "I can trust you, more than I can trust either of those two."

June blinked, and then smiled.  Diamond had jumped to a few conclusions; figments weren't really thought of as... abominations, but that could well be because nopony knew about them.  Well, not until they'd met one.  Though, he was right about June being more like him than Ician and Dusk, she'd always felt a bit of kinship with changelings.  As for trust... sure. She was pretty trustworthy. Regardless, she decided not to correct Diamond, and kept smiling. "Thanks. That... means a lot, actually. Now, I still have a couple questions. What was that other language you spoke? I didn't recognize it. And why were you looking at my mind in the first place?"

"That other language was Chaostounge, the-language-before-languages as it's called. Spoken by witch-ponies to preserve their history and culture. It can even be laced with magic to do many things, like open doors, make yourself unseen, or kill others. Sadly I only know the magic that opens special doors sealed with chaostounge. As to why I was looking at your mind, I actually wasn't, it was just something I saw when I stepped over to the mental plane." Diamond took a minute to catch his breath and then turned towards June, his malicious smile replaced by a genuine one. "Any other questions? Or should we be going?"

June returned the smile, and put her sunglasses back on. "I think we've taken up enough time. Let's gather up the group and we'll keep moving." Chaostongue. She might learn that one eventually, it could be an effective way to channel magic without a horn. She headed back into the room with the tubes, and called out to Dusk and Ician. "Sorry about that. Now, shall we keep exploring?"

"Indeed. We still have a lot of ground to cover," Dusk said, standing up and walking to the door. Though he certainly was curious as to what they talked about it was just between Diamond and June. There was no need for him to know.

Diamond exited the small room and back into the lab. He looked around at the other ponies. "When we get to Sin Ester, I'm going to execute him on the spot, no questions asked. For all intents and purposes, I am a unicorn today." He drew his blue silk overcoat from his personal pocket dimension and put it on. He created a circle of blades around himself. He turned towards Ican and saw the pony's cutie mark. Great, a manipulator. Probably a torturer too. "Make sure to control yourself, Silvertounge. I don't need to soil my reputation by killing guards."

Ician sighed. Remembering his shield, he resummoned the sphere of surgical instruments and stood back up. He fixed Diamond with a deadpan stare and began, "I'm afraid you can't do that. You will not be killing Sin Ester. As per the established law, set down by the Royal Court and ratified by the Princesses, all suspects are to be assumed innocent until proven otherwise, and allowed to have the benefit of a fair, unbiased trial to determine their complicity in any crimes they are suspected to have committed. No matter your supposed status, you are not given the authority to behave as a vigilante would and take justice into your own hooves."

He inclined his head towards Diamond. "If you do try, I'm afraid I will have to stop you in any way possible. And I can assure you that there will be no soiling of my reputation for following the law."

"He's right, we're taking him in alive. You're going to have to live with that," Dusk added. He didn't want to include that if he tried to kill them when they finally found him, they could kill him in self-defense. But he figured that was common knowledge with the group.

"Fine, I guess the bastard gets a fair trial. I'll ignore the blatant hypocrisy for now, Silvertounge." He turned towards Dusk. "I guess I'll have to live with it. I'm more willing to listen to you than I am to listen to Silvertounge anyhow. Just remember that even the harshest and smartest of juries have let murderers walk." Diamond sighed. With these sticklers, getting anything done was probably going to require paperwork. He was one to solve problems, rather than let others or the courts.

And it was at this wonderful time, the door leading into the lab went to shut once again, only to be caught on the crystal pillars. The door continued to try and shut, repeatedly banging lightly against the crystal pillars as it tried to close, but the force wasn't great and as such it didn't seem to be doing all that much at the moment.

As for inside the lab, nothing other than the group stirred or moved. Even the puddles of green liquid from Diamond and the nameless being's tubes were still, having finished pooling out as far as they could in the fairly even floored room since there was no more of the liquid dripping down from Diamond's destroyed one and the other that was once again sealed tight.

"It's alright, I don't quite like you either." Ician said amiably to Diamond. "When we get out of here I'd prefer it if I didn't have to see you again. Might be best for both our healths, hmm?" Either way, the court will get the verdict that's needed.

"Thank you for backing me up, Dusk." He patted Dusk's back in a companion-like way. "I guess we just have to make sure that laws are kept around here, eh?" He chuckled, then turned back to Diamond. "Anyway, if it's worth anything, I'm sorry for my earlier outburst. It was clearly uncalled for, and I wasn't thinking straight." He bowed. "Now, let's just put aside our differences, at least till this mission is over, alright? We won't solve anything by being divisive." Gesturing to June, he continued, "Perhaps you ought to keep one of your immobilising potions ready. We're going for the capture, not the kill, so we need to make sure, as far as possible, that we don't accidentally kill him."

Quietly and discreetly, his snake slithered out from the corner and up his leg, settling with apparent lethargy on his back and laying its head down.

"Apology accepted" Diamond said as he finished buttoning his overcoat. "You know, I think I'm actually happy to see the Royal Guard being usef-" Then the door started slamming against the pillars, which were still connected to Diamond's magic, and thanks to Diamond's hypersensitivity, it left a loud ringing in his ears. "CELESTIA DAMMIT!" He screamed as the pillars turned from blue to red and shattered, the fragments then swirled around Diamond and went to reinforcing his blades. His voice returned to its normal tone. "I'm terribly sorry for that." He cast an emotional control spell on himself.

"Shall we be going?"

Free from the obstruction, the doors finally managed to shut after their light banging. The door managed to close, the click of the lock signalling that it fully shut. Then the handle turned by itself, and the door swung open on it's own. A figure started to walk into the room, took one look around, hurriedly turned back, and ran back out while trying to shut the door behind it.

"OH LIKE HELL YOU DO!" Diamond shouted as the figure went to run away. He charged forwards with the blades spinning around him, then fired the fifteen blades in the figure's path. Just in case, the moment he fired the blades, he gripped the door with telekinesis, thanks to the lack of blades, and yanked it towards him.

"Wait!" June reacted quickly, dashing towards the figure as soon as they started to leave. However, she quickly pulled back once Diamond started flinging swords. He was certainly quick to resort to knives. "Again! With the blades! Just don't kill them, they might have answers."

Dusk started chasing the figure. He hoped Diamond missed whoever it was, considering it was better to take him alive. He still had his sword ready, just in case something was waiting for them, or if Diamond decided to kill whoever it was in cold blood.

Ician flinched backwards in surprise when the figure came into the room. He was about to move forward and try to identify it when it quickly ran back out. He frowned deeply when Diamond then decided the best course of action was to try and kill it. "We need to keep our emotions under control. It's imperative that none of us actually end up doing something we'd regret later."

With that, Ician stared after the figure, trying to use his telekinesis to grab at its closest appendage once he drew near enough. Preferably a tail, if it had one; that tended to be one of the easier parts to grab hold of with magic.

The door had  only made it about halfway shut when the blades passed through the threshold, and then when Diamond ripped open the door, it had no resistance at all and let sunlight flood into the room. Ician's attempt at grabbing the figure's tail also wouldn't be hard to do, though the figure didn't seem to be moving all that much at the moment past some very panicked breaths.

It was a pony, an earth pony at that, with a light brown coat and a dark green mane and tail. The pony's cutie mark was obscured by the dark grey jump suit he was wearing, the uniform of a trashpony and past him was the front yard of the manor, and notably a trash cart. The pony himself was now finally getting enough coherence to start screaming for good measure as several of the swords were cutting or impaling him.

He wasn't dead, not yet at least, but with two swords in his left forehoof, one in his right, three more in his right hind hoof with one of them just cutting it slightly, and another stabbing into his left hind hoof, two more of the blades were piercing his body, another one was cutting a section of his tail off, a couple were framing his head one of which had apparently cut his cheek pretty badly and the other tore off the tip of his left ear, with the remaining four piercing the dirt around him, the trashpony was bleeding pretty badly. There were some attempts to struggle, but they were for naught as the blades pretty solidly pinned him to the ground. ".Ah, I... I th-think...I...ne-need a new j-j-job..." he stammered out through pained breaths.

Ician rushed forward, no longer trying to pin him down. "For goodness sakes! June, I need your help here, right now!" He set about removing the swords from the pony, using his telekinesis to apply pressure on the wounds to keep the blood loss down. He trusted Diamond wouldn't try to stop him and, if he did, he would have something coming.

"Can you help?" He asked Diamond, gesturing to the earth pony. "We can't let him die. We don't even know what he's done, nevermind that we're not supposed to kill anypony. He's probably innocent." He did, however, make sure that while his magic was trying to hold the wounds shut they were also keeping the pony down. Just in case.

Diamond stood there, transfixed. The blades dissipated. His concentration, his poise, and his confidence, gone, all of it. All that was left was a scared halfling in the body of an overly tall unicorn. He just put somepony's life in mortal danger over a slight bit of paranoia and anger. A tear began to roll down his face. "I...I c-c...can...h.." His horn glowed a strange green rather than its natural blue. The magic extended to the injured pony, and Diamond hoped that the magic would heal the pony. He began to mutter incoherently, like a crying child.

"Augh, blast it all Diamond. It's a civilian. He must've wandered in on accident. This is one reason why we don't try to kill those we're after," Dusk said. He at least was glad Diamond was trying to do something about it, and hopefully learned his lesson. But his trust in him was pushing his limits right now.

June rushed over to the injured pony, muttering under her breath in a foreign tongue. She pulled out a small blue knife, and began cutting away the pony's uniform so she could inspect the damage properly. The knife cut the cloth with little to no resistance, but left the fur and skin underneath untouched.