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...