The Shores of Tartarus

Chapters

1. Emergency Camp
2. Hockton
3. Hydroponic Farms
4. Holding Cell
5. Gamma Labs

1. Emergency Camp

Trixie’s mind slowly drifted back to consciousness and the groggy mare’s senses came up, one by one. She felt something firm and coarse under her fur. Voices reached her ears, muffled and distant at first, but rapidly getting clearer. There was an unpleasant taste on her tongue that she couldn’t seem to get rid of and her nose picked up a mix of sweat and antiseptics. Her eyelids fluttered open and after a few seconds the light wasn’t blinding her anymore, letting Trixie see that she was lying on her side on a standard issue cot, made of green canvas and a metallic frame.

Ahead of her, a couple of others similar beds were set up, all of them empty. She scanned the area with her eyes, making out a few metal poles holding up a large piece of canvas over her. After a few seconds, her mind finally registered that she was under some kind of big tent, but that fact raised more questions than it answered.

Trixie tried to move, but her body felt heavy and unresponsive... and sore. Trying to ignore the pain, she tried to roll on her back. She gritted her teeth as her muscles protested against the treatment by sending flares of pain all along her body, but finally succeeded and shifted her torso on the bed. She groaned loudly as soon as her left shoulder had some weight touched the bed. Trixie shifted herself a bit to find a more comfortable position. A glance at the aching shoulder let her see many bandages wrapped around it.

“... awake?” she heard some voice say nearby. There were the sound of many hooves, getting closer. Once her ears managed to locate the direction they were coming from, Trixie turned her head to see the newcomers.

Her eyes widened as she saw a white angelic figure approaching. A tall, perfectly white mare with a long, thin horn and pristine wings came to a stop in front of her… Princess Celestia was standing right in front of her…

“Am I… Am I dead?” she asked once her mouth stopped simply hanging wide open.

Celestia blinked a few times, then answered her with a warm, soothing voice. “No, you are not.”

“Really?” Trixie answered flatly. “Huh...”

Not dead then... That would explain the pain, obviously. Being dead was supposed to come with peace and relief, after all. Trixie tried to remember what had happened before she fell unconscious... and immediately regretted it.

Images of demonic creatures flooded her mind. Monsters that seemed to be nothing but barbs and teeth, clawing out of a blazing pit to reach her. She remembered the fire, coming out of the ground, coming out of the monsters’ mouths, coming for her, burning her hair. She remembered the blood. Everywhere there was blood, flesh, bones and there was her in the middle of it, fighting the demons.

Fighting... and losing. There were so many... She remembered the demons closing in on her, she remembered her legs being unable to carry her anymore. She remembered falling to the ground, her magic failing, her muscles failing… her will failing. Why wasn’t she dead?

“Trixie!” Somepony shouted in her ear, making her wince.

She turned to face the voice. A familiar unicorn was staring at her with a worried look. A twitch on the purple mare’s sides caught Trixie’s eyes and she spotted a pair of wings folded against her. An alicorn...

“Twilight Sparkle?” Trixie asked, her voice sounding warbled.

“Yes, Trixie. It’s me. Are you alright?”

Was Trixie alright? She was confused, in mild pain and had horrible memories slowly resurfacing. Definitely not alright...

“Can you hear me?” Twilight asked.

Trixie nodded, stiffly and slowly.

“How are you feeling, Trixie?”

She tried to find an answer, but after a moment of fruitless thinking, she decided to simply ignore the question and ask one of her own: “Where am I?”

Twilight exchanged glances with a few other ponies that Trixie barely noticed before answering. “This is an emergency camp near Hockton. We found you in what was left of the town hall.”

The town hall? That’s right, she was there, fighting the demons. Right when she tried to close...

“The gate!” Trixie blurted out. She sat up so fast that she almost headbutted Twilight in the process. “What happened? Is it closed?”

“What gate?” Twilight asked back, recoiling a little to get some space. “What are you talking about?”

“Wha– You don’t... Is it still open?” Trixie looked around in panic. “Oh no. Oh no, we have to close it!”

Twilight Sparkle pushed Trixie back on her bed. “Calm down, Trixie. What gate are you talking about? Where is it?”

“Tartarus... The gate of Tartarus. In the town hall.”

The two princesses looked at each other with furrowed brows.

“Is that what happened?” princess Celestia asked. “Did creatures from Tartarus attack the town?”

Trixie nodded nervously, looking left and right to spot any sign of the demons. The fact that she couldn’t see any only made her more nervous…

“Some sort of... nightmarish magic came from the town hall,” Twilight said, taking her hooves off of Trixie. “We used the elements of harmony on it and it all stopped right afterwards. The elements must have closed that gate.”

“Are you sure?”

Twilight simply nodded and Trixie took a moment to process the information. She relaxed a little, but unfortunately, her rest was very short-lived, as a multi colored pony flew right in front of her face.

“Did you open that gate?” she asked menacingly.

“Rainbow! Easy there, girl,” a voice came from behind the pegasus.

“Come on!” Rainbow said, not taking her eyes off of Trixie. “She knows too much about this mess to have nothing to do with this. So tell us, great and powerful Trixie.” She pointed a hoof right in Trixie’s face. “Were you the one who caused all this?”

Trixie hadn’t opened it. It wasn’t Trixie’s fault.

She hadn’t opened it.

“I need to thank you Trixie, you’ve been a great help.” The demonic voice taunted her, laughing as she started to weep.

She hadn’t opened it... It wasn’t Trixie’s fault.

Rainbow Dash kept glaring at her.

It wasn’t Trixie’s fault.

Trixie closed her eyes to get away from Rainbow’s inquisitive stare. This only brought up another mare. A mare watching her with widening eyes. A face going through so many emotions in only a few seconds… Surprise, confusion, sadness, fear…

It wasn’t Trixie’s fault.

“Hey! Are you even listening?” Rainbow said as she shook Trixie with a hoof.

A country accented voice chided the pegasus from behind. “Slow down a minute, R.D.!” Rainbow was pulled back by an orange mare that Trixie recognized as Applejack. Next to her stood Rarity… Most of Twilight’s friend were here, only Pinkie and Fluttershy missing.

“Oh come on, A.J.! She had something to do with this mess. You guys can see that, right?”

“And what makes you say that?” Twilight asked.

“It’s Trixie!” Rainbow answered, pointing at her with both of her forehooves.

The four mares started discussing amongst themselves. Applejack couldn’t make her mind, Rarity seemed to agree with Rainbow Dash, Ironically, Twilight Sparkle was the one who defended Trixie the most. Princess Celestia simply observed them, waiting with her usual stoic expression.

“Spill it, Trixie!” Rainbow was hovering in front of her again. “What did you do? Did you go nuts again?”

Typical. You get your hooves on an ancient and dangerous artifact that corrupts your mind, enact your revenge and become the tyrannical overlord of a whole town once and nopony lets you live it down, ever. Trixie felt rage building up inside her. Why was that stupid rainbow pegasus even asking if she had already decided that Trixie was guilty.

It wasn’t Trixie’s fault!

She should just shut up that noisy mare, shove her hoof right down–

Trixie saw herself back in a large, dark room. A room littered with corpses, beaten, mangled, torn apart... There was blood everywhere. On the floor. On the walls. On every crate, table, on every object randomly lying on the floor. On her hooves. On her face. In her mouth. She could taste it.

The rage was gone, replaced by revulsion. Trixie shivered, holding her shaking hooves in front of her eyes. They were mostly clean now, but dark stains could still be seen in her fur.

“And what’s with your horn?” Rainbow asked, cutting Trixie’s train of thought and making her eyes widen in shock.

“Rainbow Dash!” Rarity said indignantly.

Rainbow Dash turned around to face her unicorn friend. “What? It’s all... weird,” she said, motioning towards Trixie’s face.

She was grabbed in blue magic and pulled away. With the pegasus away from her face, Trixie could see Rarity scolding her. “Rainbow Dash! There are some things that simply shan’t be said and disparaging remarks concerning one’s horn are definitely one of those.”

Trixie had raised a hoof to her forehead without even realizing it. When it met her horn, she felt it. The thing was still there. She hadn’t even had time to think about how to get rid of it... She never wanted it in the first place. That too wasn’t Trixie’s fault.

“But...” Rainbow tried to protest.

“No buts! No matter the circumstances, there is no excuse for such rudeness.”

“That’s enough, my little ponies.” Celestia silenced everyone with her maternal, gentle but stern voice. “Trixie, in all the time that I have been watching over Equestria, I have met only a few of the creatures that inhabit Tartarus. I know how dangerous they are and I understand why you are scared.”

Trixie nodded weakly. The princess’ words and her gentle voice brought a modicum of peace to the broken mare.

“I have never seen an attack of this scale, though. All of the town’s survivors are here.” The princess motioned to the side with a hoof. Following it, Trixie looked at the rest of the tent.

There was one young-looking pink earth pony mare, sitting up on her cot. Her head was turning around, twitching left and right constantly. Her bright red mane was now a tangled mess around her face after so much shaking. Her lips were working non stop, though Trixie was too far too hear the words.

Not far from her, a white pegasus stallion was sitting on another bed. His head was hanging down, hiding most of his face under a gray and black mane. Except for his chest slowly rising and falling, he was completely still.

They were the only ponies. The last survivor was a human. A dark-skinned man, lying down on his cot and the only one she actually knew, if barely. In truth, she knew little beyond his name: Bill. He was asleep and might have looked peaceful, if his hands weren’t clutched tightly around a shotgun.

Celestia’s voice made Trixie focus back on her. “It is important that we know what happened, so that we can prevent it from ever happening again.” The regal mare placed a hoof gently on Trixie’s good shoulder. “Please, Trixie. Can you tell us what you know?”

Trixie shuddered and sobbed. “It wasn’t Trixie’s fault...”

“What wasn’t your fault? What happened?”

Trixie shook her head. “I– I don’t want to think... I don’t want to think about what happened.”

“Please.”

“No!” she shouted, holding her head in her hooves. “No, I don’t want to remember. It wasn’t Trixie’s fault... It wasn’t Trixie’s fault...”

She kept muttering her mantra, ignoring the other ponies present. She had to believe it. It wasn’t her fault, she never had a choice.

Closing her eyes only brought the image back. The dying mare looked up at her, her mouth working silently a single word… “Why?”

Trixie cried.

“I understand,” princess Celestia said. Some other pony tried to protest but was quickly silenced. Trixie didn’t care. It wasn’t her fault.

She just kept crying.

“Rest now, Trixie,” the princess continued. “Get better. We will speak about this later.”

There was nothing to speak about.

“Why?”

It wasn’t her fault.

“Why?”

She had no other choice.

The mare kept watching her, staring with eyes that slowly lost their focus.

She had no choice…

Unfortunately, no matter how much Trixie kept telling herself that, she couldn’t make it true. No matter how much she wanted to believe it, she couldn’t help but think of the other choice.

Trixie slumped, all the energy taken out of her. She did only one thing: cry.

It was her fault.

Trixie didn’t know how much time had passed. Her tears had run out, but she didn’t feel any better.

A doctor had come to check up on her at some point. Trixie let him examine her, barely reacting and answering his questions with small nods and shakes of her head. Everything seemed surreal to her, simply because it was normal. She expected demons to show up at any moment, crawling from under the cots, jumping from the ceiling or appearing right before her eyes... And yet, nothing.

Everything was quiet and the calm was making her more and more nervous. Every time the demons had given her time to breathe, it was only to strike harder afterwards.

Trixie looked around quickly, her eyes settling on the sleeping human for a moment. How they had managed to survive was a wonder...

Next to her bed, Trixie spotted a green armor, dismantled and piled up on the ground, with her bags next to it. She tried using her magic to open them, but she only succeeded in giving herself a headache and making the flap twitch slightly. She groaned and rubbed her temple with a hoof, which did very little to soothe the pain. Trixie scooted closer to the bags and fished inside of them with a hoof.

“Trixie?”

She looked over her shoulder and saw Twilight Sparkle observing her. The alicorn’s violet eyes betrayed her worry, but Trixie ignored it and resumed her searching.

“What are you looking for?” Twilight asked while walking around the cot to stand near the bags. She picked them up in her telekinesis and floated them over to Trixie’s bed so that she wouldn’t have to stretch herself to reach them.

“Thanks,” Trixie muttered. At last, a little smile appeared on her face as she pulled her gun out. She held it close to her chest, the cold touch and heavy weight of the weapon calming her nerves a bit.

“What’s this?” Twilight examined the gun, then Trixie.

“A pistol.” Seeing Twilight Sparkle’s puzzled face, Trixie continued: “it’s a weapon.”

“Really?” She leaned closer, her face almost touching it. “It looks harmless. How does it work?”

“Really well,” Trixie muttered.

Twilight gazed at her curiously for a while. “That’s not what I meant... Is it magical? Are you just supposed to hit something with it? Like a hammer?”

“It’s a kind of cannon.”

“A cannon? That little thing?”

Twilight Sparkle subsequently went into a mostly one-sided discussion about the power of firearms. Equestrian technology had created guns that had to be almost the size of a pony to be considered useful as a weapon. She formulated different theories on the workings of the small, alien weapon.

Trixie didn’t know how the humans had made their guns or how they functioned. She only knew how to use a couple of them and that they were lethal. Her pistol was the weakest one but she still trusted it more than any pony-made cannon. She didn’t mention it to Twilight, but some of the other weapons she had seen were absurdly powerful. Trixie had witnessed that first-hoof, both on humans and demons: bodies were riddled with holes, torn, shredded into unrecognizable heaps of flesh. Some were even vaporized... Messy, but efficient and reliable killing machines.

Just like Trixie.

She went silent as random scenes replayed in her mind, demons upon demons being slaughtered by her...

“Trixie? Are you still with me?”

“Huh? No, sorry,” she muttered.

Twilight Sparkle let out a weary sigh. “Listen, Trixie,” she started softly, “I know how horrible things must have been...”

“I doubt that,” Trixie answered flatly, not out of spite, but simply as a fact.

Twilight ignored her and kept talking. “I’m just trying to help. Tell me what I can do and I’ll do it.”

“Could we talk about something else, then?”

Twilight Sparkle considered this for a while and thankfully agreed. Even if it was just for a short time, it was nice for Trixie to take her mind elsewhere. Twilight told her a few tales of what had been happening to her and her friends recently. Trixie even chuckled a little when Twilight explained how they had organized a grand tour of the Crystal Castle for a random tourist instead of the Equestria Games inspector.

With her mind distracted, Trixie managed to relax slightly as time passed. A nurse brought her some food, Twilight sometimes left to take care of something around the camp or discuss something with her friends, but always came back by Trixie’s side, talking with her or simply reading one of her books.

Day turned into night and a simple lantern was struggling to illuminate the two ponies in the darkness. Trixie grew nervous again: anything could have creeped up to her in the darkness and she became more and more careful, scanning the tent with watchful eyes, focusing all of her attention on tracking the monsters. Every shadow needed to be examined carefully. Any movement could betray the demons’ movements and give her the early warning she would need to survive.

The light went out.

Trixie yelped and immediately jumped to her hooves, ignoring the pain it raised in her body. She also concentrated and levitated her pistol in front of her. Trixie’s head felt like it was trying to explode from the exertion, but she forced her magic to work despite the pain.

She scanned the shadows quickly and kept her ears up, waiting for the smallest sign of the demons that were going to appear.

“Trixie? What’s wrong, what are you doing?”

Trixie shushed Twilight. The demons were going to take advantage of the darkness to surprise her. They always did. Trixie waited, breathing through clenched teeth, her body coiled up like a spring and ready to jump into action, ready to fight for her life.

Nothing happened.

“What are they waiting for?” she whispered to herself. “Come out already...”

“Trixie, calm down!” Twilight commanded her. “You need to rest...”

“Rest?” Trixie looked at the newest princess with a dumbfounded expression. “Rest? They’re coming! First they get the lights, then they use the shadows to creep up. They always do...”

Twilight’s stern face turn into one of surprise, then quickly to a sad one. “Trixie, nothing is going to attack you here.” She let out a sigh. “I turned the light off.” The lantern was lit back up by a flick of purple magic.

It took Trixie almost a minute to process Twilight’s explanation. She let her pistol drop on the bed, soon followed by herself as she let her exhaustion take over.

“You should try to sleep. You look like you really need it.”

Trixie took a quick look at herself. Her pale blue coat was covered in bandages. She couldn’t see her injuries, but she could certainly feel them. Even where she wasn’t hurt, her muscles were stiff and sore. Trixie couldn’t see her face -and didn’t really wanted to- but she was certain that she was a complete mess to look at, too. She had been cleaned, obviously, since she was no longer covered in blood and gore, but only the strict minimum.

Trixie needed rest, a bath including at least two shampoos, a massage (once her wounds would be closed) and a few strong drinks. What she could get was another matter, though. There were probably neither a spa nor a bar in the camp... At least she had a bed that was almost comfortable. Trixie lied down and tried to find a position in which she could relax. A blanket floated over her, led by Twilight’s magic.

She stared at the alicorn a while. “Why?” she finally asked.

“Hmm?” Twilight watched her with her usual, curious eyes.

“Every time we’ve met, I’ve been mean to you and your friends. Why are you so nice to me?”

“Well... One thing I’ve learned from Fluttershy is that kindness can bring out the best in anypony. Or anydraconequus... Besides, the last time we talked, you asked me to forgive you and I did.”

“You really did...”

“Of course. I would much rather be your friend than your enemy, Trixie.”

Trixie stared at Twilight for a good while, trying to detect any hints of dishonesty in the purple pony. She simply looked like the awkward bookworm that she had always been, with a naive smile on her lips.

Trixie stayed silent and simply lied back, waiting for sleep to take over. Eventually, her exhaustion won and she drifted into unconsciousness.

Trixie was awoken by somepony shaking her lightly. She opened her eyes and saw Twilight again.

“Are you awake? Good. We might need your help.”

Trixie sat up and shook the tiredness out of her head. “What’s going on?” she asked, her voice sounding harsh and her throat scratching her. She managed to ask for water between coughs and quickly, a canteen floated near her, wrapped in a purple glow.

Trixie reached out with her own magic in reflex and was relieved when no headache accompanied the pink haze around the canteen. After her throat had been soothed with some water, she looked back at Twilight, waiting for her explanation.

“Do you know anything about these humans?” she asked, while pointing with her hoof in one corner of the tent. Trixie followed it and saw Bill, fidgeting on his cot while Applejack was trying to get him to calm down.

“He’s been really agitated since this morning,” Twilight continued. “We found him near you in the town hall, so I assumed you would know him…”

Trixie nodded and jumped down on her hooves. She silently walked towards the confused human. Once she was close enough, she noticed that he was rocking back and forth and cradling his shotgun between his arms, holding it close to his chest like a security blanket.

“Bill?” The man stopped moving for a second and turned his head in Trixie’s direction. He studied her for a while before looking away and mumbling under his breath.

“Come on big guy, don’t you fret now.” Applejack was by his side, trying to reassure him. “You’re safe, ain’t nothin’ gonna come after you in here.”

“Safe?” he repeated numbly. He then started to chuckle. “Safe… Nowhere! Nowhere is safe.”

“Bill,” Trixie called him again. “It’s over.”

“No,” he answered while turning to face her. “It will never be over. They‘re still there.” He shook his head. “Don’t you understand? They’re still there! Every time I close my eyes, I can see ‘em. I can hear ‘em. You can’t stop ‘em. No one can...” His voice was shaky as he gripped on his shotgun even harder. “They’ll be back, Trixie. They’ll be back soon, I know it.”

He reached in his vest with a hand, rummaging around for a bit.

“What’s this?” Twilight asked as he fished out a small red cylindrical object.

Trixie’s eyes widened as she recognized a shotgun shell. “Where did… I thought you didn’t have any left.”

The man was turning it around in his fingers, as if he was fascinated by the shiny red tube. “Always keep a spare. Always…” He inserted it in the shotgun’s underside.

Twilight and Applejack both winced at the metallic clacking noises the gun made when he pumped it.

Trixie carefully took a step forward and put a hoof on his knee, trying to be reassuring. “What are you doing?”

“They’ll come back,” he said. “They’ll be back, Trixie. Nothin’ we can do…” Bill gave her the most defeated look she had ever seen. Not even tears in his eyes, just an empty looking gaze. “They’ll come back… but they won’t get me. I won’t let ‘em.”

“What are y– NO!” Trixie shouted when she saw him place the end of the barrel at the base of his jaw.

Before anypony had time to do anything, her ears were ringing from the detonation. The screams of the two other mares sounded muffled in her ears as they all witnessed a large chunk of the human’s head fly away and paint the tent’s canvas in red.

Trixie watched as his body toppled and fell on the floor, blood pouring out of the remains of his skull. She didn’t even flinch. She simply stared, helpless, while the two other ponies stepped back in panic. After a minute or two, Trixie turned around and went back to her cot.

She lied down on her side, facing away from the scene and stayed there, unmoving.

“Trixie?”

She opened her eyes. Twilight Sparkle and her five friends were standing in a semi-circle in front of her.

“Trixie,” Twilight started. “We need you to explain to us what happened in Hockton.”

Trixie simply let her head fall back on her pillow.

“Hey!” Rainbow Dash called her with her grating voice. “Don’t ignore us. We know that you know something, so spit it out already.”

Trixie grunted in reply.

“Um... Trixie?” Fluttershy’s voice was so soft that she had to strain her ears to hear it. “It’s really important. I know that you don’t want to... But could you please help us?”

“Whatever has transpired here, we must do our best to help these poor ponies,” Rarity motioned at the two survivors left. “We cannot simply wait until they...” She let her sentence hang in the air.

“Kill themselves?” Trixie finished for her. The six mares cringed.

“Please, Trixie,” Twilight Sparkle said. “We need to learn exactly what has happened.”

“I don’t want to talk about it. And you don’t want to know.”

“Maybe we don’t,” she answered. “But we still need to. We will do everything we can to save those ponies.” Twilight pointed at the two survivors. “We’ve already been unable to save that human. We’re not sure the other one will survive either and–”

Trixie sat up at her words. “Wait! The other human?”

“Yes. The other–”

“She’s still alive?”

“For now... The doctors are doing their best to keep it that way.”

“Incredible…” Trixie smirked. “That crazy girl made it…”

Twilight Sparkle nodded. “She did, but if she ever wakes up, we have to make sure that we can… help her. We need to understand everything.”

Trixie sighed, her shoulders slumping a little. “Fine, fine… I’m not sure what good it’ll do but… I’ll tell you.”

Author's Note

I've had that weird idea for a story a while back and wrote a draft for a couple of chapters. They've been collecting virtual dust in my google drive for a long time...

So I thought I'd publish it and see what happens. If there's some interest for this crazy stuff, I'll write the rest. If not, to the trashcan it goes ! Let me know what you think.

2. Hockton

Trixie followed Twilight Sparkle out the tent where she had been resting, since if she was going to spend hours telling her the whole story, she wanted to do it in a more private place. As soon as she stepped outside, she was struck by the impressive size of the camp, rows of tents filling a wide meadow.

Twilight watched her with a curious expression. “Is something the matter, Trixie?”

“Huh? No… It’s just that this camp is so big… You said there were barely any survivors.”

Twilight’s head hung down and her voice became quiet. “Yes, I never thought it could be that bad…” She sighed and straightened herself a little. “The pegasus who survived, Lightning Gale... He was the one who alerted us. He flew straight into Ponyville, crying for help and talking about creatures attacking Hockton… I expected lots of injured and homeless ponies so I gave orders to set up this camp.”

Twilight Sparkle turned around, giving an overall look at the eerily quiet place. “Doctors and nurses, guards, food, supplies. Enough for a whole town… But when we came here… everypony was… was...”

“I know,” Trixie said. “I was there.”

“Right…” Twilight shook her head and headed for another, smaller tent, only a few meters away.

Trixie followed her and found the inside to be summary, but well organized: a flimsy-looking table serving as a desk, a currently extinguished candle in the middle, parchments and quills carefully stacked on one side and a few books forming a neat pile on the other. She distractedly read a few of the titles: Emergency Care and First Aid, Preserving Precarious Pony Psychology, Logics and Logistics vol. I… Aside from those, the tent only contained a seating pillow.

"Make yourself comfortable," Twilight said, pointing at the cushion. "Princess Celestia had to go back to Canterlot, so it will only be me and my friends..." Trixie nodded and did as she was told, while Twilight sat on the ground across the desk and prepared to write down some notes. A few moments later, the five other mares came in and installed themselves all around Trixie in a semi-circle.

Six pairs of eyes settled on her, expectant and intensely staring at her. Trixie tried to stall for time, shifting on her seat and clearing her throat. The six mares simply waited in silence.

“If you’re all sure you want to do this...” she said, giving them a few seconds to change their minds. None of them gave her any sign, making her sigh. “Let’s start...

Closing her eyes, Trixie used her magic to create an image in the air next to her, a sort of screen-like projection of her memory, showing colorful houses with thatched roofs.

“I came into Hockton… a few days ago, I think. I’m not really sure how much time has passed. I was just trying to make a living as a traveling magician...”

Hockton

A rural town in central Equestria, Hockton is home to around one thousand ponies.

“So, can you fix it?”

Trixie looked at the middle-aged stallion in front of her. His pale blue coat and blond mane might have made him pleasant to look at, but the frown that seemed perpetually etched on his face took every bit of charm away. Her eyes went back to the clock in her hoof. A simple magically powered alarm clock that was no longer staying on time. It would take a few hours of work, but she could definitely readjust the enchantment.

“I can have it done by tomorrow,” she told him. “That will be ten bits.”

“Ten?” He glared right into her eyes. “I’ll give you five.”

Trixie held his gaze defiantly. “Ten bits is already a bargain for that kind of work...”

“No it isn’t. Five bits, take it or leave it.”

"Eight."

"Five."

"Seven..."

"Five," he repeated slowly.

The two ponies kept staring at each other for a while. “Fine,” Trixie eventually conceded, rolling her eyes. “Five bits...”

“Good.” His lips tugged a little bit, almost turning his frown around but still coming short. “See you tomorrow.”

“You’re lucky I can’t afford to turn down customers,” she muttered under her breath while he left.

With a sigh, Trixie stepped back into her wagon. It was a far cry for her previous ones... While those could stage her show in addition to act as her home, this one was barely good enough to live in. It was not even decently furnished, with only a bed in the rear, a multi-purpose table in one corner and the cupboard topped with a mirror that acted as her “bathroom” on the opposite side. As far as wagons went, this was definitely one of the cheapest in existence.

She had still paid all of the money she had left for it. If only she hadn’t spent so much for that stupid amulet...

Trixie closed the door behind her and threw the clock on the table. “Five bits,” she mumbled to herself. “I’ll be grazing in the park for dinner... again.”

With another weary sigh, she walked in front of her mirror, watching her frowning reflection. Opening a drawer with her magic, Trixie levitated her wizard hat on her head, then tied her cape around her shoulders. She smiled at herself for a moment.

“Great and powerful, as always,” she told herself. Her grin slowly faded, until she shook her head. “Patience, Trixie… Give the ponies a few years to forget, then come back… as the greater and powerfuller than ever Trixie!”

A loud knocking took her out of her thoughts. After carefully storing her precious attire and hoping for a customer that wouldn’t be cheap, she went to open the door.

A large earth pony was standing outside. Between his muscular build, the scowl on his face and the drab colors of his dark brown coat and black mane, that stallion looked like he didn’t even know the meaning of the word “fun”. On top of it, he was clad in one of the cheap suits of armor that the local guard used.

“What can the grea– What can I do for you?” Trixie asked, doing her best to sound amiable.

“Step outside the wagon, please,” he answered her with a gruff voice.

Deciding to avoid troubles if possible, Trixie simply complied and came out, stopping in front of the rugged guard. “Is there a problem, mister...” She trailed off, waiting for him to fill the blank.

“Nightstick. And it's 'seargeant', not mister.” He looked her up and down, as if he was appraising her for something. “We’ll see if there are any problems...” He nodded towards the wagon. “Mind if I take a look?”

Trixie narrowed her eyes. “Why?”

“Do you have anything to hide?”

“No, I don't.”

“Then you won’t mind, will you?”

“Not at all,” she said through clenched teeth. “Go ahead.” Trixie waited a couple of minutes while the guard disappeared inside.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” she asked as he came back out.

“Maybe... Do you have a proper authorization for staying here?”

“I don’t need one if I stay less than eight days. I know the law.”

“So, you’ve declared yourself at the city hall, of course.”

She narrowed her eyes and did her best to remain courteous. “Obviously.”

“I’ll check...” Nightstick kept watching Trixie, not even attempting to hide his contempt.

“Don’t you have anything better to do than harass me?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, miss Trixie. I know your kind.”

Trixie glared at him, hardly believing his words. “My kind? Really? And what kind is that, exactly?”

“Transients, drifters, wanderers... mustangs.”

Trixie’s ears twitched at that last word.

“Yeah,” he continued, a wicked-looking smirk appearing on his lips, “You’re a wild mustang, aren’t you?”

Trixie remained silent, glaring daggers at the annoying guard.

“Wait one second,” Twilight interrupted. Trixie blinked a few times, her display vanishing into nothingness. “You’re a mustang?”

Trixie sighed. “Yes. Is that important?”

“Oh, uh... No, not really. I was just curious...”

“How come you don’t have a funny accent?” Pinkie Pie asked with her usual chipper voice.

Trixie groaned and rolled her eyes. “I learned to speak without it. Nopony takes magicians seriously if they don’t sound like Canterlotians.”

“You just got rid of it?” Rainbow asked, raising an eyebrow. “Is that even possible? Hah! Can you imagine Applejack speaking without her accent?”

The mare in question cleared her throat and spoke with a flawless Manehatten inflection: “Whatever do you mean, Rainbow? I am quite certain that I don’t have any accent...”

Silence fell in the tent, until Applejack snickered, then broke into laughter. “Y'all should see the look on your faces!”

Pinkie was quick to join the laughter and soon followed by the other mares, except for Trixie...

Twilight shushed them after she caught the look on Trixie's face. “Settle down, girls. We’re getting off track here...”

They calmed down while Trixie concentrated back on her spell. The invoked image came back, showing the scowling guard...

“Everypony knows how this goes,” he said with a sneer. “You wild ponies drift into town and by some mysterious coincidence, things start to go missing immediately. And by another incredible coincidence, you’re far away soon after... You know how guards are. We don’t like coincidences.”

Trixie ground her teeth together, took a few deep breath and tried to ignore the dozens of insults that were trying to make their way out of her mouth. “Are you seriously implying what I think you are?” she finally asked, her voice straining to remain levelled.

“I’m not implying anything,” he answered while trying to sound casual. “But here’s some friendly advice: maybe you should get out of town while I don’t have any reason to arrest you.”

“Congratulations...” Trixie said flatly. “I have traveled all across Equestria and I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone as revolting as you.”

“What are you running away from, anyways?”

“Nothing,” Trixie answered sharply. “I just don’t like staying in one place for long. That’s not a crime, is it?”

Nightstick scoffed. “If you like wandering so much, why don’t you go back to Mustangia?”

“And why don’t you go back to whatever pigpen you crawled out of?”

Nightstick narrowed his eyes and took a step toward Trixie. He was a good head taller and much wider than her, but she refused to give up even a millimeter of ground.

“You should watch your mouth,” he said slowly. “Especially if there isn’t anypony else around to hear it.” He reached back to his belt and grabbed his namesake in his mouth.

The two ponies froze when a new voice sounded from behind them. “Is something the matter?”

Trixie turned to see a unicorn stallion heading towards her. “Should I call for help?” he asked, furrowing his brow.

Nightstick grunted and put his weapon back in place. “No. I‘m done here.” He walked away, giving Trixie a last glance over his shoulder. “I’ll keep my eyes on you...”

Trixie snorted in frustration, but simply turned her back to the disgusting guard.

“What was that all about?” the other stallion asked.

“Nothing, really,” she answered sourly. “That guard was just doing his best to remind me of how stupid some ponies can be.”

The other pony tilted his head to the side, giving her a puzzled look. Trixie took a few seconds to examine him. His coat was a dark blue, almost black, which made a stark contrast with the bright silver mane that flowed down his neck in long, smooth locks. A trio of shooting stars were shining brightly on his flank.

He cleared his throat, making Trixie jump a bit when she realized that she appeared to be checking his rump. Blushing, she focused on his face instead. Golden eyes were watching her with both curiosity and amusement. Judging by his face, Trixie came to two conclusions: first, that he was rather young, most likely in his twenties, and second, that he was quite a fine looking specimen.

“Thank you for your intervention,” she said with a smile that felt natural, for once. “That guard was getting on my nerves faster than you can imagine.”

The stallion chuckled. “Glad I could help.”

“Is there something I can do for you? Or were you just passing by?”

“That depends... Are you ‘the great and powerful Trixie’?”

She raised an eyebrow suspiciously. “Is he a fan? No, I don’t have any of those anymore… Another pony who wants to laugh at me, probably… Ugh. Let’s just get this over with.”

Taking an important air, she answered him. “Yes, I am the great and powerful Trixie. And what do you want from Trixie?” She turned her nose up a little, falling into her old stage persona by reflex.

The stallion smiled warmly. “Great! Let me introduce myself: my name is Star Trail, I live here in Hockton with my family. My parents own a farm and I help them out, but the thing is...” He sighed. “I want to study magic. I’ve always wanted to study magic, but unfortunately, my parents cannot afford to send me to Canterlot…

“So... I was wondering, since you are a renowned and skilled unicorn... Could you give me some lessons in magic?”

Trixie clicked her tongue. “Through all her travels, Trixie has learned some tricks from other unicorns, but most of her knowledge came from practice and a lot of trial and error... Trixie does not think that she can teach you that kind of skills, not to mention that she does not have the patience for a pupil.”

“Please?” Star Trail insisted, giving her pleading puppy eyes. “You've got to give me a chance! It’s so hard to find a unicorn who knows advanced magic around here...”

Trixie closed her eyes and turned her nose high in the air. Cute or not, she didn’t have time to take care of an annoying apprentice asking her inane questions all day long...

“I can pay for the lessons,” he said, making Trixie’s ears twitch and turn towards him. “I don’t have that much money to spare, but I could give you... ten bits for each lesson?”

She opened one eye to look at him... He seemed serious... and the bits certainly wouldn’t hurt.

“Hmmm… Very well,” she said, trying not to sound too enthusiastic. “Trixie will give you a chance to prove yourself as a worthy apprentice.”

“Yes!” he shouted with a smile. “Thank you, Trixie, you won’t regret this.” She was almost crushed by a powerful hug.

Trixie wheezed feebly as all the air was squeezed out of her lungs. “I’m regretting it already...”

After what felt like an eternity, Star Trail let go and stepped back. “So, what do we begin with?”

Trixie took a second to recompose herself, then smirked at her new and overeager apprentice. “Do you think you would be able to repair a broken alarm clock?”

The following day, Trixie woke up in a good mood. After all, it was much easier to get a good night sleep after a satisfying meal and thanks to Star Trail, she had been able to buy enough food for dinner and breakfast. Now if only she could afford a spa session instead of dunking herself in the river when nopony was looking...

Star Trail was even a good student, much more talented than she had expected. She only had to explain to him how the enchantments in the clock were supposed to work and he quickly found and repaired the defective ones. He even did it faster than Trixie would have done herself.

She smiled at the prospect of more easy bits coming her way.

A few hours later, Star Trail knocked on her wagon’s door and she joined him outside to discuss the day’s lessons. He quickly started questioning her on teleportation.

As her answer, Trixie pointed at a flower pot standing on a nearby window sill. Her magic shone briefly over it and the pot disappeared with a poof, appearing instantly at her feet in a cloud of pink magic. She concentrated and teleported it back to its place to complete her demonstration.

“Can you teleport yourself?” Star Trail asked her.

“Teleportation is easier with small, inanimate objects... Trixie can use it on something the size of a bunny, but not on herself or another pony,” she explained. "At least not without the alicorn amulet," she reminded herself bitterly.

“Well,” Star Trail said while looking for something in his sadllebags. “I’ve found this in an bookstore…” An old book levitated in the air, wrapped in his dark blue magic. Star Trail opened it to a specific page and held it for Trixie to read.

“This is… An advanced teleportation spell?” Star Trail grinned and nodded. Raising an eyebrow, Trixie hummed while she kept reading. “If I understand this right, this spell is powerful enough to teleport as many as ten ponies at a time and over… a hundred miles?” Her brow furrowed at the outlandish distance. “That can’t be right. Nopony can teleport that far… Well, maybe Princess Celestia, but not any regular unicorn…”

“It takes several unicorns to supply the magic,” Star Trail said, walking next to Trixie and pointing at the corresponding part in the text. “And I think this is the maximum that was ever achieved, not the average one…”

“Maybe,” Trixie said while tapping a hoof on her chin. “So you want to give it a try?”

“Yes! I’ve always had trouble with modern teleportation spells, but this one uses a completely different approach in the pattern of thaumaturgic energy. If we can make this work, I’m sure that I’ll eventually be able to come up with a simpler version, for individual use.”

“Well, we could always try…”

Trixie and Star Trail spent the next hour studying the complete workings of the spell. One unicorn’s magic was supposed to set the path for the teleportation, while another took charge of transferring the ponies along. Extra unicorns could be used to provide additional power, but two were enough for a basic teleportation.

“I wonder why this spell isn’t more widely used,” Trixie said, “it’s complicated, but not overly so…”

“Maybe it’s less efficient than the book makes it to be,” Star Trail answered with a shrug. “Anyways, should we give it a try?”

Trixie nodded. “You take care of the destination and I’ll do the rest.”

“Alright.”

Both unicorns focused their magic. Star Trail's dark blue and Trixie’s pink swirled around each other, combining into a sphere that quickly expanded as they both pumped more power inside. A flash suddenly blinded Trixie.

She could only see white, even with her eyelids closed... After a few seconds, the light seemed to recede and she opened her eyes. This time, she saw only darkness. The air was very hot and dry and her ears picked up the sound of the wind blowing through a narrow passage, like ghostly whispers.

Trixie turned her head around, trying to identify her location, but there was only darkness in every direction. For a brief second, she feared that she had been definitely blinded and she let out a relieved breath when the area was lit up by the pinkish light of her horn.

She was surrounded by rock: around her, above her, under her... She tapped a hoof on the stone, as if to check that that it was real. A few paces away, Star Trail was similarly observing his surroundings, his brow furrowed.

“Where are we?” Trixie asked.

“I don’t know. We were supposed to teleport on the other side of town...”

Trixie turned around. “Are there any caves in town?”

“I don’t think so. There aren’t even any mountains...”

Trixie felt sweat starting to pearl on her coat, the heat quickly making her uncomfortable. She could feel some wind rushing through the cave, but it was not cool and pleasant. Instead, it was hot and carried with it hints of many disgusting smells, a mixture of ammonia, rotten eggs and other swamp emanations. Not to mention the constant noise that it caused, sounding like voices whispering constantly in her ears, as if telling her something just a little too quietly to be understood, no matter how much she tried to.

“This place is creepy...” Star Trail said quietly, as if he was afraid to disturb someone of something by speaking too loudly.

Trixie nodded and froze when she heard what sounded like a pained moaning. She couldn’t place the origin of the sound, as if it had been coming from everywhere at once... Once it died down, she heard instead chittering sounds, like clawed paws stepping quickly on stone.

“Let’s get out of here,” she said urgently. “We should give that teleportation spell another try... Right now.”

Star Trail nodded, his eyes sweeping around nervously. The two unicorns went in position and activated their magic once again. A few seconds later, Trixie’s vision was again overwhelmed by a bright flash.

The first thing that she noticed was that the heat was gone. Instead, she shivered as her sweat added an extra layer of cold to the already chilly air. The noxious smells had been replaced by ones that she couldn’t quite place. They didn’t seem natural, but were neither good or bad. Just… alien.

As her vision came back, Trixie saw an iron wall in front of her. It had been painted brown at some point, but most of it was chipped and showing either grey metal or plain rust. Looking up, she saw a metallic frame supporting window panes, making up a completely transparent roof. The glass was quite dirty, sporting dark stains in many places, but what really caught her eye was what she could see through.

The sky was red-orange, with clouds of dust swirling around in violent winds. There was only a little bleak light making it through and no matter where she looked, neither the sun nor the moon could be seen...

Author's Note

On behalf of the UAC, welcome to Mars City...

This story made me start a new playthrough of Doom 3 today... For research purposes, of course !

3. Hydroponic Farms

Hydroponic Farms

The hydroponic farms serve both to provide extra food for the UAC station and to research plants able to adapt to Mars, a necessary step in the planet’s terraforming process.

After what could have been hours, Trixie forced herself to take her eyes off the nightmarish sky and examine the room around her. The walls and the floor were all made of the same metallic tiles repeated over and over, like some kind of giant and dull puzzle. All around the room were what looked like dull grey pipes, held around the unicorn’s eye level and apparently all connected to a large reservoir. Trixie couldn’t tell what material they were made of, neither wood, glass or metal; they were completely smooth. Out of the upper side of these, dozens upon dozens of green leaves were coming out, rows and rows of plants growing in these strange tubes.

Trixie approached one of these and picked up the sound of water trickling inside. She cautiously tapped one with a hoof, still trying to identify the material. It only produced a dull sound, while the lettuces growing in it shook gently. Shaking her head, Trixie went back to her examination. Light was coming from several strange-looking lamps, made of long, glowing tubes and casting spindly shadows in every direction. The selection of plants growing here was surprisingly varied, from herbs to vegetables, flowers and bushes, all of them sticking out of these tubes. One thing was certain: Trixie had never heard of any place like this one…

Trying to find Star Trail in the maze of green, Trixie reared up and promptly toppled over, falling on her back. Surprisingly, she fell relatively slowly, not hurting herself at all. In fact, Trixie realized as she rose to her hooves that she felt much lighter than before, as if she had been carrying a huge weight for days and just got rid of it. She jumped in the air, her eyes widening as she fell back slower than she should have.

“An anti-gravity spell?” she muttered to herself. Shaking her head again and setting that question aside for later, she rose on her hind hooves and finally spotted a gray and blue head above the greenery. “Star Trail!”

“Oh. There you are! I was starting to think we’d been separated.”

Trixie rested her forehooves on one of the strange planting pipes to stabilize herself, Star Trail imitating her a few rows further. “Where are we now?” she asked.

“This is… a greenhouse, I think.”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “I meant, where in Equestria are we? I’ve never seen or even heard of a place like this… What’s wrong with the sky?” she asked, pointing up.

“I have no idea,” Star Trail answered slowly, his eyes turned upwards.

Trixie frowned, glaring at the young stallion through narrowing eyes. “What was wrong with your spell? Where did you send us? First that... that... dragon’s lair and now, this?” She gestured at the strange room with one of her hooves.

“I... I’m sorry. That wasn’t supposed to happen!” He raised his hooves defensively. “I guess I messed up the first time, I’m not sure how... But when we cast the spell a second time, it was like something… just... pulled us here.”

“Something?” Trixie raised an eyebrow and cast a glance around the room. It seemed completely deserted, aside from the two unicorns. The walls had been painted, but it was chipped in too many places to count, there were stains on the ground and rust almost everywhere. Trixie could have sworn that the place was abandoned, hadn’t the plants been perfectly healthy...

“Maybe it was somepony…” Trixie cleared her throat and called. “Hello? Is anypony here?”

The two ponies waited a few seconds, but no answer came.

“There must be someone around here somewhere,” Star Trail said. “Somepony who can tell us where we are...”

“Let’s hope so.” Trixie spotted what looked like a door. Just like the rest of the room, it was made of metal, a tall grayish thing with markings reading ‘GL-23’ in big, blocky letters. She walked towards it, followed by Star Trail and stopped a few meters away to examine it. In particular, she looked carefully, trying to find a handle...

The door -if it indeed was a door- was basically a smooth metal plate embedded in the wall. Trixie tried to push it with her magic, then pulled, without effect.

“Stupid door, why won’t you open?” She struck a forehoof on it and jumped back with a yelp when it suddenly slid into the wall with a whirring sound.

“Wha–? How...” By the time Trixie had recovered from her surprise, the door had come back in place with a whoosh.

Trixie and Star Trail exchanged a puzzled glance before staring back at the door. The stallion approached slowly and examined it closely. There was a part on one side that stood a little apart from the rest, some sort of raised plate, with arrows etched in the metal near it. Star Trail slowly brought a hoof and touched it. The door opened again with the same metallic sound.

“A door that opens on its own...” he muttered to himself. “Interesting. It must be enchanted somehow...”

Trixie picked herself up and stepped through, now that the mysterious door had been mastered, into a narrow hallway with even worse lighting than the previous room. She used her horn to provide some illumination, the pink of her magic reflecting on the dull tint of the walls to create a dark, reddish haze.

Looking left and right, Trixie saw nothing that could give her any indication of where to go. With a shrug, she picked one side of the corridor and started walking in that direction. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw Star Trail looking all around, examining the strange tunnel-like hallway they had landed in.

The two walked for a few seconds until they found another door, which only led into another greenhouse. They both kept walking into the dark corridor.

Trixie noticed that panels were sometimes missing from the walls. In one place, the gap revealed strings and wires of various colors. Another missing panel showed pipes from which some gurgling sounds could be heard intermittently. She wondered what could be hiding inside the rest as she heard humming, buzzing and hissing from different places in the walls. It almost seemed like the building itself was alive.

As the two ponies kept walking down the corridor, the noise became louder and louder. Trixie stopped in front of a wide door, looking for the command plate to open it. She smirked as she found the metallic trigger and bumped it with a hoof. Her eardrums were instantly hit by a cacophony of grinding, hissing and whirring. A snoring dragon might have sounded like that, if it had been made of metal.

“Gah! What’s making so much noise?” she asked, half to herself and half to her companion.

“What?” the other pony shouted back with his ears flattened on his head.

“I said: what’s making so much noise?”

“I don’t think so... What’s making so much noise?”

Trixie rolled her eyes and nodded forward, indicating him to follow. She made her way in a room filled with what had to be various machinery: large metallic box-like constructs… Was everything made of metal in this place? Some machines had a more rounded shape, other had pipes, tubes and wires going in or out of them, most had strange screens mounted on a side displaying curves, graphs, numbers or colorful flashing icons.

Looking closely at one of these didn’t teach Trixie much. Although some of the letters looked slightly different, the text on the displays were still written in standard equestrian. Trixie had no clue as to what they meant, though: even if she knew all but a few of the words, their overall meaning was murky. Taking her eyes off the machinery, Trixie looked around, trying to find an exit.

She froze when she saw the creatures. One had his upper body inside one of the machines, probably working on it while the other was standing near him. It was tall, standing on only its hind legs and looked both familiar and alien at the same time, creating a feeling of unease in Trixie. She was vaguely reminded of a minotaur, but besides the bipedal posture and the shape of the torso, the creature was quite different: the arms were almost the same, but the legs were thicker, ending in a strange flat end that looked nothing like a hoof or even a paw. Its was almost round, with two small eyes, a protruding nose and a mouth, all placed completely forward and only two strange-looking ears on the sides...

“Humans...” The word left her mouth by itself as she remembered the creatures from ancient myths, dating back to before civilization was beginning to appear in Equestria...

When Trixie was planning her revenge on Twilight and trying to find knowledge that could grant her more power, she had learned a lot of the oldest legends of ponykind. The humans seemed to appear in many of the primitive ponies’ mythologies. Creatures imagined by prehistorical ponies, appearing in crude paintings and sculptures dating back to fifty or a hundred thousand years... But what it they hadn’t imagined them? What if they were hiding in some strange and remote part of Equestria? What if Star Trail’s botched teleportation took the both of them there?

Judging by the movements of his mouth, the standing human was apparently talking with his fellow, but their voices were covered by the ambient noise, making all but a few of the words impossible to understand. Trixie looked to her side, seeing Star Trail completely transfixed, his eyes glued to the mysterious creatures. She shook him a little by the shoulder, making him blink and focus back on her.

“Do you see what I see?” he asked, trying to get his voice low enough that the creatures couldn’t hear him, but still louder than the cacophony of the surrounding machinery.

Trixie nodded and made a shushing motion, walking a little closer and hiding behind a large... metallic something. She vaguely heard their voices again and the standing one turned around. Using his weird hands, he reached in a box and grabbed some sort of tool that he put in the other’s outstretched hand, then leaned back against the wall, looking bored.

The human shoved one of his hands in his pocket and pulled a small box. Trixie tilted her head as she saw him take a tiny white stick out and put it between his lips. With his other hand, he grabbed a shiny silver object and worked his fingers on it somehow until a small flame appeared, which he used to ignite the end of the stick.

Her eyes widened like saucers and her mouth fell open when, a few seconds later, he blew out a puff of smoke. Trixie was so busy wondering what he was doing that she didn’t realize his eyes had drifted lazily to her position, before going back to another part of the room...

Until the human’s eyes widened and his head snapped back to face Trixie.

He blinked a few times, but his eyes remained fixed on her... Trixie gulped, but remained otherwise immobile, wondering what he was going to do. Using one of his feet, the human tapped on his colleague’s leg. The second human dragged himself outside of the machine he was working on, covered in grease stains. He followed the finger pointing straight at Trixie and froze too.

She gulped again, still opting to remain frozen. They had already seen her, she didn’t need to make any move that could pass for aggressive. Ponies knew about nothing of the mythical humans: having only crude pictures and statuettes to work with, archeologists could only speculate as to what they were supposed to represent, what they could do, how they were supposed to behave...

The second human stood up, a strange spectacle to Trixie, seeing him getting his long legs under his body and unfolding them, balancing perfectly without any effort while these two long arms hung on his sides. The two creatures exchanged a few words. The first reached back in the toolbox.

Trixie started to sweat when he pulled out some kind of rope. She observed him working his fingers, almost hypnotized by the complex movements, but immediately snapped out of it when she realized that he had made a loop. The other was clutching a large hammer. They started walking very slowly towards her.

Instinctive alarms sounded in Trixie’s mind: they were intending to catch her, there was no doubt about it. She ducked back behind her cover and took a few deep breaths to calm herself down. Star Trail was still sticking his head out, watching the humans like a colt in front of a candy store. Trixie shook him.

“We need to leave,” she said loudly.

“What?”

“These things intend to catch us and I don’t want to find out why.”

He took another quick look and nodded at Trixie. While she was trying to find an exit, the humans appeared from behind the machine, on each side of Trixie and Star Trail. They were faster than she had expected...

One of them extended his hands, trying to catch her by the neck. Trixie jumped and started galloping before he had time to get close enough. Judging by the sound of hooves right behind her, Star Trail was doing the same.

The two ponies came back to the door they had come through and headed into the corridor, running like crazy. Looking over her shoulder, she yelped when she saw the two humans following. She couldn’t comprehend how they were able to move that fast on only two legs, but they were following quite close. The one with the rope threw his improvised lasso, but far enough from Trixie that she didn’t have to worry about it.

She heard Star Trail shouting behind her and skidded to a stop. The lasso had caught him around the neck and he was struggling to move despite the knot strangling him while the human at the other end of the rope was pulling on the rope with both hands, his feet firmly stuck on the ground. The other human was running forward.

Trixie looked at Star Trail, the humans, the rope, the very short distance between all of them... She was about to turn and run away when an idea hit her, etching a smirk on her lips. Trixie charged up a spell, her horn glowing pink. The running human slowed down when he saw her magic, holding up one hand defensively. She didn’t give him time to think, throwing a blast of magic at the rope.

It came to life under her spell, unknotting itself, sliding away from Star Trail’s neck and then standing like a cobra in front of the human. He took a few steps back, his eyes wider than ever and watching the rope with a mix of surprise and fear. He yelped when it jumped on him, quickly entangling both feet and hands, forcing him to fall on his face.

Star Trail quickly went back to running again, followed closely by Trixie, away from the two shouting humans. The duo of unicorns reached the end of the corridor and passed the door without even paying attention to their surroundings. Now that the humans were out of sight, they slowed down to catch their breath.

“Whew... Thanks for the save, Trixie.”

She managed to flash her cocky grin. “You shouldn’t expect any less from the great and powerful Trixie.” He didn’t need to know that she was ready to abandon him without any hesitation if her trick had failed, after all...

“What were those creatures anyway? I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“I think they were humans,” Trixie said. “Mythical creatures… At least they were supposed to be mythical.”

“I wonder what they wanted with us,” Star Trail mused. “Look at this place, their technology looks completely different from anything we have in Equestria.”

Trixie took a look at the room. At first glance, it seemed to be some sort of storage: long shelves going all through the room and covered with a plethora of objects. Some were familiar: random tools like hammers or spanners, microscopes... Most of the apparatus were completely foreign to her, though. Things made of metal, glass and other materials she couldn’t even identify, cardboard boxes with labels making no sense to her...

Trixie nickered. “This is fascinating, but this doesn’t tell us where we are. And these humans look… creepy. I’d rather not deal with them, do you think there are other ponies around?”

Star Trail took his head out of a box he was currently inspecting. “They seemed really surprised to see us... So I would say ponies are not common here.”

“This is just great. How are we going to find our way home now?”

Star Trail simply shrugged, making Trixie grit her teeth.

“This is your fault, you know!” she hissed. “You could at least act like you’re concerned.”

“Panicking won’t get us anywhere,” he answered nonchalantly, making Trixie’s anger rise another level.

She was seriously considering throwing one of the heavier looking boxes in his face when the door opened. Two other humans came in. When the first two they had met were wearing only a few loose clothes, these seemed to be carapaced in a greenish armor. Their faces in particular were completely concealed in strange helmets, with tubes reaching to where their mouth should have been and a large shiny panel, maybe made of glass, covering the upper part of their heads. The armor looked bulky and covered mostly their torsos, leaving their arms free. They still wore huge boots covering up to their knees, though.

By the time Trixie was done observing their strange attire, she realized that one of them was pointing towards her... She didn’t wait any longer and ran in the opposite direction. Luckily, the room had another exit and she found herself in another of the long corridors, followed closely by Star Trail. The two unicorns ran without slowing down, the shouts of the humans only motivating them further.

Speeding down the hallway, Trixie spotted a few large crates stacked up on one side. As soon as she passed them, she concentrated her magic in a powerful burst to throw them across the way. She smirked as the huge crates blocked the passage, confident that the humans would have to find another way to catch her.

Her grin turned into a grimace of dread when she spotted one of the humans’ head appearing above. The creature was using its long, freakish arms to hoist itself on the top and apparently without much of an effort. It crawled quickly on the crate and jumped on the ground with surprising agility.

Trixie screamed and ran away, adrenaline pushing her heart and legs to new levels. The two unicorns kept throwing as many objects behind them as they could, earning themselves a few seconds, but unable to get rid of the pursuing humans. Not only could these things run fast, they were able to move in ways that nopony could. They didn’t even seem to tire, keeping pace without any problems... How was she supposed to lose them?

“Over here!”

Trixie jumped at the strange, whispering voice. It seemed to come out from one of the walls.

“Over... here...”

She spotted a grate that seemed to lead into some small tunnel. A quick look at the corridor and the two tall humans barrelling down did a great job at convincing her to follow the voice instead. With a strong telekinetic pull, Trixie ripped the grate off the wall and squeezed herself into the hole.

It was a tight fit, forcing Trixie to squirm and wiggle to advance, but the motivation of the two creatures pursuing her made her surprisingly flexible. After only a few seconds, she had succeeded in shoving her entire body in the vent, panting from the effort but making steady progress.

“Trixie?” Star Trail called her from behind. “I’m too big, I can’t follow you.”

Trixie paused for a second. She couldn’t turn around, but she could still backtrack her way out. That would mean more time wasted, letting the humans get closer again.

She pushed forward.

“Trixie!”

It was his fault they were in this mess anyway. Served him right... Trixie heard him curse and gallop away. If he could run fast enough, maybe the things wouldn’t catch him. She wondered what they would do. Eat him maybe? That wasn’t her problem anymore...

Trixie used her magic to light herself in the long, dark vent. Progressing through, she mumbled a curse every time the metallic walls scraped and scratched her skin but didn’t slow down. Confined in such a small space, she felt her moist breath heat the air with every pant. Sweat started to roll in her eyes, stinging and forcing her to blink.

Trixie felt like a mole under the ground. A hunted, tired, sweaty, panicking mole.

“Stupid tunnel goes on forever,” she muttered to herself in between hot, steamy breaths. “Damn those humans for building that place... Damn that Star Trail for bringing me here. Damn that ursa minor for ruining my career. Damn those two retarded colts! Damn Twilight Sparkle! Damn alicorn amulet! Damn everything! What have I done to deserve this?”

Still cursing and raging, Trixie reached a sort of opening. It didn’t lead into another room but instead let her enter a larger part of those tunnels. Now that she had enough room to at least stand, she took a brief pause to breathe and did her best to wipe the sweat off her face with a hoof. “If I had my cape and my hat,” she said to herself, “I could at least sponge and fan myself. But nooooo, I have to be transported into weird and creepy places when I’m au naturel…” Cursing the entire universe one more time, Trixie headed down one of the larger-looking vents, not wanting to play the earthworm again.

She walked for a while in the dark space, turned pinkish by her magical light, somewhat grateful that she at least didn’t have to crawl anymore. That advantage was quickly compensated when she passed near pipes leaking gas in her face, making her cough and pray that they weren’t toxic.

A minute later, Trixie found herself behind another metallic grate. After a quick peek to make sure that nopony– or rather, nohuman was waiting for her outside, she pushed it off the wall with her telekinesis and squeezed herself out of the wall.

A quick look around didn’t teach the unicorn much about her surroundings. She identified some desks, holding screens displaying various lines of text that were nothing but gibberish to her. The only thing that appeared often was a triangular picture with the letters ‘UAC’ at the bottom. There were various representations of that symbol on the screens, on papers, on boxes. Some also had ‘Union Aerospace’ added to the letters, making her think that UAC was the shortened version of... whatever that was.

She had never heard of anything bearing that name and wasn’t even sure of what “aerospace” really meant. Something about air and space? Maybe it was related to astronomy... Trixie grunted in annoyance. She had no clue as to where she was and how to go back to Equestria (since it was pretty obvious that she was in a whole another part of the world now, thanks to that stupid stallion) and couldn’t even figure out the name of the place.

Trixie was considering destroying all the arcane machinery in the room, just to vent a little steam, when she heard voices and footsteps approaching. The door opened, leaving her barely enough time to jump under a desk and quickly bring a few boxes in front of her with her magic. She froze, hoping that they wouldn’t come looking for her here.

Two sets of legs passed in front of Trixie, but thankfully stopped a little further.

“Man, how much more of these reports do we have to file?” The voice was deep and slow, the human slurring each word.

“Are you really going to complain when we haven’t even started yet?” The other one had a strange accent that Trixie couldn’t place.

Slurry voice grunted. “It always takes forever. And do you think anybody actually reads those? Pfft! They’ll just archive ‘em somewhere.”

“Just do your job,” weird accent answered irritably.

“Yeah, yeah. Damn it, I can’t wait to get off this stupid rock.”

The two stopped talking for a moment and Trixie only heard some sort of clicking noises as they were doing whatever their job actually was.

“Attention all UAC personnel.” A feminine, tinny voice resounded in the room and Trixie had to gather all of her concentration to not jump in fright. “Unidentified animal specimens have been spotted near the hydroponic farms. If you see anything out of the ordinary, please contact Mars Security immediately. Thank you.”

“Animal specimens?” weird accent repeated out loud. “Do we even have any on Mars? And what did they mean by ‘unidentified’?”

“Hell if I know... Did they lose their lab rats or somethin’?”

“How could a rat be unidentified? Come to think of it, do they even have rats in the labs?”

“Don’t ask me,” slurry voice answered with a snort. “I don’t know what’s going on in this goddamned base and I sure as hell don’t want to know.”

“Aren’t you at least a little curious?”

“Not anymore. Everything is just creepy about this place. Nothin’ but weird crap going on in here.”

“Oh come on, you don’t believe all these rumours...”

“Rumours? I heard a guy lost his hand when a machine turned on... By itself. For no reason and without any power source. That’s not a rumour, there were two guys standing there who saw it happen!”

“Well, that was just an accident.”

The other human snorted. “Yeah right. We get an ‘accident’ at least every week, not to mention all the people going crazy. I heard Johnson jumped on Rodriguez yesterday. Tried to bite him like a rabid dog...”

“Bullshit...”

“No, I swear, I–” slurry voice paused. “Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?”

“Sounds like... breathing.”

Trixie clamped her hooves over her mouth and held her breath. Agonizingly long seconds passed, her heartbeat sounding like a pair of terribly loud drums in her ears.

“I don’t hear anything,” weird accent finally declared.

Slurry voice sighed. “See? This is what I’m talking about. Noises, voices, stuff moving on its own... It’s like this base is haunted or something.”

Trixie allowed herself to breathe, as softly as she could.

“Come on.”

“Whatever. Next month I’m going back to Earth and you’ll never get me to put a single foot on Mars. Ever. Again.”

“Mars?” Trixie wracked her brain, trying to make sense of what she just heard. “They’re speaking as if they’re not on Earth... How could they not be on the planet? Besides Earth there’s... nothing, except for the Sun and the Moon. Nopony could live there. Those aren’t even real places anyway, just... stuff in the sky that the princesses magic in place…

“What the hay is Mars then?”

“Hey, do you hear–”

“Shhh!”

“How could a unicorn’s teleportation, no matter how inaccurate, possibly send ponies in another world entirely?”

“I hear it too,” weird accent said.

Trixie’s eyes widened and she clamped her muzzle shut with her hooves.

She heard the humans stir and walk around.

“What is that?”

Something tugged on Trixie’s tail, making her yelp in surprise. She looked back and noticed much too late that the tip of her long tail was poking out of her hidey-hole. And now, one of the humans was pulling on it...

“What the hell?”

She darted out from under the desk, knocking boxes in her way. The humans jumped and shouted in surprise, but Trixie didn’t give them any time to recover. She rushed for the nearest exit and ran.

Why there were so many hallways and doors, Trixie couldn’t even begin to guess. She didn’t even care much anyway, only preoccupied with running away from the humans.

A man appeared in the hallway ahead of her, his eyes focused on some device he was holding in his hands, even while walking. Trixie skidded to a halt, looking left and right. She picked the closest door and tried to open it, but only got a buzzing sound out of it. A panel right next to the door turned red and indicated ‘access denied’, in case she had any doubts.

Cursing, she turned around and headed for another door. The human in the hallway had taken his eyes off of his thingie and was now gaping at her. It looked pretty ridiculous between its orange baggy jumpsuit, almost hairless head and stupid expression... Ignoring him, Trixie went through the door and found herself in what was most likely a bathroom, with no other exits. Cursing once more, the unicorn went back in front of the stupefied human. She lit up her horn, trying to think of an appropriate spell if he tried to attack her, but saw the creature flinch and look with worry at her horn.

“Well, it’s worth a try…” she thought to herself. Taking on her most menacing pose, she addressed the human. “Where is the exit?”

“Wha– What?” he took a step back and widened his eyes even more.

“How do I get out of this place?” Trixie snarled.

“Holy shit! Blue talking unicorn... Holy shit!”

Trixie frowned in annoyance. “Answer or face the wrath of the Great and Powerful Trixie!”

“Holy... Uh... What?”

“How do I leave this place? Where is the closest exit?” Trixie yelled at him.

He blinked a few more times, then hesitantly pointed with a finger down the hallway on his left.

“Hey!” Both turned to face a few armored humans running in the hallway. “Stop that thing!”

The human glanced at Trixie. She gulped and reared, lighting up her horn. Fortunately, he simply cowered instead of making a move towards her. She stomped her front hooves on the ground as she unleashed her spell, creating a thick cloud of smoke that she used as cover to escape. It only bought her a few extra seconds and as she was sprinting down the way that the human had pointed out, she heard her pursuers running uncomfortably close behind her.

The hallway led to a T-shaped intersection. Directions on the wall told her read ‘Sectors 5-9’ on the left and ‘Surface Access’ on the right. Trixie turned right and immediately stopped when she spotted a second group of armored humans in the way. Once their initial surprise passed, they started running towards her too.

She took a glance at the first group... She could not get past them, but going in the opposite direction of the surface did not sound good...

Everything became dark suddenly as every single source of light went out at the same moment.

“Fucking piece of shit generators!” she heard one of them shout. “Get some lights on, quick!”

Trixie acted fast. Using her magic, she took apart a ventilation grate from the wall and squeezed herself in the empty space, quickly putting the metal grate back in place. Through it, she saw the humans turn on some portable lights, strong enough to force her to close her eyes when they ended up pointing them in her direction. They scanned the area quickly.

“Where did it go?”

“This way,” one pointed down the hallway that led to the labs. Trixie smirked as her improvised plan paid off.

“Was there ever any doubt?”

Once the humans were far enough, Trixie dislodged the grate again and slid out of the wall, praying that this would be the last time she had to squeeze herself in that kind of tiny hole. As she shook herself to get her mane and tail back into an acceptable shape, she accidentally tipped the grate.

It fell on the ground, making a loud clang that resonated all along the hallway.

“Over there!” a voice came from behind her. She darted in the exit’s direction.

“Don’t shoot,” she heard. “Take it alive!”

Trixie ran without looking back, hoping that the promised access to the surface would be very, very close.

She burst into a room comparatively larger than most of what she had seen until then. The ceiling was much higher and there were several crates packed here and there, near a very large curtain-like door. She didn’t see any buttons to press that would get it open, though...

The only other notable thing in the room was a big metallic, vaguely round construct painted in bright yellow and gray. A screen on the side had a few readings that she didn’t take much time to analyze. The words ‘interior’ and ‘exterior’ were enough for her: that thing had to be an exit.

She didn’t see any handle or button to press on the door, nothing but the panel on the side that simply read ‘Cycle Airlock’, along a few random numbers... There weren’t any instructions as to how she was supposed to do that. Trixie tried saying it out loud, to no avail.

The humans’ shout and footsteps became closer. In frustration, Trixie slammed a hoof on the screen. Immediately, the text changed to ‘Pressurizing’, while some of the numbers changed.

With a groan, the metallic gate opened itself, revealing a disturbingly coffin-like interior. A tall and long space, completely enclosed by the very thick metallic wall. Trixie gulped, unsure of this exit’s safety.

The humans came in, still shouting.

Trixie jumped inside the coffin without any more hesitation.

“The airlock!” one human yelled from behind her.

She spotted the bright screen on the side of the wall, with the same message: ‘Cycle Airlock’. She slammed a hoof on it and it changed to ‘Depressurizing’.

“Shit! Stop it!”

Trixie smirked as the heavy metallic door closed itself.

“Ha ha! The Great and Powerful Trixie is also a master of escape!” she declared with a cocky grin.

She heard a whistling noise. Her smile disappeared as the air was sucked out of her lungs.

“Wha–?” the word died on her lips as she simply ran out of breath.

Trixie clamped her muzzle shut to try and save all the air she could, but it wasn’t much at this point. The opposite end of the airlock opened, finally giving Trixie access to the surface.

Her mouth gaped open when she saw outside.

The world was made of dust. Red dust, on the ground, in the air, even making its way inside the airlock, carried by the wind. Outside was no life. No water, no trees, no blue skies, no clouds. Only rocks, red dust, and rusted metal constructs abandoned here and there. In the distance, she could faintly see large buildings, standing ominously in the nightmarish landscape.

Trixie whimpered, stars dancing in her vision. Her ears couldn’t hear anything. She struggled to get air in her lungs but found nothing to breathe, working her mouth uselessly like a fish taken out of water. She felt strangely cold and wasn’t even able to scream in terror before everything became dark and she lost consciousness.

“Oh my gosh… Did you die?”

“Pinkie…” Twilight said with a groan. “She’s standing in front of you right now.”

“Oh, right.” The pink pony giggled… then gasped and pointed a hoof at Trixie. “Are you a zombie?”

Trixie did not even bother answering, simply sighing and rolling her eyes.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Twilight Sparkle chided her, a know-it-all tone in her voice. “Zombies are just a product of fiction, they’re not real.”

Trixie simply stared at her, a sad look in her eyes...

Author's Note

The gravity on Mars is about 40% as that on Earth... Not as bad as on the Moon (only 16% of the Earth's gravity there), but it should still be pretty noticeable. Of course, that point was completely ignored in the games, since it would have made them weird to play (could have been fun, though!), but since I don't have that problem in a story I decided to mention it.

Come to think of it, it's a good thing they never took gravity into account, especially for the original Doom. The first episode (Knee-Deep in the Dead) takes place on Phobos. That rock has so little gravity it's pretty much the same as outer space. I guess it's a good thing the classic doom engine didn't allow for jumping, or the marine would have put himself in orbit around Mars by the power of his own legs! The Shores of Hell takes place on Deimos, which is even smaller, but at this point it has already been transported into Hell, so I guess there could be some gravity there. Inferno takes place entirely in Hell, too...

It's not even explained how the low gravity problem is treated in Doom 3. Maybe the UAC has some tech device to create artificial gravity ? Personally, I like to think that the low gravity is more or less compensated by the sheer weight of all the crap the marine carries around. You've got the big suit of armor, plus a pistol, a shotgun, a machine gun, a chain gun, grenades, a plasma gun, a rocket launcher, a chainsaw and the BFG. Also, hundreds of ammo for each of these... I shouldn't overthink this, but I find it hilarious how the soulcube is weightless. It could have been the straw to break the camel's back.

But enough misplaced physics... I've reached the end of what I had drafted. Don't worry, I know where this is going, I have a detailed outline and everything. What this means is that future chapters will take longer, though. And this brings me to this question : should there be future chapters or is that story hopeless ? Do you guys want to see more ? What do you think of this story ? Like it ? Hate it ? Meh ? Tell me what you think is good and what you think is bad, even if it seems unimportant. I can always use some feedback and hopefully improve my writing.

Also, anyone feels like drawing a cover art ?

4. Holding Cell

Holding cell

Used by Mars’s security forces, these cells are meant to isolate potentially violent individuals in case of emergencies and can be found in most sections of the base.

Trixie’s eyes opened slowly while she tried to figure out where she was and why it wasn’t inside her wagon... She was lying in some ugly room instead, the walls and ceiling made of worn metallic tiles covered in chipped painting. A large, metallic door stood near a corner. It bore the UAC logo...

Trixie jumped to her hooves as everything came back to her: the failed teleportation attempt, the strange place she had landed in, the humans chasing her, the impossibly nightmarish surface... She tried to remember what came after her escape attempt, but there was nothing but the barren landscape and the sudden lack of air.

“It’s waking up.”

Trixie turned her head in the direction of the voice. Behind a large glass window, a human seemed to be observing her. It was standing in what looked like some sort of office: a couple of desks and chairs, piles of paper and a few machines that were foreign to the unicorn. The human walked forward a little, almost leaning her face against the glass.

Trixie had a hard time reading the creature’s expression. For all she knew, it might have been predatory hunger, fascination, fear, curiosity... She just couldn’t tell with those strange, immobile ears and small, sunken eyes. The human behind the glass seemed a little smaller than most of those Trixie had seen until now, although it was still taller than her. It had a dark brown mane framing is round face and flowing down to its shoulders. It also had a feminine-sounding voice. Probably a female… She was wearing a white coat, like a nurse or a scientist.

“Ha, let’s see.”

The second voice was much deeper, and definitely not a female... Trixie gulped as a huge human appeared, easily two heads taller than the female and noticeably broader, wearing the same kind of white lab-coat. He had a very pale skin and short, brown-reddish hair covering not only the top of his head but also his face, forming a neatly trimmed beard. Trixie backed up instinctively, only to find a wall blocking her retreat from behind.

“Hard to believe this is real, huh?” the male asked the other human. “It looks equine, but definitely not like any kind of horse I’ve ever seen. So familiar and so different at the same time...”

“The security team said it seemed intelligent,” the female added. “I wonder if–”

“What do you want with me?” Trixie asked loudly. “I demand you let me go this instant!”

The humans gawked at her.

“Well,” the male said quietly, “that maintenance worker wasn’t kidding. It can really talk.”

“And it speaks English? How can that be possible?”

“A very good question... Looks like we have a lot to learn,” he said with an eager smile. Facing Trixie, he spoke slowly and articulated each word carefully. “Can you understand me?”

“Of course I can,” the unicorn answered, “I’m not stupid... Or deaf!”

The female laughed a little. “Oh yeah, she definitely can talk!”

The male human scratched his beard in thought. “Okay, let’s try a different approach... I am doctor Anthony Tailor. Do you have a name?”

The unicorn blinked a few times, watching the humans curiously. "Trixie," she finally answered.

"Nice to meet you," he said curtly. “This is my colleague, doctor Samantha Carlsen.”

The female smiled and gave her a little nod. “Please, just call me Sam.”

Watching them through narrowed eyes, Trixie took a few steps forward until she stood right in front of the window. She tapped it a few times with a hoof, raising an eyebrow at the dull and very un-glassy sound it made.

On the other side, another human, clad in the same green armor she had seen before and only a little shorter than the big man, stood up and stared down at Trixie. She could not see the creature’s eyes behind the smooth helmet it wore, making it all the more intimidating. Doctor Tailor made a move as if to stop it, shaking his head. The guard shrugged and sat down near the door, far enough that Trixie had to lean against the window to see it..

“This glass is bulletproof,” the bearded man said calmly. “You would only waste your time trying to break it.”

“Am I a prisoner here?” Trixie asked after giving the window a last tap.

“I wouldn’t say that,” he explained while stroking his beard. “We are simply being… careful.”

“Careful? Are you seriously afraid of me?”

“We’re not taking any unnecessary risks,” he answered. “You’ll have to understand that at this point, we don’t know who you are, what you are, what you can or cannot do… You might even carry diseases that could be lethal to us.”

“What? Trixie is not some kind of wild animal!”

The man sighed. “That’s not–”

The woman interrupted him. “Let me explain, Anthony.” He only shrugged and let her talk.

“You see,” Sam started, “every living creature hosts millions of bacteria and various other organisms. It’s completely natural and those are usually completely harmless, or even beneficial to their host. However, you are obviously part of an unknown species and thus may carry with you organisms that could potentially make us sick… The opposite is true, of course. You run the risk of getting sick at our contact.” She lifted her hands in a soothing gesture as soon as she saw the look of panic on Trixie’s face. “Don’t worry, there’s a good chance that nothing will happen, but it’s better to be safe than sorry, don’t you agree?”

After a few seconds of thoughts, Trixie nodded.

“We’re already running some tests,” the man said. “We should know very soon if there’s any danger.”

“Tests?” Trixie tilted her head to the side.

The large human hummed in confirmation. “We took a few samples from you while you were unconscious. They’re already being studied in the labs.”

“S– Samples?”

“Blood, hair, saliva… Nothing much, really.”

“We’re trying to figure out just what exactly you are,” Sam continued. “We didn’t think we could actually ask you…”

“We’ll want to record this,” doctor Tailor added. “I’ll go get a camera.”

“Sure, sure…”

Trixie’s gaze simply switched back and forth between the two humans while she was trying to follow the conversation. The man walked away, his female counterpart following him with his eyes. As soon as he left the room, she faced Trixie again with a huge, manic grin that made the unicorn take a step back by reflex.

“Eeeeeeee! Can you believe it?” she asked the guard next to her. “A unicorn! A real-life unicorn! And she can talk… and she’s so cute, don’t you just want to hug her? I wanna hug her! Eeeeeeee! This. Is. So. AWESOME!” The woman jumped in place a few times.

Trixie blinked dumbly at the sudden outburst, while the guard only shook its head.

“Come on,” she continued, “don’t just stay there, come say hello!”

“Fine. If it’ll calm you down…” The tall armored human approached the window, making Trixie cower instinctively again. “Hello, tiny horse thingy...” It spoke with a feminine voice that carried a weird accent.

“Seriously?” Sam asked with a nonplussed expression, only making the guard shrug. “Come on, you’re just scaring her... Take your helmet off, show your face.”

With a sigh, the guard complied. Using her nimble fingers, she unlatched the strange piece of armor and took it off from her head. Under it, Trixie discovered a surprisingly delicate face topped by a brush-like blond mane. The gentle features were offset by a pair of icy blue eyes, observing Trixie with a sort of strange detachment.

“Hmmm… That doesn’t seem to help,” the female doctor said, tapping a finger to her chin. “You’re just too creepy, Crash.”

The guard shrugged again.

“Your name is… Crash?” Trixie said, one of her eyebrows raising.

“That’s only a nickname,” Samantha said. “Her actual name is too hard to pronounce.”

“Huh?”

The blond woman smirked. “Katja Kraśzajczenski. Nice to meet you.”

“She’s Polish,” Sam added, apparently expecting that explanation to mean anything to Trixie...

“I’m Swiss,” the guard corrected her. “My family comes from Poland, but they left two hundred years ago.”

“Oh, right. Sorry… But enough about that, we’ve got a unicorn in front of us!” The scientist waved her hands in Trixie’s direction, smiling broadly. All that got out of Crash was a noncommittal “huh-huh”.

“Come on, don’t be so grumpy.” Sam pointed at Trixie. “It’s a unicorn. A real-life unicorn! It’s every little girl’s dream!”

“I’m not a little girl,” Crash answered with a shrug. “Are unicorns supposed to look like that anyway? Why is she so... blue and so… short?”

“Hey!” Trixie glared at the guardswoman. “Trixie is not short! Trixie is petite... and her size is still well within the average for a mare.”

“Uh… Sorry?” the guard said, raising an eyebrow.

Trixie nickered and turned her nose up. “Trixie will forgive you… This time.”

The armored woman turned to Sam. “Can you believe this?” The doctor only giggled in reply, making Crash roll her eyes. “What’s with the third-person speech anyway?”

Trixie was about to answer when the large male came back, carrying various pieces of equipment in his arms.

“I’ve got everything,” he declared as he approached. The guard woman went back to her post, while Sam instantly wiped the grin off her face and helped him set up several devices, all of them pointed at Trixie...

Seeing the uncomfortable look on her face, the large man began explaining their function: “Don’t worry, these are only cameras. This one records regular pictures,” he said while pointing at a boxy-looking thing set on a tripod, “this one works in the infrared spectrum, this one in ultraviolet… I’d like to take an x-ray later, if that’s possible.” He kept going on about the different machines, Trixie already tuning out his incomprehensible yammering.

“Everything’s in place,” Sam declared a couple of minutes later.

“Let’s start then.” The bearded scientist brought a chair and sat down next to the cameras. He pressed a button on one and started talking.

“This is doctor Anthony Tailor recording, the date is November fourteenth, twenty-one forty-five. Unidentified life forms were spotted yesterday in the hydroponic farms sector. The one you can see right here has been captured by Mars Security–”

“Who are you talking to?” Trixie asked, trying to look around the room to see who might be hiding behind him.

“... To whoever will watch this recording,” the man answered before clearing his throat and continuing his speech. “As you can hear, the specimen is capable of speech... The marines who apprehended it have also reported that it was able to operate some machines around the base, specifically an airlock control panel. It apparently attempted to escape to the surface, but Mars Security found the specimen unconscious inside the airlock when they opened it.”

“Could you stop calling Trixie a specimen?” the unicorn said with an exasperated tone.

“Please stop interrupting,” the doctor answered while Sam stifled a giggle behind him. “I’m simply trying to keep a scientific approach to all of this, so don’t take it personally… Now where was I? Right… A second specimen was sighted, but Mars-Sec has been unable to capture it for now–”

“Star Trail is still running around?” Trixie cowered under the glare she received from the tall human. “Sorry…”

“I will answer your questions in a moment, if you would just let me finish…” He cleared his throat again. “At first glance, the specimen appears to be equine, although this could be proved wrong. The closest species I can think of is the common horse, but major morphological differences are obvious, especially in the shape of the skull and of course the presence of a horn. The specimen’s coloration is equally surprising. Whether it is natural or not remains to be–”

“Of course it’s natural! Why would Trixie dye her coat?”

The man cleared his throat loudly. “Blue is not a common color in nature and especially not in land animals. Actually, I’m almost sure that there isn’t a single land mammal with blue hair on Earth.”

“What? There are lots of blue ponies! And some dragons too.”

“Dragons?” Sam blurted out. “Sorry, doctor Tailor… Keep going.”

During the following minutes, the man did his best to state what facts he knew about Trixie and voiced a few hypotheses. He also groaned and moaned many times, being interrupted by the curious blue unicorn too often for his liking.

“Alright, this is becoming… frustrating,” he said while letting out a long sigh. “Here is what I propose: for every question you ask me, I’ll ask one in return. How does that sound?”

Trixie nodded. “That is acceptable.”

“Great. I’ll let you start.”

The unicorn tapped a hoof to her chin. “Trixie’s first question will be… Where are we?”

“That’s easy enough to answer,” the doctor said, reclining a little in his seat. “You are currently in the UAC’s research facility on Mars. To be precise, this room is an isolation cell set next to the Gamma laboratories area.”

Trixie blinked a few times while trying to process the information. “I’ve never heard of a place called ‘Mars’...”

“Oh… Well, Mars is the fourth planet in the solar system.”

“Planet? Wait… What? I’m on another planet? Is this… your homeworld?”

The two doctors exchanged a glance. “The short answer is: ‘no’,” Sam said. “Our homeworld is planet Earth.”

“Earth? But that’s where ponies live…”

“We’re probably not speaking of the same ‘Earth’,” the woman said.

Doctor Tailor nodded. “This leads to a question of my own: where did you come from?”

“Uh… Earth,” Trixie answered lamely. “I was in a small city called Hockton... Equestria?”

“Equestria? What is that supposed to be?”

“You’ve never heard of it?” Trixie’s eyebrows raised. “It’s the biggest country on Earth… The nation of ponies, ruled by Celestia and Luna, the princesses who raise the Sun and the Moon every day and night. How can you not know of it?”

The two humans stared at Trixie for a while, before looking at each other. The woman simply shrugged while the man scratched his head.

“We’re definitely not talking about the same ’Earth’,” doctor Tailor finally said. “We must be using the same name for two, very different planets.”

“Maybe,” Trixie said. “Wait… You said something about a ‘short answer’. What did you mean?”

Sam took a step forward. “Well, without going into too much detail, here’s what we know: today, Mars is uninhabitable. I believe you’ve seen the surface for yourself,” she said, making Trixie shudder at the memory of the hellish world. “Nothing can survive out there, but the UAC built this facility in the hopes that Mars could be transformed into a hospitable world one day, much like Earth– our Earth.

“While building Mars City some thirty years ago, the construction crews stumbled on ruins left by a very ancient civilization. From what we can tell, they looked a lot like us,” Sam said while motioning at herself. “They had also mastered technology far more advanced than what we have today. In particular, they had found a way to travel to distant worlds. These ancient martians appeared to be the ones who colonized Earth in the first place.”

“That’s only a theory,” doctor Tailor added. “A theory based on very little fact, Sam. If such an advanced civilization had settled on Earth, where did all their technology go? Why were early humans just banging rocks together if they knew how to travel through space?”

“Humans,” Trixie said to herself, making the two doctors watch her. “Are you really humans?”

“Yes,” doctor Tailor answered. “Why do you ask?”

“Why? Because humans are– were supposed to be a myth! Imaginary creatures…”

“So are unicorns… Are you a unicorn?”

“Whu– Of course I am!”

The woman turned to her colleague with a triumphant grin. “What do you make of this, doctor Tailor? This can’t be a coincidence: if those martians traveled to other worlds, they must have met the unicorns. What if today’s legends used to be tales from these very real travels?”

“It’s possible,” the man answered. “But possible doesn’t mean it’s true.”

“No, no. You’re right, of course… There is a lot more to uncover.”

“This, I can agree on,” he said with a nod. “Let’s see… I have another question: you said your name is Trixie, right?” The unicorn nodded. “Is that it? Just one word? No family name?”

“A… family name?” Trixie tilted her head to the side. “ Well, I guess there’s my herd’s name: Lulamoon.”

“A herd?” the man leaned forward. “Interesting. Do ponies live in herds?”

Trixie turned her eyes away from the humans. “Well… Most don’t.”

“Oh? Please tell us more,” he continued. “I’m very curious about your social structure. Some ponies live in herds, then?”

“The… mustangs do.”

“Mustangs?” Sam asked, scratching her chin. “Well, I’m not sure what you call mustangs, but I suppose it doesn’t mean the same thing as it does on Earth… Our Earth, I mean.”

“Oh… Well, it’s just the name for ponies coming from Mustangia.”

The man hummed in thought. “Didn’t you say that you came from Equestria?”

“Mustangia is a part of Equestria. In the southeast.”

“Great! Tell us what you can.”

“Really?” Trixie’s eyes widened. “You… want to know about mustangs?”

“Why not?” the man asked back. “Everything you can tell us about your culture is interesting.”

Trixie’s lips tugged upwards. Nopony cared much for the mustangs. Most ponies were happy to ignore them. Some hated them... Those who didn’t still tended to look down on the nomadic herds, regarding them as uncivilized primitives…

“You’re in luck, then,” Trixie said, a full-fledged smile growing on her lips. “The great and powerful Trixie shall regale you with tales of her native lands!”

The next minutes passed by very quickly: the humans listened intently, not letting a single word of Trixie’s slip by. Meanwhile, the unicorn rediscovered the pleasure of live performance. Her audience may have been very small, but they drank each of her words and reminded Trixie of just how much she loved the attention.

At the end of her tale, Trixie summoned a shower of magical fireworks from her horn, earning the most awestruck expressions she had seen in several years.

“What was that?” the large man asked, rubbing his eyes as if to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. “Did your horn just…”

“Oh, do you like Trixie’s magic? Then, how about this…” The unicorn sent a small ball of magic in the air above her, which burst to take the shape of a neon version of herself, shining an electric blue light. Trixie smiled as she saw the humans’ eyes glued to her little display. Revelling in their wonderment, she bowed down theatrically and with a flick of her horn, made the image above her do the same.

Sam slowly shook her head. “Wow… Is this some kind of optical illusion?”

“An hologram, maybe,” the man said quietly. “How the hell did you do that?” he asked the unicorn.

Trixie pretended to shine a hoof on her chest and took a moment to admire her work. “This is nothing,” she said with a smirk. “The great and powerful Trixie is the most magical unicorn in Equestria, after all…”

“Magic? Look, I’m a scientist, Trixie. I’m going to need something more believable than just ‘magic’...”

“What do you mean?” Trixie asked with a frown. “I’ve been practicing magic ever since I was a little filly…”

“It’s probably some sort of biochemical phenomenon,” Sam said with a pensive look. “Calling it ‘magic’ is just a matter of semantics… Just look at this.” She pointed at Trixie with an excited grin. “That horn is not just for physical defense. It must be connected directly to her brain, like any other limb and she can control it to do… Well, whatever this is.”

“Well, that’s one theory,” the man answered with a shrug. “I’m curious to know what that horn is made of, in fact. I’d bet that there is a lot to learn…” He turned to the woman. “If we could reproduce it, can you imagine the potential developments? It could be revolutionary…”

The two humans turned their eyes to Trixie. She gulped under their enthusiastic grins.

“Hypothetically speaking,” the man said softly. “Would it be possible to remove your horn? I mean, if we were to cut it, would it grow back?”

“What?” Trixie scooted back into her cell, but was quickly reminded that the wall was very, very close to her. “No, it wouldn’t!” she blurted out. Truth be told, Trixie was not completely sure about that, but she was certain that she didn’t want to take the risk…

“Hmmm… That would have been too good to be true, I guess… Could we remove only a part of it then? Or would that hamper your–”

“Leave Trixie’s horn alone!”

“Okay, okay…” He put his hands up defensively. “We won’t take anything apart, I promise…”

Sam nodded before speaking up. “We can still examine it using non destructive methods. Sonography, x-rays… An MRI scan would be ideal, I think.”

“True, but we don’t have that kind of equipment here. We’d have to transport her to Earth first.”

“Wait a minute!” Trixie stomped her hoof on the ground. “You will take Trixie nowhere!” She thought for a second. “Unless it’s back to Equestria… Then you will take Trixie there!”

The couple of humans stared at her for a while, before exchanging a glance between themselves. The man spoke again with a soothing tone.

“Please don’t take this the wrong way. We only wish to learn as much as we can from your species… But don’t worry, we will be reasonable. We’ll even help you get back to your world if we can. Maybe in exchange you can let us study you for a while... In any case,” he added, “do you know how you landed here? I don’t suppose you took a shuttle…”

The unicorn calmed down a little and walked closer to the window, then sat down on her haunches. “There was a slight… incident with a teleportation spell.”

Doctor Tailor almost jumped out of his chair. “Teleport– Did you just say teleportation?”

“Yes… Trixie was experimenting a new kind of spell with Star Trail. That good-for-nothing foal was supposed to take care of the destination... Instead of sending us across town, he managed to send us to another planet!” Trixie snorted. “That would have been impressive, if it had been on purpose…”

“You… teleported…” he repeated dumbly. “Just like that? You decided to teleport and you did…”

“Well, it’s not that simple,” Trixie answered with a snort. “The spell was quite complex. That’s why it took two unicorns to perform…”

“So, you can’t just leave on your own?” Sam asked, making Trixie nod in confirmation.

“Well,” Doctor Tailor said while standing up, “the UAC has been conducting experiments on teleportation for years now, but I doubt we could just send you away. I think your best chance is to wait until we find your companion. He can’t hide forever…” After checking his watch, the man pressed some buttons on all the machines he had set up to record the discussion. “I have other matters to take care of now, but I’ll try to think of a way to help you, Trixie.”

Trixie and the two women watched him leave the room. As soon as the metallic door slid back into place, Samantha turned to Trixie, giving her a wide and excited grin.

“This is like a story out of a sci-fi book!” she said in a high-pitched voice. “An alien from another world, with mysterious powers…”

“Let’s hope not,” Crash said with a chuckle. “The aliens always end up invading Earth in the movies…”

“Well, we’re not on Earth...”

“Oh, thanks! That’s reassuring.”

Sam laughed softly. “Come on, Crash. Nothing’s going to invade anything. Besides, our fearsome tiny alien horse is locked up in there.” She tapper the window a few times. “I think we’re pretty safe for now.”

“Does this mean you’re not letting Trixie out?”

The scientist gave her a kind look. “Sorry, Trixie, not yet… But I promise I’ll do everything I can to get you back home. In the meantime, could you show me what else you can do with that horn of yours?”

“You wish to see more of Trixie’s sensational magic?” Trixie turned her head in a practiced move, flipping her mane gracefully and taking an air of importance. “Well, I can understand that… but Trixie is starved. Bring Trixie food if you want her to perform!”

“Food?” Sam blinked a few times, then slapped a hand on her face. “I didn’t even think of that… Yeah, I think we can find you something to eat. What do you eat, by the way? We don’t have any grass or oats on Mars…” She tapped her chin with a finger. “We have various vegetables, would that do?”

Trixie nodded and the woman went to leave the room, until Crash called after her.

“Hey! If you’re headed for the kitchen, can you bring something for me too?”

“I’ll see what I can find!” Sam answered without turning around. “Be right back.”

Trixie was left alone with the blond woman standing guard near the door to her cell. Crash did not even give her a glance, simply sitting down on a chair and pulling out a flat, rectangular object from one of her pockets. Rather than try to start a conversation with her, Trixie decided to use the quiet to put some order into her thoughts. After giving a glance at the basic cot in her room, the unicorn shrugged and lied down on it.

Humans… As crazy as it sounded, she was stranded on a strange world inhabited by humans, who may be related to other humans who lived in Equestria ages ago… And as it turned out, they were kinda nice! Her magic had really impressed them, they didn’t know of her humiliations in Ponyville, didn’t care about who she was at all...

“This could be a second chance,” Trixie thought. Her career may have been dead in Equestria, but in this new world, there were no Ursas in sight, minor or major. No one to mock her or ruin her shows. No Twilight Sparkle to upstage her… Maybe staying here would be a better choice after all. Maybe not indefinitely, but she could stay with the humans until the ponies would forget about her.

A little smile appeared on the unicorn’s lips as she made herself comfortable on the bed and let her mind wander, imagining crowds of the strange looking aliens clapping and cheering for her. Her mood improved even more a few minutes later when the brown-haired woman came back, carrying various items, at least some of which looked edible.

“I had to raid the fridge,” Sam said, “but I think I’ve got enough food for everyone.”

Trixie instantly jumped to her hooves and rushed forward, saliva already pooling inside her mouth. Meanwhile, Sam stared at the guard who watched her back with a neutral expression.

“So… How about opening the door?”

Crash gave Trixie a suspicious look before turning her eyes back to the other woman. “I don’t know… I can’t risk her escaping.”

“Oh come on… We’ve got to give her something to eat.” Sam nodded at the food loaded in her arms.

“Hmmm… Maybe if we got more guards...”

“Seriously?”

“I heard she was really hard to catch,” Crash said, pointing at Trixie with a thumb. “I’m not letting her out on my watch. Being posted on Mars is bad enough, I don’t want to end up in sewage processing.”

The two women kept arguing, but Trixie was too focused on the food to care about their bickering… At least until she realized that they were too busy talking to actually bring it inside her stupid cell.

With a huff, Trixie lit up her horn and concentrated on the whole pile that Sam was carrying. The pink haze of her magic wrapped itself around it and a couple of seconds later, the food disappeared and reappeared in front of Trixie. The two women shouted in surprise, but for the hungry unicorn, the only interesting thing was to find out what she could eat.

Using her magic, Trixie levitated the different items in front of her eyes. Boxes, bags, cans, all of them with pictures of food on their sides, although some were completely unknown to her. There were only a few fresh (or fresh-looking) products: a loaf of bread and a couple of carrots. With a shrug, Trixie took a bite out of one. They tasted rather bland, but she was too hungry to be picky and kept nibbling at it while looking at her treasure pile, trying to decide what to eat first.

“What the…” Sam watched through the window, mouth agape. “Did– Did you just teleport… Are you making these… levitate?”

“Hmm?” Trixie simply kept munching while the scientist was close to freaking out.

“She took everything!” Crash bumped a fist on the window. “Hey! What am I supposed to eat now?”

“Seriously?” Sam gave her a flat look. “You’ve got a unicorn breaking all laws of physics in front of you and you’re worried about your snack?”

Crash paused for a moment. “Well, when you put it like that… Yes!” She banged her fist on the glass again. “Give it back!”

“No magic, no food,” Trixie said with a little laugh, making the woman growl angrily.

The unicorn finished her carrot and climbed back on the bed. After making herself comfortable, and while Sam kept babbling about levitation and Crash about her food, she examined the cans more closely. “Pineapple...” Trixie muttered as she read the label. “Maybe for dessert. Baked beans… Corn… Huh?” She blinked a few times. “Potato chips… chicken... flavored ?” Trixie stared at the bag with a puzzled expression. “Why would you have food flavored like– No…” Her eyes widened.

“Hey! Give us something or I’ll come and get it myself!” Crash glared at Trixie through the window. “You know, it’s been years since I’ve had a good horse steak...”

“Wh– Wha– Don’t eat Trixie!” she blurted out. “Trixie…” Her eyes shifted around quickly as she tried to think of something. “Trixie tastes awful!“

“Great…” Sam glared at Crash with a frown. “Do you see what you did now?”

The blond woman only shrugged and muttered something, making Sam sigh before she turned her eyes back to the shuddering unicorn. “Calm down, Trixie, nobody’s going to eat you. She’s just kidding. Right, Crash?”

“I haven’t decided yet...”

Sam gave the guardswoman another glare, but quickly went back to cajoling Trixie. “Well, I won’t let her touch you anyway, don’t worry… You just send us back a few things and everybody will be happy here.”

“O– Okay…” Trixie tentatively nodded.

“Are we good here?” Crash asked roughly. “Pass the chips, then.” She held a hand opened, waiting for her order. After a little flash of pink, the bag appeared in her palm. “Now that’s some cool service,” the blond woman said with a chuckle. “We should open a restaurant, I bet we’d make a fortune!”

Samantha slowly shook her head. “I can’t believe you… Do you have any idea how long we’ve been trying to master teleportation? The resources the UAC has invested into it?”

“Honestly? No.” Looking bored, she squeezed the bag until it burst open with a loud pop. “I’m a UAC marine,” she said through the chip she had just stuffed in her mouth. “Not knowing things is part of my job description...”

Sam watched her with a disbelieving expression for a while, until she sighed and shook her head.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Crash said with a small grin. “You need people with their feet on the ground in this base. If it were only eggheads like you, the whole place would blow up in a week…”

“Oh please,” Sam answered, taking on a hurt expression. “It wouldn’t take us that long.” Crash snickered and the two women soon broke into giggles. They both sat down and started to munch on their snacks while exchanging a few jokes.

The girls’ silliness helped Trixie calm down a bit. Turning her attention back to her hoard, she scanned the various boxes. One caught her eyes and, after a few seconds of efforts, was opened by her magic. Inside of it, she found squares of golden biscuits, filled with some sort of paste. The smell was odd, but very enticing...

“Peanut butter crackers...” she muttered, reading the label.

Trixie hummed in thought and levitated one of the crackers in front of her eyes. She took a tentative nibble…

The unicorn’s eyes widened in wonder. The fat, creamy butter. The salty and crunchy cracker… Both complemented each other so perfectly that any other food she had eaten before was as tasty as rotten hay in comparison. Trixie shuddered and let out a shaky moan of pleasure as she chewed on the heavenly snack. As soon as it was swallowed, she stuffed another one in her muzzle.

One short minute later, the whole box had been devoured and a tear of joy was leaking from Trixie’s eye as she ran her tongue over the last bits clinging to her teeth.

Sam stared at the blissful unicorn, blinking a few times in shock. “Wow… I didn’t think anyone could like peanut butter crackers so much.”

“Hah!” Crash laughed and nudged her. “Thank God for junk food, huh?”

Trixie, her eyes glinting in excitement, almost pounced on the next box and made short work of the rest of her hoard. None of the following snacks came close to the incredible peanut butter crackers, but they were still good enough to be gorged upon...

A few minutes later, the unicorn lied back on the bed, rubbing a hoof on a belly that she hadn’t felt this full in a long while. Outside of her cell was a big pile of empty boxes, cans and wrappers that she had teleported out, the only remains of her feast.

The two women stared at Trixie with looks of disbelief.

“Geez…” Samantha scratched her head. “Can you imagine if she wasn’t pony-sized?”

“As hungry as a horse…” Crash said while Trixie burped loudly.

“And here I thought you were a big eater…”

“Meh... I exercise all the time, I need the energy. What’s your excuse?”

Samantha stared at Crash through narrowing eyes. “Are you implying something?”

The guardswoman laughed loudly. “I’m not implying. I know you’ve got dozens of candy bars stashed in your drawers.”

“Those are for… emergencies. My blood sugar level goes too low sometimes!”

“Define ‘sometimes’...”

“That’s– Wait, why am I even discussing this? How about you mind your own business, corporal?”

“Are you actually trying to pull rank on me? You’re a scientist! And not even an important one...”

“What? Are you–”

With a groan, Trixie rolled to her side and shouted at the women. “Could you two stop arguing? Trixie wants some quiet! If you two want to fight, do it somewhere else.”

The women watched each other a moment with an amused expression. “Nah, we’re not fighting,” Sam said. “Just some friendly banter...”

“Friendly?” Trixie asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, we’re buddies.” Crash wrapped an arm around Sam and pulled her close, almost toppling the smaller woman over.

“Hey, easy! I’m not wearing body armor!“

Crash let her go, but only after muttering “wimp” under her breath.

Trixie observed the two women for a moment. A big, grumpy, rough and tough guard on one side. A passionate, curious and kind scientist on the other. “Do you two even have anything in common?”

“We… uh…” Sam gave the guardswoman a questioning look, but only got a shrug as an answer. “We both like old movies?”

“I’m not a big fan,” Crash said with a thoughtful expression. “I like them, but that’s it.”

“Huh… I guess there’s not much then?”

“We’re both chicks.”

“Yeah, I think that’s it...”

“Chicks?” Trixie stared at them, blinking.

“This base is staffed by over a thousand men and about a dozen women,” Sam explained. “So we tend to be close. I have no idea why the UAC did this.”

“Me neither,” Crash said. “There has never been many gals in the marines, but the ratio here is ridiculous… Not that I’m complaining, mind you.” She smirked as she finished her sentence. “A girl on Mars never has to sleep alone if she doesn’t want to.”

Sam gave her a flat stare. “Classy.”

“What? It’s the only good thing about this damned place.” Crash leaned her back against the wall, her hands behind her head. “The job sucks, the food sucks, the pay may be good but there’s nothing to spend it on here and don’t get me started on the outdoors… So, yeah, every time I feel like it, I go find a soldier and have my rifle cleaned. If you had some sense, you’d do the same.”

“Why don’t you let me take care of my own business? And that was a terrible metaphor…”

“No, you see, to clean the barrel you need to–”

“Yes, I got the idea, thank you!” The scientist rolled her eyes and sighed, only making her friend laugh loudly. “Why do I even bother talking with you?”

“Fine, fine. I’ll behave, princess…”

“Good. What would Trixie think otherwise?”

“Trixie doesn’t really care,” the unicorn said from her bed. “As long as Trixie can get some peace and quiet.”

“Ah well…” Sam stood up and stretched her back. “I’ve got some other things to take care of, anyway. I guess I’ll leave you two alone for the night.”

“Night?” Trixie looked around, but without any kind of window to the outside, she had no idea where the sun was in the sky… “What time is it?”

“Almost six in the afternoon. And, to my greatest regret, I have some non-unicorn-related work to do today.” The woman sighed. “Back to the grind... Have a good night, I’ll see you tomorrow morning.” With this being said, she headed for the exit and left, while Crash muttered a quick farewell.

Trixie rolled on her back, staring at the worn and ugly ceiling. Her thoughts rolled around her head as she tried to make sense of her situation. One question in particular came again and again, without getting a proper answer: should she try to go back to Equestria or stay with the humans? As the only unicorn in their world, she would be treated as a goddess by those strange creatures… Then again, if she went back to Equestria with tales of her travels to another world, she could finally receive the respect she deserved on her own planet… All of this was assuming that she wouldn’t get eaten by a hungry human... She shuddered at the thought.

After a few hours of mulling these questions over, Trixie’s eyes eventually shut and she drifted to sleep.

“Whoo-wee!” Applejack hollered as Trixie paused in her story. “That’s one heck of a journey you been through, Trixie. If Ah hadn’t seen them humans by myself, Ah’d think you were making this up.”

“This is fascinating!” Twilight Sparkle had a grin on her face that made Trixie a bit nervous. She leaned a little closer. “You’ve actually visited a human world! I’ve got so many questions to ask… I need to make a list!”

“Chill out, Twi.” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes. “What’s so cool about these giant monkeys anyway?”

“First, they’re not monkeys. Second, don’t you realize what this means? Almost all of Ponykind’s oldest legends speak of humans. Stories like... how the demon Tirek was defeated by a human warrior, for example. Everypony thought they were some sort of imaginary creature, but Trixie has just proven that not only are the humans real, but they are also able to travel from world to world! Don’t you see how big this is?”

“Did you see how silly they looked?” Pinkie said, laughing as she tried to imitate a human walking on two legs.

Rarity giggled. “Well, I guess ‘silly’ is one way to describe these creatures.”

“And scary,” Fluttershy added, barely loud enough to be heard.

Trixie glared at the yellow pegasus. “If you’re scared after that, you should just leave now.”

The timid pony mumbled something that no one understood, but her friends quickly jumped to her defense, both chiding Trixie and encouraging Fluttershy.

“Fine, what do I care?” Trixie said with a shrug. “Unsurprisingly, I woke up the next morning...” With her magic, she brought back the images accompanying her memories.

Trixie awoke with the strange, uneasy feeling of being observed. She slowly cracked her eyelids open, getting used to the artificial light shining on her. She turned her head in the direction of the large window and jumped back against the wall.

Behind the glass, a broad-shouldered man was observing her, his head tilted slightly to one side. His skin was sickeningly pale and what little hair was left on his head was grey and cut short, so that he seemed practically bald. In the middle of the man’s wrinkled face, two sunken eyes were staring at Trixie, the left one having a strangely clear iris while the other was a milky white all over, obviously blind.

“Wh– Who are you?” Trixie asked, holding a hoof to her chest in a futile effort to calm her heart.

The man did not answer, only staring at her.

“Oh, you’re awake, Trixie!” Samantha walked next to him, smiling innocently. “This is Dr Betruger. He is at the head of our teleportation research here on Mars. If anyone can help you get back to your own world, it’s him!”

“Re– Really?”

“You said that you teleported here?” Dr Betruger asked, speaking slowly and deliberately.

Trixie gulped and tried to calm herself down. “Y– Yes. It was an accident, though.”

“I see… We have also had a few... setbacks in our attempts here, but I think we are very close to success now.” The doctor’s voice was somewhat smooth, but his tone gave Trixie the faint impression of something much more vicious and aggressive hidden underneath the gentle appearance.

Sam turned to face him. “Maybe Trixie could help you,” she said. “She seems to have some kind of innate ability to teleport. By working together, I’m sure we could find a way to send her back home.”

“Yes.” Dr Betruger smiled, showing more teeth than Trixie would have liked to see. “This could be just what we need for our final breakthrough…” Something in his expression, his eagerness, made cold sweat form on her brow.

Before Trixie could say anything, doctor Tailor entered the room and froze when he saw who was in front of him.

“Doctor Betruger…” He spoke through clenched teeth. “I didn’t expect to see you here. What brought you out of Delta?”

“Doctor Tailor…” The old man slowly turned to face his colleague. “It seems that you’ve found something that belongs to me.”

“Belongs to you? If you’re referring to her,” he pointed at Trixie, “I’m afraid that you’re mistaken. This is an intelligent, sapient being that doesn’t belong to anyone but herself.”

“I don’t have time to waste with misplaced philosophy. This specimen teleported its way over here. I don’t need to remind you what subject I am working on, do I?”

“And how did you learn about her?” doctor Tailor asked with a frown.

“Doctor Carlsen contacted me last night.”

“Sam?” the bearded man asked, his eyes widening. “Why’d you… Never mind, we’ll talk about this later.” He stood from all his height, looking down on Betruger, who only looked back with the hint of a smirk on his lips. “Listen, doctor Betruger, I don’t tell you how to run things in your laboratory. Don’t try to do that in mine. Now if you don’t have any other business here, I’ll ask you to leave. I have a lot of work to take care of.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean to bother you,” Betruger said with an amused tone. “I’ll leave as soon as we’ve arranged an escort for my specimen.”

“I don’t think so.” Doctor Tailor glared at his colleague. “Trixie is still under quarantine. We need to make sure there is no danger before we let her out of this cell. A contagion from an unknown pathogen would be devastating in a closed environment like this station. Keeping Trixie at hand is vital, especially with the other unicorn still running around.”

“The other unicorn?” Doctor Betruger narrowed his eyes.

“Yes. There is another one that Mars Sec hasn’t been able to capture yet.”

“Interesting… But your worries are unfounded. The Delta complex has all the installations needed for a quarantine. I’ll be taking this specimen now and you can transfer the other one when you’ve found it.”

“That’s enough,” doctor Tailor growled. “Trixie is staying right here, whether you like it or not. If you want to boss people around, you can go back to Delta. You are not the boss of this research station, Malcolm.”

Betruger stared at him a few seconds before answering coldly. “You’re right, I’m not.”

The creepy doctor slowly walked towards the exit. “Not yet...”

As soon as he was out, doctor Tailor faced Sam, making her wince with his glare. “What’s the big idea? Why did you call that nutjob here?”

“Nutjob? Doctor Betruger is a brilliant scientist! And I was thinking of Trixie,” she said, pointing at the unicorn who was silently observing the exchange. “I was trying to find a way to send her back to her home. The teleporters in Delta might be the only way.”

“Maybe, but there are still a lot of questions we need to answer before involving someone like Betruger.”

“What do you have against him?” Sam asked, raising her hands in the air. “I know he seems… odd, but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s one of the best physicists on Mars.”

“It’s not about looks. I know his methods, he only cares about results. Do you have any idea how many accidents happen in the Delta complex every week? He doesn’t give a damn about the people working for him as long as his research’s making progress!”

“Come on, doctor Tailor. This is just some silly rivalry… We’re all in the same boat.”

“What?” The man blinked a few times. “You think I’m jealous of him? You think I’m making this up? Doctor McNeil blew the whistle on him a month ago. Betruger had her shipped back to Earth before the end of the day. The UAC board is sending a representative to investigate his work. This isn’t a little workplace competition.”

“I– I’ve never heard of that…”

“Of course, the UAC has been keeping this under wraps. I don’t know any of the details, but Betruger must have gone too far... That’s all the more reason to be careful with him: he’s running out of time and he knows it. There’s no telling what a desperate man will do…”

“Come on,” Sam said quietly. “It can’t be that bad. Don’t you think you’re blowing things out of proportion?”

“Maybe,” he answered with a sigh. “Maybe… Maybe Mars is finally getting to me. Everybody ends up crazy in here…” After shaking his head, he turned to Trixie. “I really hope I’m not imagining you… Anyways, I’ve done a few analyzes on the recordings we made yesterday. You are quite the mystery...”

Trixie walked closer to the window. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I was expecting to learn more about that… ‘magic’ thing, but I stumbled upon something else. I wondered how it’s possible that you speak English. While that would have been just plain strange, the reality is even stranger. Because you don’t.”

“Huh?”

“I… don’t understand,” Sam added, scratching her head.

“She does not speak English. I’ve looked at the sound recording and I found something that I can’t explain: when Trixie says a word, the sound waves are completely different than when I say it. What we hear is not what she says…” An excited grin appeared on the man’s face as he turned to face Sam. “Do you realize what this means? There is some kind of… of universal translator at work here. If we can figure out how this is happening…”

“We could reproduce it,” the woman finished for him. “Instant, flawless translation… This is huge!”

“Exactly.” Doctor Tailor smiled at Trixie. “There is so much we could learn from you… In fact there is something I wanted to give you, it might help us experiment a few things.” He reached into a back pocket and pulled one of those tablet that Trixie had seen the humans look at a few times.

“This is a personal data assistant,” he said, holding the thing closer to the window. “Everyone here on Mars has one, they’re useful for everything, from taking notes, to watching videos… I’ve got this one set up for you, although your account is limited for now.”

Trixie quickly teleported the device to her, making the man jump in surprise.

“Wh– How… What was that?”

After she was done giggling, Sam answered him, simply saying “teleportation.”

“Holy… She can do that? Oh man. Betruger didn’t see that, did he? No, he would have flipped out if he did…”

“So… How does this thing work?” Trixie asked, examining the device in front of her.

Doctor Tailor gave her an amused grin. “It’s pretty simple, you just need to tap the screen on the menu icons. In fact, I want to try something. We know that you can understand us, but I want to check if this applies to written text, too. Let me send you an email.”

The man took his own PDA and tapped on it for a few seconds. A short moment later, the device Trixie was holding beeped and a small icon flashed, along with a short message.

“This says I have received an email…” With the humans’ directions, she accessed her inbox and found the message, marked sent by Dr. Anthony Tailor. “It reads,” she said to the two scientists, “this is a test.”

“So you have no trouble reading our alphabet at all… This is quite impressive,” the man said with a smile. “Let’s try writing, then. Send me an answer.”

A few more minutes were necessary, but Trixie eventually managed to create a message of her own and send it.

“Huh.” Doctor Tailor’s stared at his PDA with raised eyebrows. “Well, your grammar is… interesting, to say the least.”

The unicorn turned her nose up. “Well, Trixie did what she could with what you gave her. Find Trixie a quill and some parchment if you want her to write properly.” She huffed a little to emphasize her point.

“Let me see,” Sam scooted closer to him, trying to get a glance of the message. “Oh wow… It’s uh… phonetic writing maybe?”

“Looks like it,” the man answered. “More or less… Well, I suppose having her write in flawless English would have been even more disturbing,” he added with a shrug.

“Oooh! We should get her a pen and some paper,” Sam said with a broad grin. “I wonder how that would turn out!”

“We spent the next few hours trying different ways to communicate,” Trixie said. “These scientists were really thorough, trying to figure out why we could understand each other.”

She sighed. “We took a break after a while… That’s when– When… it began.” Trixie shuddered and fell silent, her eyes stuck on the ground near her forehooves.

“Trixie… Are you alright?” Twilight Sparkle sounded worried.

“Yeah… It’s just…”

“Take your time,” the young princess said soothingly.

Trixie nodded and inhaled deeply. “Let’s just get this over with…”

She yawned and jumped to her hooves. She walked closer to the window, watching the two scientists who were reading figures and taking notes, both of them hunched over a computer screen. Crash was still sitting near the door, her feet propped on a nearby desk and lazily flipping through the pages of a magazine.

“Hey you,” Trixie called, making the guardswoman turn her head in her direction. “Trixie is famished. Be a nice host and bring her more of these peanut butter crackers.”

“Yeah... no. I’m not your servant or your host or... whatever.”

The blond woman tried to get back to reading, only to see the magazine disappear in a cloud of pink magic. She blinked a few times before facing Trixie with a scowl on her face.

“Hey! Give that back!”

Trixie smirked. “I’ll trade it for crackers.”

Crash only gave her a glare. Keeping her narrowed eyes on Trixie, the guardswoman grabbed another magazine that was laying near and slowly opened it. As soon as she had taken her gaze off of Trixie and back on the paper, it winked out of her hands.

“Fine,” the woman said, crossing her arms. “No reading, then.”

Trixie observed the woman for a moment. She made no sign of moving... Just as the unicorn was deciding to “motivate” Crash a little more, she spoke up.

“If you take anything else,” she said, staring down at Trixie. “I’ll come in to get it and I’ll show you how humans discipline unruly horses.”

“You wouldn’t dare…”

“You just wait until I find some ropes...”

Trixie did not answer her, opting to ask the other, nicer woman instead. Thankfully, Samantha proved much more understanding and went to find something to eat.

Grabbing one of the magazines she had borrowed, Trixie jumped back on the bed, lying on her back and lazily kicking a hoof in the air. “Guns and nachos,” she muttered to herself. “What the hay are these?”

She had barely began reading an article when the lights in the room suddenly switched off all at once, plunging both Trixie’s cell and the nearby room in darkness. Only the dim light coming from a few computers’ LEDs remained, painting a strange imitation of a night sky.

“Generators down again,” Crash said with a groan. She turned her flashlight on, but it was barely enough to light a small corner of the room. “For a high-tech research station we sure got shitty equipment…”

Trixie jumped when a whooshing sound echoed through the room and fiery orange lines and symbols suddenly appeared on every surface. The walls, the ceiling, the floor, all were covered by an intricate pattern that went beyond any kind of magic she had ever seen. It only lasted a second or two before they disappeared, but in the middle of the room, a pillar of flame suddenly rose, causing the two humans and one unicorn to shout in surprise.

The flames disappeared rather quickly too, but in their place remained a ghostly yellow skull. A human skull, floating in the air and wreathed in flames, its features frozen in a vicious grin.

“What the–”

Before doctor Tailor had time to say anything else, the skull screeched and darted in his direction. It landed straight in the middle of his chest, but seemed to go through as if he wasn’t there at all and disappeared through the wall.

The next second, the man was lifted into the air, ghostly energy appearing and vanishing around him in mere seconds.

Everything became quiet for an instant, until a sinister laugh was heard echoing and some of the lights went back on, taking only a part of the darkness away.

“What the hell is going on… Doctor?” Crash turned her flashlight towards the large man standing still at the other end of the room. He turned a pair of yellow, glowing eyes to her.

“... Doc?”

The doctor only moaned as an answer and walked a few clumsy steps in Crash’s direction.

“What’s wrong? What– Gah!”

She ducked down at the last second as the big man swung one of his arms, barely missing her head.

“What are you doing? Stop–”

The next swing hit Crash in the side and sent her tumbling into a desk. The woman fell on the ground, followed by a computer screen and a few files. Trixie shouted out of fear, making the possessed human turn to her. He moaned and banged his fist on the window, making the unicorn shiver as she expected the glass to break. It did not give out, but the doctor tried again and again, beating a rhythm that resonated inside the small cell, filling Trixie’s ears until she heard nothing else.

A pair of arms suddenly grabbed him from behind. Almost too fast for Trixie to see it, Crash threw the man over her shoulder and sent him landing on the floor a few meters away. Trixie shuddered when she saw him rise back up, apparently unaffected.

With an angry roar, Crash jumped and swung her flashlight, hitting him right on the head. The improvised club made a sickening “thock” noise as it striked... The former doctor stayed still for a moment... only to reach up and grab Crash’s neck with his hand the next second.

The woman shrieked, but quickly gathered her wits and wrapped her own arms around his, pushing and bending his elbow in an unnatural way. The man still didn’t seem to feel any kind of discomfort, simply trying to punch her with his other fist. With a cry of rage, Crash swung the flashlight on his head again. And again and again, until a wet cracking sound was heard and blood started to flow out of his head. She still gave a few more hits for good measure, splattering red all over the floor.

Completely unable to take her eyes off the scene, Trixie watched Crash finally stand up and take a few deep breaths. After a short moment, she turned around and quickly walked back near the cell door.

Trixie barely registered the woman taking her helmet and putting it on, the unicorn’s eyes still mesmerized by the liquid pooling under doctor Tailor’s head.

“HQ, this is Corporal Kraśzajczenski. One of the scientists in Gamma Labs just attacked me. He went berserk, I had to kill him…” The unicorn blinked and focused back on the guardswoman, her face now concealed behind the greenish visor. A few seconds passed before Crash spoke again. “The whole base? What’s going on?” Another short pause… “Copy that. What are my orders… Roger that. Out.”

“What happened?” Trixie asked, rushing to the window and angling her head to try and see the woman in the corner of the room. “Who were you talking to? Why did he attack you?” Trixie pointed at the man lying on the ground. “Did you… Is he?”

“He’s dead, yeah…” Crash grabbed some sort of weird object that Trixie did not recognize, opened it up and slid a long slab of metal inside before slapping it closed again. “Something’s attacking the base. I’m heading to the marine headquarters to regroup with the others.”

“You– You’re leaving? What about me? What if one of those… things comes here?”

“The cell is locked, you’ll be safe. Don’t worry, we’ll get the base secure in no time.”

Each one of Trixie’s hairs rose up as the woman turned and ran towards the exit. “Wait! Don’t leave me alone…” She screamed as the door closed. “I’m too young to die!”

As the last echoes of her own voice died down, the unicorn became aware of the noises around her... Although the room was somehow quiet, she could hear faint shouts and screams in the distance, as well as what sounded like explosions, distant and muffled by the walls. The lights flickered from time to time, never coming back on at full strength and casting shifting shadows that had her twitch and turn her head from side to side.

“Calm down, Trixie,” she told herself, taking a few deep breaths. “Everything will be fine, those humans know what they’re doing…” Another deep breath managed to slow down her heart to a reasonable level.

A bone-chilling screech undid all those efforts in a second.

Even though she had only spent about a day with humans, Trixie was quite sure that none of them could produce that kind of screech. Something in the primal parts of her brain simply knew that this was the sound of a predator… Cold sweat running down her back, she quietly stepped back to the cell’s cot, wondering if she could properly hide under it. Another idea hit her as she spotted the PDA she had been given earlier. It took a little while, but the unicorn managed to send an email simply reading “HELP” to Samantha.

Trixie spent the next few minutes curled up in a ball. She shuddered and squeaked every time she heard more screeches and hisses, seeming to come from inside the walls. When she heard the noise of a door opening, she jumped in the air.

“Trixie?” The unicorn was as grateful as ever when she saw Sam’s face appear on the other side of the window. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” she answered with a relieved sigh. “I’m fine, but… The doctor…” She lifted a hoof meekly to point at the body. Sam’s eyes followed it and she froze.

“My God…” She covered her mouth with her hands. “What– What happened?”

“There was some sort of… evil magic... It made him crazy. He attacked Crash and she– she…”

“Oh God…” Sam took a few shuddering breaths. “Something happened, I don’t know what. The whole labs are in chaos but I– I didn’t think anyone had died… This is crazy.”

Trixie was about to answer, but footsteps echoing from somewhere nearby froze her for a second. “There’s something close,” she told the woman, trying to keep her voice down. “I have a very bad feeling… We need to get out of here.”

“I– Maybe… We could get to the nearest security checkpoint, there’s a squad of marines…” She nodded as she kept speaking. “Yeah, they can protect us. That’s what they’re here for!” Sam took another deep breath. “Alright, let me open the cell first.”

The woman walked to a computer, making sure not to step in doctor Tailor’s blood on the way, and started typing. Trixie gulped as she heard another hiss and silently prayed that Sam would go faster.

“Okay,” she said, her eyes still locked on the screen. “That should unlock–” the power went out again, plunging the room in darkness. The same creepy laughter from earlier echoed and when it died out, Trixie heard a mixture of screeching, the thuds of many objects being knocked down, crying and screaming... So much screaming... from a feminine voice, that lasted for one second, then five, then ten…It finally drowned into gurgles...

When silence came back, the lights turned on again.

Where Sam had been sitting a moment ago, a large creature was now standing. Its skin was dark, making it hard to see properly in the semi-darkness. What Trixie could see, though, was that it was standing on two legs like a human, although much taller and with a heavy, muscular build... The thing turned around, allowing the unicorn to see a grotesque face, with no nose and at least five pairs of black, beady eyes, reminiscent of a spider. The imp spotted Trixie and screeched, showing her a row of very sharp-looking teeth in the process.

Frozen by fear, the unicorn could only watch in horror as the creature held out a claw and summoned a ball of concentrated fire that bathed the room in orange light. As if it had been a foal’s toy, the imp chucked the fireball at Trixie... Time seemed to slow down as she saw the projectile approach, soaring lazily through the air and heading straight for her.

It took Trixie a little while to realize that she wasn’t dead… The ball had hit the window and left a black stain, but did not break it. The imp screeched angrily and crouched on all fours.

Trixie screamed when she suddenly found herself face to face with the monster hanging onto the glass, its maw opened only a few centimeters from her. She scooted back until her back was pressed against the wall, while the imp climbed down and observed her, wondering how to reach its prey. It clawed the window a few times, but the reinforced glass held firm and only showed a few scratches.

Trixie breathed rapidly... Fortunately for her, the humans had designed a very secure cell and although she was trapped inside, she was relatively safe from anything going inside. She tried to calm herself and think of a solution.

The lights turned brighter as more power came back in the room. A beeping sound was heard from the door’s direction and, with a whoosh, the metal panel suddenly slid open, executing the command Sam had given it a moment earlier.

Trixie turned horrified eyes towards the imp. It may have been her imagination, but she was sure that she had seen some sort of smile on the thing’s lips... It walked calmly towards the door while Trixie frantically backtracked as far as she could, unfortunately finding the cell’s corner behind her.

The creature ducked to go through the doorframe, then stopped inside and stared at Trixie with its many eyes. Now that it was standing only a few meters away, she realized just how gigantic the monster was compared to her, almost reaching the ceiling while she barely stood halfway there.

With a hiss, the imp summoned another fireball in its hand. As if it was savoring the moment, it waited a few seconds before throwing it at Trixie.

She jumped to the side and avoided a direct hit, but the ball burst as it hit the wall, sending a wave of terrible heat over the unicorn and blackening the tip of her tail...

While Trixie was fumbling, trying to get her hooves under her, the imp prepared another fireball and tossed it at her.

The unicorn screwed her eyes shut in fear and, by pure reflex, she activated her magic... After a few seconds of not burning alive, Trixie opened one eye and yelped as she saw the orange orb, wrapped in her pink magic and floating mere centimeters away from her muzzle.

When the imp screeched, she reacted on instinct and pushed the fireball with her magic as strong as she could, straight into the creature. With a cry of pain and fury, it went flying backwards and bounced on the wall, then flopped on the ground, unmoving. Under Trixie’s wide eyes, the thing slowly disintegrated in a faint orange glow, like a piece of paper consuming itself in a fire. A few seconds later, scorch marks were the only remaining traces of their fight...

Trixie stood in place for what could have been either seconds or hours, trying to wrap her mind around what had happened. She had never seen anyone get killed before... Even during the ursa minor incident, nopony had gotten hurt. Now, in just a few minutes, one human had been clubbed to death under her eyes, a monster had attacked her, she had destroyed it, but not before…

Breathing shallowly, Trixie slowly walked out. She hadn’t seen Sam since the creature had appeared. She had to check if she was still alive…

Every step was a challenge against herself, all of Trixie’s instincts telling her to turn tail and run. After what felt like a very long walk, the unicorn stepped out of her cell and approached the desk where Sam had been working. The desk itself hid the woman from her view, only one of her feet visible from Trixie’s position. She prodded it with a hoof, getting no reaction... Trixie took a deep breath and stepped forward.

Blood. She had never seen so much blood at once...

Sam was lying on her back, eternally immobile now. The creature had carved deep slashes in the woman’s body, tearing it apart as if it had been made of paper. A huge gash on her chest had bled on her lab coat, tinting it a dark red. Claws had dug three trenches across her face, letting Trixie see a few teeth through the woman’s torn cheek. One of Sam’s hand was wrapped around her neck, a last, desperate attempt to stop the blood from flowing out of her punctured throat. Her other hand was lying a meter away from her body, cleanly cut off of her arm.

Trixie hardly paid attention to the puddle of blood she was stepping in, her eyes unable to leave the woman’s expression. Eyes bulging out and mouth twisted in a silent scream, Samantha Carlsen’s face clearly told that her last moments were ones of absolute horror. It was hard to imagine her resting in peace...

Trixie turned and walked away, almost falling to the ground from the shaking of her legs. Uncontrolled, panicked sobs escaped her as she mechanically went back to her cell. Trixie grabbed her PDA with her magic and considered sending a message to Crash, the only being left that she knew on Mars, but after opening her mail box, she found herself unable to think of even one word to write.

After letting a desperate whimper escape her mouth, Trixie headed out for the door, with nothing but the human device clutched in her magic and the hope that she could find the security checkpoint Sam had spoken of before the creatures could get her...

Author's Note

There we are. I've gone over this chapter three or four times by now. I guess it's time to publish it or I'll never stop modifying it...

The invasion starts! People die! Trixie manages to kill an imp somehow! Exclamation points! I'm excited!

I like Betruger as a villain. He's as cheesy as they come (seriously, half of his lines in Doom 3 are a variation of "mwahahaha"), but he's so creepy that it actually works. He's also got some legitimately good taunts... "Death will not be your end... Your soul will burn in Hell forever!" While you're in Hell in-game. Creepy...

As usual, I'll be happy to read your impressions and thanks for reading.

5. Gamma Labs

Gamma Labs

Built shortly before the UAC refocused its research efforts on teleportation within the Delta complex, the Gamma laboratories house all research related to terraforming, including subjects as varied as chemistry, meteorology and biology.

Trixie stepped cautiously into the sterile, metallic corridors, with her PDA held against her chest like a shield, her eyes darting left and right, her legs shaking and her breaths short and shallow. She froze when her eyes caught a movement on her left. It took Trixie several seconds to realize that it was only her own shadow. Whatever had happened to the base had blown most of the lights away and the few that were still working flickered and blinked, making her see monsters everywhere…

She forced herself to take a deep breath. “Keep it together, Trixie,” she whispered to herself. ”It’s just a trick of the light... You know everything about tricks.” She stared at her flickering shadow for a moment. “Right?”

She started walking again, a little calmer than before. “That monster thing is dead anyway… It’s over now...” A fragile smile appeared on her lips. “Yeah… Everything is fine now… Thanks to me.” She stopped dead in her tracks and blinked a few times as she heard what she had said. “Thanks to me!” she repeated, a grin spreading on her muzzle. “It’s like the Ursa Major! Except this time it’s real. The humans had nowhere to run to,” she started narrating, “but the Great and Powerful Trixie, with her awesome magics–”

A shrill scream interrupted her monologue, locking all of her muscles in place. No more than a dozen meters ahead, she briefly saw a human running across the corridor she was in. A few seconds later, a demon, exactly like the one she had managed to destroy earlier, appeared. It walked. The thing did not even run, it simply walked calmly on its long, slender legs, going after the human at a leisurely pace.

Trixie slowly swallowed the lump in her throat. “I need to get out of here,” she whispered to herself. She looked back and saw that the hallway she was in only ended in the room where she was locked up before. Forward, she could hear the distant screams of the fleeing human... Looking left and right, she spotted a grate in the wall next to her. With a quick burst of magic, it was ripped off, revealing a small shaft where she quickly crawled in. Only when the grate was placed back behind her did she allow herself to take a breath.

She crawled forward in the tight passage, hoping that it was leading her somewhere safe. “Forget this place,” she told herself. “I’ve got to get back to Equestria… Star Trail! I have to find that idiot and somehow make his broken teleportation spell work.” She stopped for a moment. “What if he got killed?” she asked herself. “The spell needs at least two unicorns to work. If he’s dead, I’ll never…” She shook her head. “Keep it together, Trixie! He’s alive. He’s hiding somewhere in this base. You just have to find him and you’ll be back home… Then you can beat the tar out of him for dragging you here in the first place!”

The prospect of violent retribution against the stallion breathed a new motivation into Trixie. She progressed slowly through the vent, her hooves sliding on the smooth metal and barely getting any traction. She squeezed herself between pipes hot enough to singe her fur when she touched them. She crawled with her breath held through gas leaks. She contorted to follow the sharp turns of the vent. When she reached a new grate, she slumped down next to it and greedily sucked as much fresh air as she could. Unfortunately, it was too high off the ground to be used as an exit and barely worked as a window on the room below: Trixie could only see a small part of it, cluttered with nondescript crates.

Just as she was about to leave, Trixie heard the whirring sound of a door opening.

“Spread out!” a male voice shouted. Multiple footsteps echoed below Trixie, but apart from a few human-shaped shadows dancing on the wall, she could not see anything.

“Clear!” another voice shouted.

“Alright, move!”

“Wait…” another said. “What’s that noise?”

What little light illuminated the room suddenly went dark. An unnatural screech covered the humans’ nervous shouting. Reddish-orange light glowed for a moment. It darted across the room like a firework. A human screamed a second later. Detonations resonated in the room. Loud and deep ones, like a roaring dragon. Small, fast-paced ones, like firecrackers. One at a time, or in a string that seemed to merge into a thunder-like rumble… Even with her hooves covering them, Trixie’s ears were ringing under the sonic assault. With every explosion, a small burst of flame burst somewhere in the room.

Trixie’s breath caught up in her chest when she spotted something slithering down the wall facing her. Climbing the wall face-down like a giant cockroach, a gray-skinned demon made its way to the ground. Trixie only saw him pounce out of her sight, but the horrified scream was enough to guess what had happened.

The detonations lowered in intensity, almost stopping at times.

“Help!” a man suddenly shouted. “Help me!”

“Where are you?” another answered. “I can’t see anything!”

His voice was quickly turned into a gurgling sound. There were more screams and, finally, silence. Complete, heavy silence in the room, making Trixie’s shallow breathing sound deafening to her ears.

“This… This is Tartarus,” Trixie whispered to herself. The smell of blood and sulfur that reached her did nothing to prove her wrong… With a shudder and a heaving stomach, Trixie crawled away in her vent, pretending that the wetness flowing down her muzzle and her labored breathing were only due to the steamy air. Only one thought repeated itself in her mind: “find Star Trail”. He had to be somewhere in the base.

He had to…

After what seemed like hours, Trixie finally reached an exit in her tiny, personal labyrinth. After being cramped for so long, she did not even mind that what she saw below her was a toilet seat. After a few contortions, she was back on the ground, hopefully far away from any demon.

Trixie sighed and left the stall. On the wall ahead of her was a big mirror, lined up with sinks under it. A few more stalls were lined up next to hers. A leaky pipe dripped at a regular pace, the only sound in the room, aside from th mare’s tense breathing.

After fiddling with the taps for a minute, Trixie finally managed to get some water flowing and took a few ice-cold gulps. She sat down and took a breath, then, for the first time in over a day, saw her own reflection. Her fur was matted and messy, only surpassed by her mane: dark stains and tangle clumps of hair gave her the look of a feral animal. Almost by reflex, she lit her horn up and tried to arrange herself a little.

In the mirror, she saw one of the stall doors behind her open. Just a little, it left a gap of only a centimeter or two. Trixie froze, keeping a strand of her mane suspended in the air. The pinkish glow of her magic was the brightest thing to light up the room, but in the mirror, she saw the glint of an eye looking at her from inside the stall.

It just stayed there, staring at her, waiting for her to make a move…

She swallowed the lump in her throat, took a slow and deep breath… then turned around and gathered her magic.

The door closed.

She sent a ray of pure magic at it. There was a scream. The door was scorched from her blast, but not pierced.

Focusing her magic on it, Trixie forced the stall door opened. A human leapt out and charged, shoulder first, into her.

Trixie was thrown back, her head bumping painfully against one of the sinks. She saw stars dancing in her eyes and the human’s fist heading straight for her face.

It stopped a hair’s breadth away from her chin, held in a bright, pink haze. For a second, both Trixie and the human stared at each other. The man’s eyes were wide, his shrunken pupils flickering back and forth between his hand and Trixie’s face.

He screamed and pulled back. Taken by surprise, Trixie lost her focus and let her magic vanish.

The human gave her a terrified look and turned away, running out of the bathroom.

Trixie simply stayed still for a moment. Her head was sure to have a lump, but her hoof came back without blood when she touched it. ‘Stupid human,’ she told herself, then blinked as she realized what just happened.

“Wait!” she called. “Wait, I’m sorry!” She ran after the man, just in time to see him turn around a corner at the end of the hallway. “I thought you were one of these monsters! I’m sorry I attacked you.”

Ahead of her, the human only screamed. She frowned and muttered under her breath “come on! I’m not that scary…”

The screaming went on, sounding more distant and deformed by the hallways. “Wait for me, damn it!” she shouted. “I need your help to find my way in this…” Trixie reached the intersection where she had seen him turn, but he was already out of sight.

No, not out of sight... There was a hole in the floor, where a big metal plate had been removed. The man’s hand was the only part visible of him, clutching the edge.

“Hold on,” Trixie shouted. “I’m coming!” She rushed forwards, grabbed his arm in her magic and pulled.

The man was still screaming…

It came easily. She stared at the hand floating in front of her eyes. A hand, attached to a wrist, attached to an arm, attached to nothing... Nothing but bone and torn flesh, dripping fresh blood.

He was still screaming.

Trixie stumbled back, babbling incoherently. The severed arm followed her, still held in her magic.

She turned around and ran.

The man was still screaming…

Trixie ran. She didn’t know why, how, where… She knew that she had to run. Every other thought was swept away by her panicking mind, millennia-old instincts taking over and leaving her with only one imperative: running.

The small part of her mind that still could think rationally knew that she wouldn’t be safer any further. She knew that there were more of the demons in the labyrinth of corridors. Every turn could put her face to face with another one of these abominations. Each hole in a wall could hide a monster. She was galloping without caution. Her noise could have been giving up her position to all of them.

And yet... she couldn’t stop running. Her legs refused to. Her heart pumped her blood as fast as it could. Every breath burnt her lungs, but she still kept running. Every broken, burning pipe in the walls only spurred her on. The bloody corpses she went past made her pick up the pace. Every hiss or screech she heard coming from somewhere brought new strength in her muscles. Every time she thought she couldn’t run anymore, something was there to inject a new dose of terror in her mind and make her legs react, driven on auto-pilot.

Trixie didn’t stop of her own will. At some point, her hoof caught on something. She flew through the air for a second or two, then tumbled and rolled on the floor.

She stayed for a minute there, panting for breath and unable to get her legs under her. They were stiff and sore, all four of them cramping up at the same time. Trixie groaned, the adrenaline no longer numbing her and letting the pain register fully.

Almost as an afterthought, she realized that she was carrying something in her magic, her horn locked on the object the whole way. Her eyes stopped on the severed arm. Her muzzle turned into a grimace. She quickly threw the limb away. It flopped on the ground like a dead fish.

Taking her gaze away from it, Trixie examined her surroundings. In the faint light coming off her horn, she could see that she was lying in the middle of a relatively open space. The walls around her had several windows, large panels of glass allowing her to see the inside of offices: desks, chairs, stacks of paper, cabinets, lockers… Almost every window was cracked, but not broken. Whoever built this place wanted it to have strong glass. Glass solid enough to crack a skull, as she could plainly see: a man was lying on the ground a few steps away from her, a long trail of blood going down from the point where his head had met the window. He was now slumped in a sitting position, his back to the wall and his legs laying straight in front of him, as if he had intended to trip Trixie. He could have almost passed for being asleep, if it weren’t for his gaping mouth and glazed eyes…

Trixie felt the urge to run once more, but her legs refused to comply. She could only stay and stare in the face of death while her muscles demanded a break. She let her head fall on the ground.

Tears rolled down her cheeks. She didn’t bother wiping them. The room remained still, silent except for the ventilation breathing some chilly air in and Trixie’s whimpering sobs.

Blood. Fire. Flesh… Death. Nothing but death everywhere. She wondered if she was even still alive, if this was some sort of twisted afterlife or a creation of her confused mind. Maybe that teleportation spell never worked. Maybe she was laying in a hospital bed with serious brain damage.

“They’re… coming…”

Trixie’s head shot up and her eyes widened. The voice was breathy, airy and undefined. It was neither male nor female, neither a pony’s nor a human’s. It was a gust of wind vibrating in a way that sounded like a voice. Trixie’s breath locked itself in her lungs, refusing to come ou as she strained her ears to listen.

It spoke again, repeating its strange message and taking its time with each word. “They’re… coming…”

“What? Who?” Trixie asked, whispering in the empty room.

“Over... here…”

The voice sounded like it came from one of the offices. Trixie gathered her hooves under her, wincing at the soreness in her legs. She stood up and whimpered again when she saw that the fur on her chest was matted down, painted red with blood. Not hers, fortunately…

“Over… here… ... Hurry…”

Trixie stepped forward and wondered for a moment why she was following some unidentified voice’s instructions… but quickly realized that she had nothing to lose at this point. She cautiously entered the small office, only separated from the entrance room by a simple door frame -the door itself was stuck open- and another window.

“Hide…”

“Huh?”

Trixie’s ears swiveled back when she picked up the now-familiar sound of a door, whirring and swishing to life.

She dove below the desk, a quick touch of magic stopping the swiveling chair from moving. She curled up into the smallest ball she could, forced her breath to be slow and quiet… Then she waited…

Heavy steps echoed in the room. They sounded like metal striking on metal, a deafening rhythm, beaten by at least a dozen feet. They filled Trixie’s ears, drowning the sound of her own heart. In front of her wide-opened eyes, shadows danced on the wall. Tall stripes of darkness, shifting as their owners walked in the bleak glimmer of whatever light they were carrying.

One of the shadows stopped. It got bigger. The creature was entering the office…

She saw the end of a boot, only a few paces away. It had to be a human, but Trixie didn’t dare to come out of her hiding spot. Something was odd about that group, their complete silence, the relaxed confidence of their steps. Everyone she had met until then had been confused and panicking. Except for the demons...

The man stayed still for several, very long seconds while Trixie held her breath. She felt a drop of sweat rolling down her brow. It flowed calmly between her eyes, then perched on the tip of her muzzle for a moment, almost taunting her. The human remained immobile, as if he was waiting for Trixie to sneeze.

The drop of sweat tickled her nose, doing its best to break her resistance. She scrunched her muzzle, trying to move it away.

The man moved. Trixie clenched her eyes shut…

His steps became more distant. Trixie kept her breath in, teeth clenched, while the group walked away.

She heard a door closing. Even then, she waited as long as her lungs allowed her until she finally exploded in a breath and jumped out of under her desk, scratching her itchy muzzle with a relieved sigh.

“That was too close,” she whispered to herself. “Way too close… If it hadn’t been for that voice…”

Still in the dark, Trixie lifted her head and swiveled her ears left and right, doing her best to find the breathy whispers again. She waited a whole minute, hearing nothing.

“What now?” she whispered again. “Is that it?”

Nothing…

“What am I supposed to do now?”

Her mane stood on her neck as she heard what sounded like a long, strained sigh, as if words were too difficult to make for the voice. A single word stood out.

“Seek…”

“Seek? Seek what?” After waiting a few seconds in silence, she asked again. “What? What am I supposed to do? Or find?”

No answer…

“Who are you? What do you want with me?”

The voice was done...

Trixie sighed and let her head down. “This is beyond crazy… If I get out of this alive,” she mumbled to herself. “If I get out of this alive, I swear I’ll build a shrine to Epona... A big one. And I’ll make a ton of offerings.”

She waited a few moments, but whatever deity was watching over her did not respond. With another sigh, Trixie gave a look around. 'What am I seeking, exactly?' she asked herself. 'Is there anything important here?'

Death. Chaos. Destruction. In the middle of the mangled corpses and pools of blood, Trixie wondered what could be worth finding.

She approached one of the dead bodies. The man's head was turned face down on the floor.

His torso was facing up...

She saw another, slumped against a wall. The UAC logo on that wall was visible through the massive hole in his chest...

Trixie closed her eyes and shuddered. For what had to be the hundredth time already, she wondered why she had to be subjected to this nightmare. She turned away from the gruesome corpse, only to have her eyes fall on a wide trail of blood on the ground.

The crimson liquid had been smeared on the floor, like the long stroke of a deranged painter. On each side were bloody prints. Left hand, right hand. Left hand, right hand...

Trixie took a deep breath, then walked along the grotesque tracks. They led her inside another office. A large cabinet was standing inside, with a door that looked more like a metallic shutter. On the side of the shutter was a panel displaying some numbers on its screen, the locker still waiting for the right combination to open.

One of the numbers was smeared in blood. The trail led down, all the way to a dead man's hand. His face was away from Trixie, leaning on the cabinet, so that only his reddish-brown hair was visible. He was wearing the same nondescript, beige clothes that so many seemed to have in this base, although the bottom of his shirt was darkened by drying blood.

One of his hands was still held above his head, halfway to the screen. Lower, his legs were nothing but two lumps of squashed meat, seeming to be held together more by his pants than by what was left of his bones.

Trixie shuddered as she imagined his last moments. How long did he survive? Long enough to drag himself from the central room to this office… Her eyes locked on the cabinet that he was trying to open with the last of his strength.

“What’s so important in there?” she muttered to herself.

Trixie pushed the man with a shaky hoof. He fell limply to the side. Although she couldn’t be sure, his face seemed young to Trixie, with pale white skin and a pair of small, round glasses. Her eyes went down as a glint of light caught her attention. She saw a PDA poking out of one of his pockets, still functioning.

Trixie blinked a few times as she tried to remember where her own PDA was. She recalled having it when she left her cell, but it was nowhere around her. She had it until…

The bathroom. She cursed as she realized that she forgot it there when she went after the scared human… But now that she could picture it, maybe there was something she could do about it, without having to backtrack all the way there.

Trixie closed her eyes and concentrated. She felt magic forming around her horn, curling and reshaping itself into a familiar spell. Through the veil of reality, she reached out and pulled.

She opened her eyes and smiled. Her PDA was now floating in the pink haze of her magic.

Her smile vanished when she heard a low growl. It was rumbling, low enough that she could feel it, making her magic shiver and her horn vibrate The pink haze around her PDA suddenly turned a reddish orange and menacing glyphs appeared, ephemeral glimpses of a much darker and stronger magic at work. She immediately cut off her spell and the PDA fell to her hooves. Trixie stared at it for a few long minutes, expecting it to turn into a demon for a moment…

Nothing happened that time. She shook her head and took a deep breath. Putting her PDA aside for the moment, she picked up the human’s and activated it. Trixie looked for the only function she really knew how to use: emails. There were only a few in the list and, sitting down on the ground, she opened the first.

Received: 11-13-2145
From: Carl White
Subject: RE: Freaked out
Yeah, I know what you mean. I thought I’d get used to all the weird stuff, but it only got worse. I can’t tell you how happy I am to be back on Earth.

Sorry, I shouldn’t say that when you just arrived. Too bad that we missed each other… Anyways, just focus on your work and everything should be fine. Let us know when you’re coming back, mom wants to hold a big party with the whole family.

Almost forgot: I left you a little something. Ask a guy named Conrad Preston.
It’s a little gift I gave myself a couple weeks before I left. I hope you’ll never need it... Thank god I didn’t, but it helped me sleep, knowing it was there.

Take good care of it, I’ll want it back! ;)
Come back soon!

----Original Message----
Sent: 11-11-2145
To: Carl White
Finally made it to Mars. You said the trip was long, but damn! It feels like I was in that shuttle for years.

Sorry I couldn’t write earlier, but my manager put me to work as soon as I got here. The station looks seriously understaffed...

I really wish there were more people around, actually. When it’s late, this place is just creepy. I’m sure it must be leaky pipes or something, but I swear I hear all kinds of noises when no one’s around. Like footsteps, or whispering. I think I heard someone crying last night, but I was the only one in the lab. With the damn lights turning on and off all the time, it’s like a haunted house in here. This morning, all of the lab’s equipment turned on on their own. I’m sure I had everything off and unplugged… I’d say someone is playing pranks, but no one’s admitted anything and all the other guys are as creeped out as I am.

I guess my mind is playing tricks on me. It’s gonna take a while to get used to Mars... Some of the men working here are just weird. I hope I won’t end up like that…

Anyways, how are things back on Earth?

Mike

Trixie looked at the corpse. She stared at him, maybe expecting him to come back to life, to wake up from this nightmare and forget all about it. As if nothing had happened, as if the most important thing he had to worry about was to go back to his family. The unicorn let out a shuddering sigh and took her eyes off of him.

The next few mails were of little interest. Orders from his boss. Messages between him and his colleagues, asking if they knew what caused all the strange events he had described… There was only one that caught her attention.

Received: 11-09-2145
From: Conrad Preston
Subject: Delivery
Hello, Michael. Your brother left a package for you. I passed by your office, but then I realized I was a day early and you weren’t even on Mars yet… So I left it in the storage locker there. I had to ask MarSec for the code and they said I should change it for safety. It’s 571 now.

Hope you like whatever Carl gave you. Contact me one of these days and we’ll get a few beers. With Carly gone I’m down one drinking buddy.

Trixie reared up to reach the screen and entered the code. The display turned green as soon as she tapped the final number and the metallic shutter lifted up. She stepped back to watch the meager contents of the shelves: a brown, greasy paper bag (which judging by its smell might have contained something edible, but certainly not to a pony), a magazine with a glossy cover and filled with pictures of naked human females and two boxes, one made of cardboard and another made of metal.

Trixie picked up the cardboard one. She rotated it in the air to watch it from all sides and heard a faint clinking noise from the inside. The UAC logo was printed several times on the box, along with various writings: “10 mm ammunition”, “semi-automatic”, “150 gr.”, “soft point”... Opening it revealed a bunch of tiny metallic sticks. She checked the bottom of the box but didn’t find anything else. With a shrug, she put it back into the locker and picked the second box.

This one was bigger and heavier, painted a matte black and closed with a couple of latches. Trixie put it on the ground, unlocked the lid and opened it. The inside was filled with a kind of foamy, squishy filling, securelyholding several other strange objects. Trixie didn’t recognize any of these, except for one that Sam had shown her earlier: a tiny, bluish disk, meant to be read in the humans’ PDAs. She picked it up and inserted it into the proper slot, then stared at the screen while the video started.

The UAC logo appeared, once again, and a formal, male voice started speaking.

“Always aiming for excellence and constant improvement, the U.A.C. is proud to present the latest development in its line of small weapons.”

On the screen, a picture of a strange, vaguely hammer-shaped object appeared and rotated on itself. “Codenamed ‘Bison’ due to its distinctive shape, the UAC Mark-IV semi-automatic pistol is designed to provide lethal firepower in a robust, lightweight and easy to use package.

“With its ten millimeter ammunition, the Bison offers great accuracy and stopping power with only moderate recoil, making it the ideal sidearm for both civilian and military uses.

“Always on the forefront of technology, the UAC is making safer worlds through superior firepower.”

Trixie watched the UAC logo disappear as the video ended, then picked up the pistol in the box and looked at it closely. It was obviously the same model, but in a fancier version than the one she had seen: whereas the one in the introduction video was a simple, black thing, this one was heavily decorated. The metallic parts had a silvery shine, with intricate engravings of leaves and flowers etched all along. The handle was covered in ivory instead of simple wood. The presentation had described it as a weapon, but it looked more like a work of art than anything else and under other circumstances, Trixie would have been happy to simply admire it…

Thankfully, the box included a small booklet with detailed instructions on the use, maintenance and numerous safety rules relating to the pistol. After a few minutes to read through it, Trixie understood roughly what each part did.

She took the box of ammunition back from the closet, now that she knew what to do with these, picked up one of the empty magazines and levitated a dozen of bullets inside. Trixie pulled the slide on the pistol, just like the manual said, then inserted the magazine in the handle until it reached the bottom with a “click”. A twitch of her magic pressed the button releasing the slide and it jumped forward with a loud “shink”.

Trixie looked around the horn-lit office for a target to try her new weapon on. She settled on a ceramic cup standing on the desk a few meters away and filled with pens and pencils. She lined up her eye, the sights and the cup. Another twitch of her magic flipped the safety off. Keeping her levitation as steady as possible, she pulled the trigger, slowly, millimeter by millimeter…

Bang!

“Ow!”

The pistol fell to the ground with a loud “clang”. Trixie brought her hooves to her face, rubbing the spot where the gun had struck her.

“Stupid thing!” Trixie shouted at the inanimate object. “Why did you hit Trixie?”

Predictably, the pistol did not answer, leaving Trixie to grumble and pick the manual back up, leafing through it and this time paying more attention to the paragraph about recoil.

She took the pistol in her magic again, lined it up with her target and… didn’t see the target. Where the cup used to be was nothing but a broken disk of ceramic that had been the bottom once. The rest was scattered all around the room... Trixie watched the gun in front of her. She blinked and stared at it for a minute...

“Let’s try this again,” she whispered to herself. Choosing a computer screen as her target, she lined up her shot, then pulled the trigger.

Bang!

The pistol bucked in her grasp, but this time, she stopped it before it struck her face. Trixie smirked at her small victory, then looked at the result and gaped. The screen had a neat, round hole in it. So did the filing cabinet behind it... “Even through metal?” she asked the gun in her grasp. Trixie stepped forward and opened the pierced drawer. Squished inside was the flattened bullet. It had still managed to dent the metal before stopping. She stared at the gun again; her nose scrunched up from the sulfurous scent in the air.

“Just like that,” she whispered. “This thing makes armor pointless…”

Trixie carefully turned the safety on and went back to the box of ammunition, then loaded the spare magazine. There were many more bullets left, but nothing to carry them with…

Trixie watched the human’s corpse and pursed her lips. “Sorry about that,” she muttered, then removed his vest. Tying it by the sleeves, she fashioned it into a bindle, put her PDA and spare ammo in, then slung it around her neck.

She was about to turn away from the corpse when she spotted a small, glossy bit of paper on the top shelf. She picked it up in her magic and floated in front of her eyes. In the photograph, Trixie recognized the man. He was standing next to another who looked a lot like him. A woman was sitting in front of them and another, taller man with gray hair was standing behind them all. They were all smiling.

Trixie closed her eyes and took several deep breaths. Softly, she wrapped the man’s hand around the picture and placed it against his chest. With her jaw shut tight, she picked up her new weapon and walked out of the office.

Trixie walked for several minutes with no idea of where to go. She only paid attention to where she put her hooves to avoid pools of blood and severed body parts…

Her wanderings eventually led her into a wide, open room. Or at least as open as things could get in the space station: the ceiling was higher than usual, with a few skylights showing the angry red clouds above. The walls were far enough from one another that neither the few remaining lights nor Trixie’s magic could properly illuminate every corner. She could see some benches and low tables along one of the walls. A big, boxy-looking machine was flickering on and off, the can of soda drawn on its front casting oddly shaped shadows on the opposite wall. A few corridors left the room in several directions, as many tunnels diving deeper into the darkness of the station.

Trixie walked on the tip of her hooves, keeping her eyes opened and scanning left and right at all times. She spotted movement on her left and turned to face it, pointing her pistol straight forward.

Nothing. One of the lamps hanging from the ceiling swung and made the shadow shrink, then grow back slowly. Trixie let out a breath and resumed her walk. Another movement on the right… Just another shadow.

Something moved ahead…

Trixie froze and held her gun in place, perfectly aligned between her and the moving shape. This time, the light didn’t make it disappear, it only became more solid, more defined as the thing walked forward on unsteady feet. Trixie saw two legs, two arms…

She relaxed a little as the human walked towards her.

“Hello,” she said. “It’s nice to finally see someone…”

The human only answered with an inarticulate moan.

“A– Are you ok?” Trixie asked, strengthening her grip on the pistol a little. “Hello?”

The man said nothing. He kept walking slowly forward, almost out of the shadows by now. Trixie could see his big, brown shoes, his legs, his torso, wrapped in an off-white shirt and his face.

His face...

Trixie screamed. Her gun clattered as it fell to the ground. Her eyes widened as she stared at his face. At what should have been his face…

A skull with the skin ripped off of it. Nothing but a bloody hole instead of a nose. Teeth, bright white with red stains, without any lips to cover them. Tattered shreds of flesh hanging off the bones. And two empty eye sockets, with two rivulets of dried blood running off them.

Trixie felt a pressure in her chest, preventing her from breathing properly.

Somehow, those empty sockets were staring at her...

Her legs shook and a pitiful whimper escaped her lips.

It stared at her! He was alive… Was he alive?

The man never stopped shambling towards her, now only a few steps away.

“Run, Trixie!” her mind shouted inside her head.

“Run!”

Her hooves were glued to the floor. The human raised his arm.

Boom!

Trixie winced at the detonation. She blinked a few times. The human shook a little and moaned again. In pain?

Boom!

The human exhaled a gurgling sigh and fell to the ground, face-first and only a few centimeters away from her. His back was torn, fresh blood leaking out of it. Trixie stared at him for a few seconds, until she heard a metallic noise from further ahead of her, like a mechanism cranking itself up.

Trixie saw the end of a cannon.

Behind the cannon, she could make out the familiar, greenish armor that she had seen several times already. The new human’s face remained concealed behind his helmet, but Trixie barely looked at it. She only stared at the gun, still smoking and pointed straight at her.

“Hold your fire!”

A second human, wearing the same green carapace-like armor, walked forward slowly.

“How did you find your way here?”

Trixie couldn’t answer the question for a moment, too stunned by the feminine voice who had asked it. Her jaw worked up and down a few times. “Crash?” she finally managed to say.

“What’s going on?” the other soldier asked, his gun still pointed at Trixie. “Do you know that… What the hell is that?”

“Relax,” Crash said. She pushed his gun down with a hand. “She’s not hostile.” Crash stared at Trixie. “How did you get out of your cell?”

Trixie let her rump fall on the ground and sighed, feeling the tension leaving her body all at once. “Sam,” she said. “She– She let me out. There was a… a monster and she… she…” Her voice died down into a whisper.

“Dead?” Crash simply asked.

Trixie nodded, tears welling in her eyes. The woman mumbled something that Trixie couldn’t understand. The tone sounded angry, though... Crash stayed silent for a while. She checked her gun, kneeled down next to the corpse and turned it on its back, stared at his face for a few seconds. She reached down and grabbed the pistol Trixie had dropped, taking a moment to examine it.

“What do we do now?” the other soldier asked.

“We’re heading for Marine HQ,” she answered. Crash then pointed at Trixie with a thumb. “She’s coming with us.”

“What? This is crazy!” the man said. “We’ll never make it to HQ. And now you want that…” He waved a hand at Trixie. “that horse thing to come with us? I haven’t seen any friendly creature since this mess started.”

“She isn’t one of them,” Crash answered. “I’ve watched her all yesterday. She’s even more lost than we are.”

“Whatever,” he said with a shrug. “We should just hole up and wait for reinforcements.”

“Orders are to regroup at HQ,” she said with a tone that left no room for discussion. “There’s gotta be at least one access we can find through habitations, so that’s where we’re headed. Understood?”

The man grumbled.

“Understood?” Crash asked again, louder.

“Yes, ma’am,” he answered, almost growling.

“And you,” Crash said, turning to face Trixie. “You know how to use that?” She showed the pistol in her hand.

“I think so,” Trixie answered.

“Good. We can use extra firepower…” Crash handed Trixie the gun. “Now here’s the deal: we can’t babysit you. Make yourself useful and listen to me. When I say ‘run’, you run. When I say ‘stop’, you stop. When I tell you to shoot something, you shoot. You don’t ask questions, you shoot. Got it?”

Trixie nodded slowly. “Ok.”

“Good. Now let’s move.”

Crash took the lead, disappearing into a dark hallway. Trixie looked at the other soldier, who silently pointed forward. She nodded and walked.

The three progressed without a word for a while. Crash imposed a steady peace, keeping her gun always up and ready. She rarely looked behind, completely focused on opening the way rather than checking on the others. Trixie followed obediently, relieved to have finally found someone who knew where they were going in that labyrinthine station. Behind her, the marine walked backwards half of the time, making sure that nothing was stalking the group.

“Say,” Trixie asked after a while, “do you know what’s happening here? Is this normal for you guys?”

Crash stopped and turned around. Her expression was impossible to tell behind her reflective helmet, but she seemed to stare at Trixie for a while. “No,” she finally answered. “This isn’t normal at all… I don’t know what’s going on.”

The other human snorted. “It’s another experiment gone out of control. Happens all the time here, except usually there isn’t too much damage.”

“I doubt that,” Crash said. “This looks way bigger than anything the UAC has done before..”

“How can you be sure? They could be doing anything in Delta. No info ever filters out of there, just rumors… And those are pretty disturbing.”

Crash shrugged. “Well, it doesn’t make any difference. It’s up to us to clean up, now… We’ve almost reached the habitation sector, let’s keep moving.”

The three headed further, until they reached a large door with wide glass panels in its frame. Through these, Trixie peeked inside and saw an unusual combination of green and white in the otherwise gray station. Sterile-looking lab desks, with plants growing in small pots and surrounded by a bevy of machines and instruments.

“Crap!”

Trixie looked up at the swearing Crash, who was staring at the red flashing panel next to the door. “I’m supposed to have access to the whole labs, damn it!” the woman said.

“Is there a way around?” the marine asked.

“Sure,” Crash answered, “but it would take forever… Hmmm.” She knocked on the glass parts of the door.

“You think you can squeeze through there?” the other human said.

“Yeah... Your shotgun should be enough to crack that open,” she answered, nodding at the door. “Step back, Trixie.”

The unicorn complied quickly while the marine raised his gun and aimed it at the largest glass section, a little above waist-high to him.

Boom!

Trixie flattened her ears against her skull, but they were already ringing from the detonation. The glass was dotted with dozens of small impacts, but it still held.

Boom!

The glass was crossed by a spiderweb of cracks and fissures.

“Why’d they put bulletproof glass everywhere?” the marine whined. “Ugh.” He pumped his gun again.

Boom! Boom!

A small hole had been bored through the reinforced glass. The marine leaned closer and nodded. Using his shotgun’s stock like a hammer, he pounded on the glass until it bent and finally broke up in large chunks that fell on the other side. When he was done removing the smaller pieces near the edge, he turned to Crash and made a sweeping motion towards the door, saying “ladies first.”

Trixie could almost see the woman rolling her eyes behind her visor. She handed him her gun and hoisted herself head first through the opening. Trixie watched curiously as the alien squirmed and contorted like a worm. First her shoulders, then her torso passed and Trixie saw her upper body upside down through the glass, hands reaching the ground. She grunted and squeezed her waist through, then finished by rolling on the other side of the door, getting to her feet easily.

“I’ll try to find a way to open the door from this side,” Crash said while taking her gun back through the hole. “Give me five minutes.”

Trixie watched her disappear into the laboratory, then looked at the other human. “What happens after five minutes?” she asked.

The man reached into one of his pockets and pulled out a few bright red shells. “We leave without her,” he said, feeding the ammo into his shotgun.

Trixie sat down on the ground, staring through the door.

“So,” the man said, “how’d you get here? I think I’d remember if the UAC hired a talking horse.”

“Teleportation,” Trixie answered. “And I’m a unicorn, not a horse.”

“Teleportation?” the marine said, ignoring her remark. “I know they do some teleportation experiments in Delta… Did they... bring you in? Is that what they’ve been actually trying to do?”

“I don’t know,” the mare said quietly. “I was experimenting with teleportation, too. Something went wrong…”

“No kidding… This is… Well, this place was never nice, but this shit is on a whole new level.”

“What does–”

“Shhh!”

Trixie blinked a few times, watching the soldier. He was staring down the hallway and she turned her eyes in the same direction. She saw two yellowish lights shining in the darkness, moving erratically like a couple of will o’ the wisps. Trixie swiveled her ears forward, holding her breath to be perfectly silent.

She heard a low moan. The shuffling of feet being dragged on the floor. Gulping, she gave a glance at the marine. He lifted his gun to rest it against his shoulder.

Trixie concentrated the magic in her horn, shedding bright, pink light in the corridor.

Boom!

Trixie winced again at the deafening deflagration. In the flickering light of her horn, she saw a human form collapse to the ground. Next to her, she heard the loud cranking of the marine’s shotgun.

“Wh–Why… How did you know…” she managed to say.

“Normal people don’t have glow-in-the-dark eyes,” the man answered. He walked forward, keeping his gun pointed at the corpse and kicked it a couple times. Satisfied that it wasn't responding, he came back near Trixie. "You okay, horse?"

"My name is Trixie," Trixie said, giving him a glare. "And I'm a unicorn."

"Whatever."

Trixie was about to answer when the door behind her opened.

"I heard a shot," Crash said, standing in the doorframe. "Problems?"

"Just one guy," the marine answered. "We're good."

"Alright, let's go then."

The humans stepped forward into the laboratory, leaving a stunned Trixie behind, until she shook her head and hurried after them. They walked silently between the rows of greenery, both familiar and alien plants growing in the planters.

"Don't eat anything, horse!" the marine said with a chuckle. "Who knows what's toxic in here."

"Thanks, human," Trixie answered coldly.

One lab followed another, with very little difference between them, except for the plants being grown in each. The second had some curious bushes with blue leaves and fragrant, strangely vivid pink flowers that Trixie almost took a nibble from.

They were in the middle of rows and rows of cacti when a loud clang came from behind, echoing along the walls and making everyone freeze. Trixie turned around, scoping into the darkness to try and find whatever caused that noise, only to hear a sort of chime behind her, followed by the sound of another door opening.

Trixie whirled around again. Several human soldiers rushed inside the lab. Next to Trixie, Crash lifted her gun in their direction. She hailed them. “Halt! Friend or foe?”

“Die!”

Crash dove to the side, tackling Trixie to the ground in the process and pushing her behind a lab table. She peeked over the top and opened fire. It was like a storm suddenly broke in the room. Detonations drowned all other noises, like never ending thunder. Plants and machines were turned to shreds in mere seconds. The shattering of glass containers added some high notes to the cacophony.

Trixie looked to her left and saw the friendly marine leaning to the side of his cover. He snapped back in place immediately. In the following second, the hard, stone-like table he was hiding behind was riddled with bullets, chips and flakes flying around. As soon as the deluge of projectiles stopped, he fired a couple shots of his own, then hid again. More bullets rained his way.

Trixie curled up in a whimpering ball, making herself as small as she could behind the fragile safety of her cover. She looked to her right.

Just next to her, Crash was kneeling. She bobbed up and shot a burst from her rifle, then dropped back down to avoid the counter fire. Up. Another burst. Down. Up. Fire. Down... She opened her rifle and let the long, slender magazine fall to the ground. With accurate and efficient movements, she pulled another from a back pocket, slid it inside and slapped the gun closed. All in all, no more than four seconds to reload. Bob up. Fire. Down. Up.

Clang!

Crash fell on her back and groaned. She stayed still for a few seconds, that felt like hours to Trixie. Finally, the woman stirred and crawled next to Trixie to sit with her back against the laboratory table. She fiddled with the bindings around her neck and removed her helmet, revealing her short, brush-like blonde hair. Crash held her helmet in her hands in front of her. She traced a finger along the crack that was running on its top, then passed her hand through her hair, as if to make sure that the bullet had really passed above her skull and not through it.

The woman muttered something that didn’t sound pleasant, even though Trixie understood less than half of it, then went back in place behind their cover. With one hand, she threw her broken helmet in the air, then leaned aside, using the distraction to fire several shots.

Trixie was more than happy to stay where she was, safe where no bullets could reach. Time seemed to stretch under the effect of adrenaline, seconds feeling like minutes and minutes like hours…

The humans were still busy shooting at each other when Trixie spotted something moving, from the area they had went through a little earlier. She poked Crash in the side.

“What?” the woman shouted, barely looking at Trixie. “Busy right now!”

Trixie simply pointed in the shadows, where a silhouette could be seen, slowly shambling forward.

“Take care of it,” Crash said after giving it a quick glance.

“W– What?”

“Shoot it. Aim for the head.” The woman focused on her own fight again, carefully peeking over the edge of the table and leaving Trixie alone with the new threat.

He walked forward with stiff and twitchy steps, giving her time to ready her pistol and line it up in his direction. Trixie waited for him to get out of the shadows, her gaze going up from his feet, up his legs and torso, until it stopped on…

Nothing.

Trixie remained frozen, her gun bobbing uselessly in the air while she stared at the bloody lump that was the man’s neck. She couldn’t decide what was the most unsettling thing to her: that the human’s head was missing, or that he was still walking towards her, as if he never needed it in the first place. All she could do was stare with a disturbing sort of curiosity at the beheaded corpse coming towards her.

“What are you waiting for?”

Trixie turned her head slowly towards Crash. The woman frowned.

“Damn it!” she cursed. “It’s not that hard. Watch!”

She put her own weapon on the ground and grabbed Trixie’s pistol with her right hand. Her left hand wrapped around Trixie’s horn and forcefully turned her head in the direction of the headless human.

Trixie kept her eyes opened. In front of her, she saw the man, only a few meters away by then, and Crash’s arm pointing the pistol at him. The woman pulled the trigger. The gun bucked in her hand. The walking corpse recoiled a bit. Crash shot again, making him stop. Then again and again. After the fourth shot, his knees gave and he collapsed on the ground, immobile...

“Lesson’s over,” Crash said. “Now make yourself useful.” She shoved the pistol in Trixie’s chest, forcing her to grab it with her hooves, then turned around and went back to her own fight.

Trixie stared at the corpse in front of her for a while. The sound of guns and humans shouting seemed to barely reach her ears. Even when various pieces of debris landed on her, Trixie hardly moved, with her eyes stuck on the dead, headless human and her hoof limply holding her pistol.

Something moved in the shadows again. Another human silhouette appeared, shambling forward like the other. Trixie saw the glint of two eyes glowing unnaturally in the darkness.

The mare closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She swallowed her saliva, then let out her breath slowly. When her eyes opened again, they locked on the man and refused to leave. In a pink haze, the beautifully engraved pistol floated up and lined itself with its target.

Instinctively, Trixie blinked when her first shot detonated. Ahead of her, the human stumbled, but quickly recovered. Trixie shot again, then again and again, each time a little faster. The fifth bullet finally made him collapse, not far from his beheaded comrade. Lifeless.

Just like that...

It took her a minute to realize that the room had gone silent. Trixie looked left and right, seeing the two marines peeking carefully over the ruined lab tables.

"I think that was the last of them," the man said while sliding more shells into his gun.

Crash nodded and went to check on the dead soldiers, her rifle at the ready. "We're clear," she said after a moment. "Anyone's hurt?"

"I'm fine," the man answered.

"Me too," Trixie added.

The three gathered near the fallen soldiers, Crash kneeling down to search them. She quickly gathered all the ammunition she could find. She handed Trixie a magazine for her pistol, which she seized with her magic.

Before she had time to stash it in her improvised bag, a pressure on her horn made Trixie wince. A disturbing feeling, like hundreds of tiny, hot worms wriggling inside her horn, made her shiver and lose her breath. In front of her eyes, the glow of Trixie's flickered between its usual pink and a fiery orange.

Every single light suddenly turned off.

A deep and cruel laugh echoed around the room.

"What the..." Crash muttered.

A sound of crackling and tearing silenced her. Mere metres away, bolts of what looked like a cross between lightning and fire burst in the air. A wave of unnatural heat washed over Trixie, reminding her of the most scorching summer winds she ever felt, along with a noxious scent of sulfur, blood and rot. The pressure of the foul magical energy on her horn reached a peak, just as a shape appeared in the ball of fire-lightning. A silhouette, much like the humans in shape, but taller and with wicked-looking claws instead of fingers...

By the time Trixie recognized the demon, it was already gathering a fireball in its hand. Before she could even scream, the imp hurled it in her direction.

The fireball did not hit Trixie… Not because she jumped away or blocked it, but simply because it wasn't aimed at her. Crash crossed her arms in front of her face, and that was all she could do before being struck. The ball exploded in a small burst of raw energy, forcing a pained yelp out of the woman and throwing her to the floor.

"Get down!"

Trixie needed a second to recognize the marine's voice, then another to register what he had said. She dove to the ground, just in time for the demon's next fireball to go over her head. She felt the heat moving along her back and the smell of burnt hair reached her nostrils.

Boom!

The imp staggered backwards.

Boom!

It fell to the ground. The corpse quickly burnt away, like paper.

The lights turned back on all of a sudden, but the tingle in her horn kept Trixie worried.

"You okay?" the marine asked.

"I'll live," Crash answered. She stood back up and looked at the large black mark on her chest. "Thank the UAC for making good armor," she said, giving it a few pats of her hand. A patch of skin on her arm looked burnt, but the woman seemed otherwise unhurt.

"Okay. What do we-"

A large panel in the ceiling detached and went crashing loudly on the ground. A new demon jumped out of the hole, followed closely by a second one.

"Oh come on!" the marine shouted.

The imps stood, observing their prey and slowly creeping closer. The two humans lifted their guns and waited for the right moment. Even Trixie readied her pistol.

A long, muffled roar interrupted everyone in the laboratory. The demons looked around.

"What now?" Trixie whispered, her eyes scanning every corner of the room.

Another roar resounded, seemingly closer than the first time. The two imps suddenly jumped on the walls and climbed up. They scurried like insects and disappeared the way they had come in less than a few seconds…

Trixie and the humans had a moment of tense silence, no one daring to say out loud what they were all wondering.

The wait was short. First, they heard a low growl, coming from behind the door they had been trying to reach for several minutes now. Everyone prepared for the moment it would open.

The heavy door was sent flying inside the room as if it were nothing, followed by a galloping monster. As fast as it moved, Trixie only got a brief look at it, but it was enough to see a caricature of a predator: bulging muscles, hunched over four powerful legs and a face that was nothing but a huge maw lined with sharp teeth and tusks. The creature did not have any apparent eyes, ear or even nose, but that didn't prevent it from charging straight towards the shotgun-wielding marine, knocking chairs, lab equipment and other debris in its way.

The man kept his cool, quickly shouldered his gun, aimed and fired.

The rain of lead only made the monster roar angrily, loud enough that Trixie felt her whole body vibrating.

The marine stared at the monster for a second... He turned and jumped to the side, but the monster reached him first. Its maw clamped down on his abdomen.

He screamed. The demon shook its head left and right, swinging the man like a rag doll. His hands tried to reach the monster's mouth. He struck its head a few times. He screamed all the while...

Finally, the marine went flying, free.

And missing a large chunk of flesh in his midsection.

The creature turned towards Trixie. Its mouth was now dripping with blood and spit, as it chewed lazily on the raw meat. A piece of what must have been intestines was hanging on the side, stuck between its teeth.

Something snapped inside Trixie and her beating heart suddenly calmed down.

Her eyes set on the demon and refused to move away. Her magic focused and shone brighter around the pistol that floated in her sight. As soon as it was lined up with her target, she pulled the trigger. The demon jumped a little.

Trixie pulled the trigger again...

Nothing happened that time. No matter how many times she tried to shoot, the gun refused to comply. Before she had time to figure it out, Crash stepped forward, her eyes staring at the demon and burning with fury.

"You hungry, you big fucker?" she shouted. "Eat this!"

Crash began shooting. The demon winced and recoiled, a new wound appearing on its body with every detonation. It roared, loud enough to be heard above the quick firing gun, then charged forward.

Crash didn't move, only angling her weapon to keep it on target.

The demon, bloodier by the second, picked up speed. Trixie heard another roar, much more high-pitched. It took her a second to realize it came from Crash. The demon leaped in the air...

It fell to the ground a couple steps short of Crash, squirming a bit and letting out a pained moan before it stopped moving altogether.

The woman stood there, panting and glaring at the corpse that was rapidly consuming. When nothing was left, she finally took her eyes away and hurried to where her comrade had landed.

Trixie followed, but stopped as soon as she saw him. He had managed to crawl into a sitting position against a table. One of his hands was squeezing around a pistol. His other arm was wrapped around his belly, desperately trying to keep his insides from spilling out on the ground.

Even with the cracked helmet muffling his voice, Trixie could hear his panting breaths and his pained moans.

"Y– You g– got... it?" he asked Crash when she kneeled down next to him.

"It's dead," she answered.

"G– Good…” He nodded weakly. “Hard to... breathe. Helmet..."

"I'll take it off," Crash told him. He nodded again while the woman reached around his neck. She removed the piece of armor and for the first time, Trixie saw the marine's face. She wasn't sure what she had expected, but it wasn't the smooth, delicate lines she was seeing now. Neatly trimmed hair, a small nose -even for a human- and dark eyes giving him a penetrating stare...

"Thanks," he said in a breath. He took a moment to swallow his saliva, an apparently big effort for him. "This... hurts like... hell."

"I bet," Crash said softly.

"Ho– How does it... look?"

Neither Trixie nor Crash said anything.

"That b– bad, huh?"

"Sorry..." Crash said quietly.

The man switched his hold on his pistol, taking it by the barrel and offering the handle to the woman. She hesitated for a second, but eventually grabbed it.

"You sure?" she asked.

He nodded. "It's... ungh... over for me. No point... F– Fuck!" His face distorted into a grimace. "Hurts!" He groaned. “G– Get it… over with.”

Crash sighed and raised the gun.

"Wait! W– What are you doing?" Trixie asked, her voice barely above a whisper.

"Look away" was her only answer.

Trixie gave the man one last look, then turned around and waited.

“Sorry,” Crash whispered.

Trixie counted three detonations...

A moment later, the woman walked by her side. "Let's go," she said, not waiting for Trixie.

Trixie followed, walking more by reflex than anything. Her eyes barely registered the remains of the laboratory around her, the marine’s face being the only thing she could see. The marine who had saved her life, twice… "And I didn't even know his name," she muttered under her breath.

"I wish I didn't," Crash said, making Trixie twitch and wonder if she had spoken louder than she thought, or if the humans' tiny ears were more effective than they seemed. "I wish I didn't know anyone in this shithole," she continued, a little louder. "It's easier to shoot someone in the face if you've never seen it before."

Crash’s fist squeezed on itself. “Fucking demons,” she growled. “I’m gonna kill so many of them…”

Trixie watched the woman walking in front of her, then her pistol, still floating near her head in the pink haze of her magic. She ejected the empty magazine and slid a new one in its place. With a final click, the gun was armed and ready to fire again.

“Sounds like a plan,” Trixie muttered.

The two girls soon reached a huge door, as wide as the hallway they were standing in. Crash went to the panel on its side and tapped it. The big hunk of metal slowly lifted up, revealing a small room with another, similar door on the other side. They stepped in and the door closed behind them with a thud.

Crash idly tapped the monitor and waited. It simply read: “Now entering habitations.”

Author's Note

This took forever and a half. Sorry about the wait, but I've written, re-written, re-worded and re-worked that chapter so many times I don't even know how much time I've spent on it anymore... But here it is, I've finally managed to get it into a shape that I'm half-satisfied with.

Ugh...

Keep your fingers crossed that the next chapter will come out faster. Otherwise, this story won't be finished for another four to five years...