Reignite: Down Fall.

After an hour of traveling down the corridor, Luna silently wondered if she would ever be able to return home. Upon the realisation that she had been thrown into Equestria’s future, a future for all intents and purposes shouldn’t have even happened in the first place…at least in her own opinion. Luna held no contempt for Cillen or his own race for making Equestria for their own home, she briefly wondered how her sister would handle this situation.

“How do you do it?” Luna asked, not sure if she was muttering herself or asking a question.

“Do what?” Cillen asked over their suits intercom.

“How do you manage to stay sane in all that’s happened?” Luna continued, “How can you cope that your entire home and everything you love is gone?” Her voice was laced with sorrow.

“…” Cillen wasn’t sure how to answer; it never really occurred to him how he had maintained his own sanity so far. “I wonder that myself sometimes, I’ve come too close to losing it so many times now I’ve lost count.”

“The Memoria?” Luna wondered,

“Yes…” Cillen answered, “Despite what they are, in the end they are still family and loved ones.” Luna took a moment to ponder this.

“Even with this in mind you still despise them…” She inquired, wondering how Cillen was going to answer this.

“I despise the monsters they are, not who they used to be…” Cillen explained, “The only reason I’ve been killing them in such a brutal manner is that the normal methods barely hurt them, I had my way I would rather give them a quick painless death…”

“Even knowing that you’ll lose all the memories you had of them…” The finality of Luna’s statement felt like a sword in Cillen’s heart.

“…” Cillen remained quiet.

“Cillen, is this why you’re going to destroy Eques?” Luna asked, “Because you believe it to be some form of cruel mercy...Is our home really not worth saving?”

“It isn’t that it isn’t worth saving Luna, it’s because there’s nothing left to save.” Cillen told her, “I’m not the hero here, and even if I was I can’t save everyone. When you agreed to travel with me I never expected you to agree with some of the decisions I would have to make.”

“But…” Luna spoke before Cillen stopped her.

“But nothing Luna.” He said gently, “We’ve both done everything we possibly could to save our home; you know that better than I do, you fought tooth and nail to protect everything you ever loved.”

“But even so I still failed…” Luna replied sadly.

“You’re still alive Luna and because of that fact alone you haven’t failed.” Cillen said reassuringly, “As long as you’re alive you can’t fail.”

“So how do you do it?” Luna replied,

“…Luna, I’m constantly trying to keep myself from going insane.” Cillen answered, “Day by day I lose it a little bit more because of the things I’ve seen and done. If I was any other time I would have lost it by now…Serena used to tell me: that no matter what happens. Think about what is important to you and let that give you the strength to go on.”

“…” Luna remained silent, contemplating what Cillen had just said.

“There are only two reasons I’m sane right now Luna…” Cillen paused a moment before continuing, “One part of it is the sheer utter refusal to let those monster get away with what they’ve done, and the other is…you Luna, it’s the little talks like this helps me calm down and reminds me of what it means to be human.”

“You really mean that?” Luna asked bewildered.

“I’m not the type of person who says things like that lightly Luna.” Cillen stated before stopping outside a massive wire gate. “This is what we’re looking for, inside should be the power room…”

“I have a bad feeling about this…” Luna muttered, feeling a familiar shiver down her spine.

“Good…” Cillen commented, “Because once we restore the power, the end gate will open in the tunnel we came in from, along with life support and artificial gravity…and it’ll most likely wake whatever is lurking down here up…” Luna didn’t miss the deadpan tone in his voice.

“Worried about what we saw back there?” Luna asked, but was answered by the sound of Cillen’s rifle being readied.

As they opened the gate and entered, Cillen shone the light of his torch into the dark room checking for any signs of damage. Sighing at the sight before them, Luna wondered what Cillen was looking for.

“What’s wrong?” She asked, confused at exactly they were looking at.

“Signs of damage, but it’s odd…” Cillen answered, pointing to one of the generators which looked rusted and worn beyond all repair. “ Damage like that takes decades to form, and it’s a standard routine to perform a maintenance check at least three times a week on a generator such as that.” Cillen walked closer, and began looking around the scrapped generator. “Hm…I could understand it being shut off after overheating, but this has clearly been left to rust.” Cillen cleared some of the scrapped metal around it. “This is a newer model too, according to this panel this generator was installed over six months ago.”

“What could cause it to rust this quickly?” Luna wondered,

“Nothing natural, that’s for certain…” Cillen frowned, shining his torch on the other three generators in the room. “Two more are in a similar condition but the remaining one looks untouched.”

“Judging from what we are seeing, do you think whatever is down here can manipulate time?” Luna wondered, wondering if that was indeed possible.

“It’s a possibility, but that aside I can get enough power going to open the far gate, and get life support in up in a couple of areas.” Cillen noted, “But like I said it will most likely attract some unwanted attention…”

“What do you think?” Luna asked,

“I’d rather not wake it up to be honest; pardon my language here but this thing scares Memoria and that alone states it shouldn’t be fucked with.”

Cillen set about making the repairs, after few moments of silence aside from the various clinks and clanks of the generators parts as they were looked over, took apart, repaired and put back together. Luna leaned on upon the corner of the entry way keeping one eye on the corridor they came down.

“Ha-Hah!” Cillen declared triumphantly, as the power generator sprang back into life with an audible hum. “From the looks of it, the problem was a few out of place and misplaced parts. Not too uncommon, but it does suggest it was a quick work around…” Luna watched on as Cillen muttered on about various technological problems that went over her head.

“So…is the gate open now?” Luna asked dumbfounded, “I hate to sound a little ignorant but I can’t understand what you’re saying…” Cillen snapped out of his train of thought, and gave stared at Luna as if she had grown an extra head.

“…Didn’t you have stuff like this in Equestria?” Cillen asked, just as dumbfounded as Luna was. “Surely you must have had some sort of technology like this?” Luna shrugged her shoulders in response.

“As far as I was aware, if Equestria did have such machines I never got around to learning about them…a thousand years is a lot of history to catch up on…” Luna explained, Cillen just shook his head as he walked over to the generator control panel, “The majority of things pony kind was mainly done with magic.”

“…I see.” Cillen said in acknowledgement, “Humans can’t do anything like you can, at least not without some sort of technology to give them that ability.” Luna looked confused for a moment.

“Is this like how you can defy gravity?” She asked, pointing at his boots.

“Yeah, everything we humans have accomplished is partly due to the technology we possess and developed over the years.” Cillen explained, “Sadly though, the majority of the time we have a major technological advancement is usually in great times of need.”

“That sounds…unusual.” Luna commented, “Surely you must have some abilities similar to ours naturally?”

“Not really, you’d be surprised that when we first came to Eques we couldn’t even breathe the air here, and the gravity is so low here that Humankind has to wear a full body suit to keep the pressure on our bodies to prevent lasting damage.” Cillen explained, “Though I’d imagine we would eventually evolve and adapt to the environment here…eventually.”

“if you couldn’t breathe the air here how can you survive when we were back in the ruined city a few days ago?” Luna inquired.

“We terraformed the planet: making the atmosphere similar to our home world Earth.” Cillen said simply, “Though the gravity remains an issue though, but eventually we developed technology to take advantage of that.”

Cillen began typing in a command on the screen of the control panel, and within a moment the lights in the room flickered back into life. A dull hiss echoed throughout the room as the air was purified of the poisonous gasses in the air.

“That’s odd…” Cillen muttered, examining the screen. “According to this there was traces of insecticide in the air, probably a last ditch attempt to kill the Memoria in the tunnel and whatever else is down here.” Luna took a moment to look around the newly lit room, before long she spied a small tablet like screen flickering underneath some of the rubble.

“Cillen, I think I found something.” Luna exclaimed, Cillen looked over at the device as Luna picked it up and handed it to him. “Could it be something important?”

Cillen said nothing as he tampered with various icons on the screen, Luna gazed over his shoulder to make out what was written but it only served to confuse her.

“What language is that?” She asked, “I can’t understand any of it.”

“It’s plain English, you’ve been speaking it the entire time but you can’t read it?” Cillen inquired.

“I’ve been speaking in Equestrian, not English…” Luna stopped for a moment, “Then how can we understand one another?” Cillen stopped and thought for a moment.

“Most likely a due to you being an Out of Place Artefact yourself, from what I gather the Betrayal seems to recognise you.” Cillen guessed, “I honestly think you had some connection to in the past.” Luna considered the idea, but decided to save the question for later.

“So what does it say then?” She asked, Cillen just smiled underneath his mask like helmet and pushed a button on the screen. A hologram appeared above the device, it wasn’t a clear image as most of the hologram was static.

“Is the test subject ready?” a disembodied voice asked, there a moment of silence, “Good…good, how was she infected?” another pause, “Ah I see not long after her partner made off to the south facility.” A man in a white research coat appeared as the image cleared slightly, “We have the DNA from the Queen sample? Good now inject her with it and keep her under stasis.”

Cillen and Luna both shared a look of disgust, before continuing…

The scene changed to depict a slender framed woman, her features remained obscured by the recording as it focused on the two of the researchers.

“Do think this project will be able to create a Sentiment?” One asked, the other shrugged at his collegue.

“Don’t know but hopefully it could yield some interesting results, all we know that there are seven other Sentiments in existence right now, I mean that spear isn’t even human in origin. It’s killed everyone who has tried to wield it so far.” The other spoke, “I swear that thing is sentient!”

“But think of the possibilities!” The former spoke up, “Harnessing this kind of technology would be let us advance our own civilisation by thousands of years.”

“You heard the rumours though?” his comrade interrupted, “If we create a Sentiment, the others will take notice!”

“What with those creatures on the loose?” He scoffed, “It’s only a matter of time one shows up…”

“MAKE IT STOP!!!” The restrained woman screamed, “MAKEITSTOP! MAKEITSTOP! MAKEITSTOP!” both researchers were blown away by the tendrils erupting from the woman’s body, ensnaring them as the invaded every orifice on their bodies. “HE’LL KILL US ALL! HE’S COMING TO KILL US ALL! STOP HIM! STOP HIM! WE HAVE TO STOP HIM!” The tendrils encroached on out the door as the woman continued screaming. “WE HAVE TO EVOLVE! HAVE TO STOP HIM! KILL HIM! ERASE HIM! THE SENTIMENT IS COMING! DEATH IS COMING! WE HAVE TO STOP HIM!”

Cillen and Luna looked confused at the woman’s ramblings...

“MUST FEED! COMSUME! EVOLVE! THE MEMORIES SENTIMENT IS COMING! CI….LEN…SAVE…ME! MAKEITSTOP! MAKEITSTOP! RAAAAAINNNNNNEEESSSS!!!!!”

The video feed cut off there…Leaving a sense of dread across Cillen’s face.