Dead Space: Purpose

by Dragonman461

Chapter 18: [RAINBOW FACTORY] Part 4

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Fluttershy curled into a ball and sobbed quietly to herself as she listened to the tragic news of the disaster in Ponyville. The newest restaurant, which had yet to be named, was burned to the ground with some of the staff and customers still inside. Even worse, the Cutie Mark Crusaders were present at the restaurant during the event. They had seen the place explode into flames, and worse than that, Scootaloo was left behind. Then, Fluttershy was told that Isaac went back to get her, and ended up being lost as well.

All she could do was cry and listen as her friends told her about the tragedy.

"I'm so sorry, Fluttershy." Twilight softly spoke to her friend.

Fluttershy tried to respond, but could only manage to sob through her hooves. Twilight and Rarity exchanged looks before returning their attention to their friend.

"Fluttershy, dear," Rarity started, "I'm sorry to do this to you, but Twilight and I need to go back to Ponyville. We have to make sure that Sweetie Belle and Spike are safe, not to mention Apple Bloom. Goodness, how will Applejack react to this?"

Twilight rested a hoof on Fluttershy's shoulder before trying to think of something to say, only to pull back and turn towards the door. Rarity soon followed after giving one last saddened look to her crying friend. When they both left, Celestia turned towards the window and stared out as the doors closed behind them. Fluttershy finally wiped away the tears from her face and looked towards the opposite end of the room, staring on in disbelief that such a kind, hurt, and scared alien... no, a scared, hurt, and kind soul, like Isaac, was now just-

CLANG

Before she could finish her own thoughts, the door to the room opened up without any magical aura, and from the other side came Ellie. Fluttershy stared at the Human as she walked towards her bed and then began to speak to her.

"I know what happened." She said.

As Ellie spoke, Celestia turned around and eyed the vision of the Human with a mix of emotions.

"What..." Was all the Princess could manage.

Ellie turned towards Celestia as she smiled softly.

"So you can see and hear me too?"

"I didn't know that Fluttershy even noticed you, being a projection of the Marker." The Princess spat coldly.

"Trust me, I don't want anything to do with that Fucking thing. I came here to catch you up on something. Something you should know."

Celestia stood with her wings flared and her horn glowing, flames seeping from the corners of her eyes.

"Why should I trust you?"

"Because Isaac isn't dead."

With that note, Celestia's horn went dark as her wings folded to her side as Fluttershy became wide-eyed.

"He... he's alive?" Fluttershy managed with a smile that would make Pinkie proud.

"And he has Scootaloo." Ellie added.

Fluttershy beamed as Celestia allowed a small smile onto her muzzle before Ellie continued.

"I also know about the attack that you were talking about."

Celestia's face became stern as she marched up to Ellie.

"Attack?"

"By Unitologists. Crazy twats that worship the Marker and all its nightmarish gore. They strapped some crazy teens with explosives and blew up the place in the name of their faith."

Fluttershy gripped the sheets of the bed tighter than before as she found her grin twist into a shocked expression.

"Wh-what? They..."

"Suicide bombers, yes. That's how the Marker works. It scrambles your mind until you're so broken that you'd do anything to die and stop enduring its torture."

Celestia focused into her horn once more and pointed it at Ellie.

"Then what sets you apart from the rest of the visions?" She practically growled.

"Because I'm talking to you through the safe side of the visions. Through Isaac."

\\\//////

Isaac stared across the room in disbelief as he felt the boots clang against the surface of the metallic floor with each step.

'Zero-fucking-G?' He thought to himself. 'Let me guess, deathtraps are all over the other side, right?'

The door before him opened up with another series of sounds, revealing several mechanisms with spinning blades, crushers, and beams of energy that would likely burn through him.

'Of course. Just like every other time I'm in Zero-G. Seriously, this is more annoying than anything else, really.'

With that thought, Isaac jumped off of the floor and floated towards the massive open area before him. On command by thought, the thrusters on his shoulders and boots ignited, careening the Engineer towards the massive spinning blades that pointed towards the sides of the space, away from him.

'Thank God,' He began to think to himself, 'at least they're acting as some kind of cooling shafts, or something that I don't need to go through. Wait, now that I think about it, what did those blades do on Titan station? They were just, like, there. No purpose or anything, just like a random deathtrap that needed to make my life-'

A solid crunch of metal-on-metal might brought Isaac back to reality as he nearly floated into a crushing mechanism that seemed to pointlessly pound away at the space before him.

'What the shit? Does this even do anything!?' He thought before seeing the other end. Which was connected to a pump that moved the glowing liquid he had seen from earlier. 'Oh, I see. Pumps, not crushers of death. Maybe both, but whatever.

As Isaac thought on this, he flexed his left hand before timing the constant motion of the pump mechanism. After a few seconds of thumps and calculating, Isaac shot out a blue energy that encased the entire mechanism in a blue aura as it retracted from the space before him. With the pump in Stasis, Isaac quickly boosted the thrusters on his suit and shot out underneath the massive machine. When he came out the other end, he saw that there were more that were along the wall, and some that he could easily Stasis as well.

'Well then, I see how it is.' He thought before readying another Stasis shot.

As he approached the second column of death, there was a series of sparks at the base of the mechanism as blood and flesh began to grind in from behind it. Isaac reversed the momentum by throwing his legs out in front of him and watching as the base of the machine exploded with blood and parts, reminding him grimly of the grizzly deaths aboard the Ishimura. After a few seconds, the pump stopped entirely, allowing Isaac to fly underneath it.

'I'm sorry, whoever you were. I won't let that happen to anyone else, ever again.' Isaac thought as he passed a floating mass of flesh with a patch of yellow fur.

With the second pump passed, Isaac saw a series of beams shoot out from two separate walls that seemed to exchange the energy.

'Some kind of power emitter, right? I don't know how this fucking magic works.'

As he neared the beams, Isaac looked down and saw a shield on a sliding mechanism, likely for maintenance. With a flick of the wrist, Isaac grabbed the shield with Kinesis and hefted it towards the closest beam. It passed over seamlessly and blocked the entire beam from vaporizing anything that was stupid enough to pass through. That being said, Isaac then continued through the new pass above the beam and eyed at the next set of beams. Before he could look for the next shield, however, there was a sizzling sound behind him. Isaac quickly turned in time to see the beam cut through the shield as the plate went off in two directions.

'Alright, then.'

Isaac turned back to the series of beams before him and saw another shield closer to the top of the room. He floated up towards it and lowered the plating with Kinesis once more, and zoomed past the opening in the beams before watching the last shield split in half and float away, with some parts still burning or even on fire.

'I guess I've still got the touch to break shit in anything Engineering related.' Isaac joked to himself before giving a slight chuckle.

He turned towards the end of the massive open space and saw several glowing symbols etched into the walls and floor, and in spaces between them were collections of wiring that ran along the walls and into the hatch for the vault door before him.

'So that's how they can use Zero-G. Weird. It's like how they trained me.' Isaac thought to himself.

With one last thrust, Isaac managed to land on the platform before him and slowly walked up to the lever for the door and waited as it gave another series of clicks and sounds before the vault door opened to the side, allowing the Engineer to pass through. Once on the other side, the door closed behind him and gave low locking sounds before Isaac felt the pressure return to his suit as the weightless feeling in his gut subsided as a voice chimed through his RIG.

"Exiting Zero-Gravity."

Isaac waited for a second before checking the Locator path, seeing that it was pointing straight at the door now in front of him. He reached for another lever and watched as the door opened downwards to reveal a massive circular room. In the center was a rotating platform that swung a gargantuan piece of metal in a perfect circle around the room, electricity arcing from the end of the strut as it scraped against the walls of its path. A bridge lead up to the platform at the center, where a series of panels were waiting for the Engineer.

Along with a grey Earth Pony stallion in red robes that glowed with Marker Symbols.

"Hello, Unholy one." The Pony called to Isaac. "It is time you learned the meaning of 'Truth'."

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