silent void

like something from a fever dream, images and sensations of cold metal pressing against me constricted my mind. as a filly i was very claustrophobic and this situation did not help. usually my mother would help me through these times but now...

so many things.

some time later my consciousness floats back to my body and i hear the crackle of fire and shouts. my eyes dart open and panic takes hold fast. one of my hind legs is stuck under a large portion of what is barely recognisable as the remains of the ship. the ship rested on it so that the metal suit surrounding it stopped me from being able to remove my leg. as i sat up on my back the suit felt heavy, very heavy. yet it seemed to aid my movement, seeming to anticipate my next motion before i made it.

the shouting reached my ears again, and as it did i turned and saw technojack and lilly coming around a large piece of the crew quaters. lilly saw me and pointed a hoof at me. "technojack, there she is," she says in a voice that is much more distraught than the one i heard from her earlier. they both rush over to me and help me out from under the large piece of what i now see to be part of the main deck.

as i get back to my feet and look at the burning wreckage of the ship a third voice boomed from behind me, causing me to jump in my metal boots. or at least attempt to jump, the heavy steel covering my body made me incapable of such a feat. the thing i see behind me is machojack, looking no less happy than usual. "HEY, SNAP PREETY LAYDEE" he shouts at me, probably talking about the weighty rig constricting every part of me. he proceeds to then come up to me and put a metal foreleg around me. "you survive, like us. now we escape and go home, yes?"

i have to admit that although he was annoying he did know how to calm people down. we headed off down a nearby platform towards two large steel doors. the doors had a holographic circle in their centre saying 'open'. a slight tingling goes off in my head as i near it. this told using my rig i can remotely open the door.

we enter the room beyond as the door opens. the room would normally be full of people but for some reason no one was here. this was conerning, especially after out 'explosive' entrance.

"tech-ey, go and check the control panel in that room." machojack points to a panel through some glass in a room just next to this one. "don't call me tech-ey," says technojack as he opens the door and moves through, fiddling with a panel on the other side of the glass. the three of us remaining in the room wait for him and search for reasons why no one is here. suddenly at this point a stallion runs through the third door in the room.

the stallion was the image of fear. his clothes were ripped and his skin bandaged, blood covered a large portion of him. his rig had been ripped off, revealing many of his inner workings, this seemed to be the least of his worries though. he looked at us, first to me, then machojack and then to the pony closest to him.

he jumped on top of lilly, holding her down with his back legs as he attempts to smash his head into lilly's "GET THEM OUT OF MY HEAD. I CAN'T TAKE IT, i can't... share it with me filly, MAKE US WHOLE."

as technojack stares in disbelief machojack and i just about leave out shocked states and prepare to take action when, through the open door, a figure lands from somewhere above the door frame, almost invisible in the dim light of the hallway behind, completley silent.

the creature looked like a pony but... didn't, it's form was mangled and contorted. it's ripped and torn skin barely covers joints that don't bend the right way, it's face no longer recognisable but shrunken, with nothing but an instantly recognisable guttering emanating from it's mouth, the same one as we heard on the comms.

it lifts up a forehoof, no, wait, a fore-fore hoof. this thing has six legs. but the upper arms of the two front ones had been replaced with blade-like protrusions. similar to the one coming out of the back of the creatures head, stretching and bending around to the front. as well as these six legs two protrusions from it's back could be seen in the dim light, blood dripped from them, they looked like wings but had no feathers and were the wrong shape, the bones jutting out and the 'wings' much bigger than pegasus wings, able to stretch to the floor.

the creature moves up to the stallion attacking lilly before machojack had finished screaming "OH FUCK!". it uses the boney blades protruding from it's 'legs' to impale him from behind. blood pours out of the still screaming stallion, covering lilly. if lilly could have screamed more, she would have. the creature lifts up the corpse and puts it in the way just in time for it to take the full force of machojacks bullets, finally killing the stallion. he had taken out a handgun he had apparently had this whole time and he was firing it at the thing.

"LITTLE BROTHER, RUN, WE SHALL FOLLOW." machojack shouts as he realises that his bullets had had no effect.

the small stallion in the other room immediately runs away through another door.

turning to me, machojack looks hopeless. then his gaze meets the now blood covered lilly. the monster was preparing to kill her once it had removed the stranger stallion from its 'claw'. machojack runs and grabs lilly, throwing her on his back and then shouts to me; "COME WITH ME IF YOU WANT TO LIVE LADY." i did not hesitate. i had not moved from this one spot for the whole time and i needed to get out of here.

we ran through the still open door that the creature had come through and along a corridor. as we did more of these abominations leapt from vents. they all had the same general layout to their bodies but the lasserations on their skin were different. a service elavator lies at the end of the corridor, the door opens instantly and we leap in.

the doors close and we start to move. i turn to see machojack comforting lilly. he puts a hoof to her face, her shock evident underneath the blood. i start to say: "WHAT, IN THE FLYING FU-" but i am cut short as the elavator doors open and two blades wrap around the metal of my torso. i try to move my forelegs but to no avail. the creature pulls me towards the door as the elavator still moves down, pushing me towards the top of the elavator. i hear a loud 'SNAP!' and i fall to the bottom of the elavator, propped up on the creatures blades i land onmy head, hard.

and, for the second time that day, i black out.