Alone

Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity had returned to the den they had been in before, reclining on the low, blocky furniture. As a self proclaimed fashionista, Rarity was impressed by the use of the low, white couches and the stark contrast of the scarlet carpet beneath them. She didn't know much about humans-that'd be Twilight's department-but they were certainly skilled designers.

While Rarity admired the scenery inside, Fluttershy seated herself upon one of the couches and looked out the tall windows, searching for the faintest glimmer of light. "I just can't believe all the stars could be gone," she thought aloud.

"Didn't you hear the human?" asked Pinkie Pie, who was fiddling with the monitor next to the far wall, "He said this was the year one hundred trillion; no star can survive that long! I'm only surprised none formed after they had all died."

Rarity rolled her eyes, "Don't pretend for a second you understand any of this," she chastised, "one minute we were enjoying a lovely picnic, the next we're at the end of the universe," she said, mimicking the somber, low tone of the human's voice.

Pinkie Pie left the monitor alone and turned around with a smile, "What do you mean? It's as easy as locating a gravity bubble within any baryon in the Higgs field and feeding it negative energy to create the potentiality for a macroquantum dislocation through the relativistic field of spacetime, happens all the time!" she finished cheerfully, hopping off to explore the nearby corridors.

Rarity watched her skip away, mouth agape. She shook her head, Never question Pinkie Logic, she thought. She instead turned to admire the handiwork of the facility itself. The walls were a smooth white color, wrapping around the inside of the corridors with curved corners. A very sleek, futuristic look, to be sure. The floor was a chrome sheet, decorated with partitioned bumps. It looked like it would be cold to the touch, but it was actually comfortably warm. "I'll tell you one thing: these humans certainly know how to build a facility. What do you think, Fluttershy?" she asked, turning her.

Fluttershy hadn't been paying attention, fully absorbed in watching the neverending blackness outside the windows. Hearing her name, she turned her head and made a questioning sound, "Hm?"

"I said what do you think of the facility?" she repeated, "It's nice, isn't it?"

Fluttershy looked behind her at the sleek, futuristic design of the room and nodded, "Oh, um, yes, it's nice," she conceded, turning back to the window, "It's just...It's silly, really, but..." she shook her head, "I just can't believe the stars will go out someday."

Rarity rose her eyebrow, "What do you mean?" she asked.

"Well, this is the future, right?" Fluttershy pointed out, "this is the year-what did he say it was-one hundred trillion? That means that someday, long after all of us are long gone, this'll be all that's left," she explained, gesturing to the empty sky.

Rarity looked out on the universe with new meaning, feeling an existential crisis coming on, "That's..." she trailed off, unsure of how to respond.

The two of them looked out the windows for a long time after that, until Pinkie Pie's voice emanated from inside the facility, "Hey, that looks like fun! How are you doing that?"

"This is really weird," Rainbow Dash observed as she walked through the tall corridors of the facility.

"Ya' don't say?" Applejack agreed, walking alongside her. They had left the 'Bible', as the human had called it, and walked down the corridor opposite the way they had come.

"So this is the future, huh?" Rainbow Dash confirmed, knocking on the smooth, white walls of the hall experimentally.

Applejack nodded, "Hundred Trillion, th' guy said," she reminded.

Rainbow Dash nodded, "No stars left...weird..."

The two continued on in silence, reflecting on the somber world of the future. Dash soon got tired of thinking, and thought loudly, "What are we even supposed to be doing? Didn't that guy say something about 'recreational areas'?"

Applejack nodded, then pointed out a door on the wall nearby, "Maybe that's one," she wondered.

They walked over to the door. It didn't have any sort of knob or handle, in fact the only thing that looked any different from the smooth white wall was a small black slate nearby the door, where a handle would have been. "Now how did that guy open this...?" Rainbow Dash said, experimentally pressing her hoof onto the slate.

A thick green light suddenly flashed on the slate, travelling down from top to bottom. Rainbow didn't remove her hoof, and when it reached the bottom, the entire slate glowed green, and the door slid open.

"I'll never understand th' future," Applejack swore, stepping into the room with a shake of her head.

Rainbow followed her. "Well this is dumb!" she observed when they discovered the room was completely empty, "What's this even supposed to be?"

Out of nowhere, a voice said, "Room index: Gravitational simulator,"

Applejack and Rainbow Dash clasped each other fearfully, "W-who said that?" Dash demanded.

"Ah think...Ah think th' room said it!" Applejack observed.

Rainbow nodded, but didn't let go of Applejack, "What'd it say? 'gravitational simulator'? What does that mean?"

"Gravitational Simulator activated," the voice said next, "Simulation set for zero g's."

A humming sound emanated from the walls, and the two ponies suddenly began floating away. "H-hey! What the hay's goin' on, here!" Applejack said indignantly, frantically flapping her hooves in the air.

Rainbow Dash, used to the experience of flying (though not floating), slowly drifted away from her, bursting out in fits of laughter at Applejack's incompetence.

"Ya find somethin' funny?" Applejack yelled, "Get me down from here!" she said, turning head over hooves.

"No, this is fun!" Rainbow argued playfully, kicking off of the way and soaring across the room, "Wheeee!" Flying without using her wings felt foreign, but it was so much fun! It was as if she had just become completely weightless.

Applejack gently collided with the wall, bouncing off and travelling back across. Rainbow Dash, using her wings and the walls to angle herself, was flying loops around Applejack. Her hat tried to detatch itself from her head, but she frantically grabbed for it and held it close.

"C'mon, Applejack," Rainbow said, pretending to be reclining on an invisible chair as she floated past, "Try to relax; this is fun!"

Applejack scrunched up her nose indignantly, but couldn't help breaking down in laughter at Rainbow's airborne antics. "Alright," she conceded as she neared the far wall. Angling her body, she reached out and gently kicked off of the smooth surface, flying through the air much more controllably. "Whee!" she cheered as she did so.

"You see?" Rainbow said, glad that her friend was enjoying their odd circumstances.

The door suddenly slid open again, and Pinkie Pie saw her friends floating through the air, "Hey, that looks like fun! How are you doing that?" she said.

"Wha-what do you mean they're gone?" Twilight asked frantically. "I saw the humans, there were billions!"

Hugh looked up at Twilight, "A few years passed," he said insincerely, in his monotonous voice, "trillions." With that said, he spun on his feet and began chalking down several equations on the whiteboard that had materialized behind him.

Twilight was aghast. Hugh was talking about the total, complete extinction of his entire species, and he acted like it was nothing! He threw around the death of every star in the universe like a Frisbee! Where had all his sincerity gone? The humans she had met, they had been so caring of everything (some more than others), and now, all that was left was Hugh, living alone at the end of the universe, more robot than man. "Whuh, where did they all go?" she demanded, not letting go of the issue.

"Died out," Hugh explained simply, not turning from his equations, "Their biological makeup was inefficient; very few lasted much more than a century."

"Don't you mean you're biological makeup?" she corrected, bitter at Hugh's bitterness.

Hugh turned around then, looking in Twilight's eye and shaking his head. "No," he said, and then proceeded to reach up and remove his own right hand, placing it nonchalantly on the monitor in front of Twilight.

Twilight repressed the urge to scream, "H-how did you do that?" she asked instead.

"My physical body has been digitally, electronically, and mechanically augmented," Hugh explained, showing Twilight his stump of an arm. Where there most likely should have been flesh and blood, there was a sunken hole filled with various metal prongs, ones that most likely fit snugly into holes in his fake hand that was crawling across the monitor.

Twilight's eyes widened; he was more robot than man. "How..." she trailed off, staring as the hand on the monitor crawled it's way to the edge, fell off, and made it's way to Hugh's foot, tapping on it.

He bent over and picked it up, reattaching it to his wrist with a snap. "Do you see this chestplate?" he asked, pointing to the strange suit he wore over his torso. Twilight hadn't paid much attention to it before, but he was wearing a sleek, white piece of machinery that looked similar to metal armor, except for the glowing blue circle in the center of his chest. It covered his upper torso and shoulders, curved to fit his body. Beneath he wore a tight, stretchy gray shirt that ended abruptly at two white gloves-at least, she had assumed they were gloves, but they were his actual hands. Sleek, futuristic, white hands, which were only slightly thicker than his arms.

Her eyes travelled back to the chestplate Hugh was signifying by tapping the glowing blue light in the center and she nodded.

"This is not just for decoration," he said, turning around and pointing out another piece of technology on his back. It was a thick circle of blue light that matched the light on his chest, but was more of a ring bolted to his back, wrapped around a black circle. "This is a portable fusion reactor, biologically engrained in my central nervous system. It provides my body with energy in the form of electricity gathered from the nuclear fusion of hydrogen. In other words," he clarified, turning back around to face Twilight, "I do not need food like a normal human. It also provides the power for my synthetic organs and extremities, such as my hands and my heart, and with what natural cells that remain, it discourages cellular division. All these systems work together to ensure that I live much, much longer than a normal human."

Twilight had gotten used to not understanding the future by now, but she believed she had gotten the gist of Hugh's explanation, "So basically, you're immortal. And part robot."

"I believe the ancient humans more correctly denoted it as, 'cyborg,'" Hugh offered, turning back to his whiteboard, "Now please, I must get back to my work if I am to send you equines to your proper home."

Twilight ignored his order, making connections, "So, what?" she asked, "The other humans made you immortal and sent you to this facility? Did you have to watch every other human die?" she spat, angry at Hugh's lack of anger. Hugh did not respond, so she continued, "How long have you been the last, Unit 731?" she asked insensitively, trying to get him to show the least but of emotion.

"I'd have to check," Hugh said instead.

"Ugh!" Twilight breathed, giving up. She turned around and walked to the door, deciding to catch up with her friends. She put her hoof on the black slate beside the door, emulating how Hugh had opened it, and after it scanned her hoof, it blinked green and slid open.

"I'm not just the last human, you know," Hugh said just as she was in the doorway.

Twilight turned back at him. He was still working at his equations, back to her. She stood there for a moment longer, silently willing him to elaborate.

"I didn't say Jerusalem was the last outpost of humanity in the universe," he continued, "I said it was the last outpost of life."

Twilight involuntarily gasped as she guessed the implication. Before she could respond, Pinkie Pie's voice from deeper down the corridor rang out, "Hey, that looks like fun! How are you doing that?"