Author's Note

Okay... this was a fun scene to write. I hope you enjoyed it even more than I did writing it!

Chapter 4: Emergency Lockdown...

Twilight ran out of the room, raising her pulsar rifle. She stood next to Rainbow and Fluttershy, ready to fight for her life. The monster's screaming had ceased, but the emergency lockdown was still in place. In the video, the room had locked itself and that creature had killed those aliens. She could only assume that the same thing was going to happen here.

Captain Shard kept his rifle up, "Twilight, get rid of that damn emergency lockdown! It's clear we'll need a route of escape real soon!"

Twilight nodded, looking around for anything that would help her. Another console would really help, but the only one was in that glass-walled room. She spotted a panel that was below one of the lights. She may be able to cut off the signal from wherever the emergency lockdown had been activated. She ran to the panel, busting it open. There were lights and wires everywhere, but it was clear that everything had its place. She just needed to find out how to break the power signal. She reached in, feeling around the panel. A smile popped onto her face when she felt a heated circular power fuse. That's what she assumed it was, since all the wires and cables all slid into it. She felt around it, eventually finding a button. She pressed it, feeling that the power source had opened itself up. She grabbed a small plasma torch from her storage compartment and blew out the fuse.

Almost instantly, all of the lights went out in the room, even the orange lights. Only one door had unlocked, but it went in a completely different direction than the hangar. It was their best bet, though. She backed off away from the console, feeling very proud of herself, "I did it!'

A vent above the unlocked door fell to the floor and something dropped in. It was dark, but the light on her rifle illuminated it just fine. The monster's red, evil eyes stared back at Twilight for a moment, as if it was saying, "You are going to die..."

Blue rifle rounds fired into the creature when it ran at Twilight. Its right bone blade ripped off, making it stumble backwards. Twilight fired into the creature as well, emptying her entire clip into it. It fell to the floor, blood having splattered just about everywhere. It twitched a couple of times, but that was about it.

A few seconds later, shapes dropped out of the ceilings. So many shapes that Twilight could only assume that they were now outnumbered. The creepy screaming started up again, chilling Twilight to the bone. Rainbow caught a bone blade with her hoof and pushed it into the chest of one of the monsters. Twilight watched the blue pegasus trip it and bring the butt of the rifle down upon its head. The skull shattered into shards, the blood very hard to see due to the intense darkness of the room.

Captain Shard yelled out, firing his weapon into a crowd of those monsters, keeping them at bay with the assistance of the other soldiers, "Head for the door! NOW!"

Twilight opened the door up and checked her corners, running out into a corridor. The group all ran out, but two soldiers were impaled by two of the monsters. They were ripped apart, still alive and screaming in horrified, agonized pain. She kept on running, rounding a corner and jumping into a room. The Captain, Fluttershy, and Rainbow, along with two soldiers were in there with them. The others, in their fear, had continued to run down the hallway. Twilight closed the door and leaned against the wall, trying to comprehend what had just happened.

Captain Shard glared at the door, "This mission is going to SHIT! We need to get back to the hangar. We'll wait out here a bit. There are no ceiling vents and only one side one, so we can fend them off if they come in here."

Fluttershy shook and cried her eyes out, holding her knees as she sat against a wall, next to a desk of some sorts, "They're dead! They're all dead! We're going to die, we're going to-!"

She was cut off when Rainbow slapped her. Rainbow frowned when she realized what she had did, and Fluttershy was pretty damn surprised, "Sorry... but you need to get your shit together, Flutters. We are GOING to get the hell out of here."

Fluttershy looked down, whimpering some more. But, she didn't say anything further, just kept sniffling every once in a while. The two soldiers kept their guns pointed at the vent, ready for one of those things to come out, screaming in a murderous rage.

Twilight went to a console at the desk and sat down. Luckily, it was not locked, so she could easily access it. The format and programming was still a little weird for her, but she was able to bring up a video. It showed an alien in a uniform very unique. She could only assume that this was a very high ranking individual.

The figure was in a different room than the one the ponies were in right now. Behind the alien was a red, glowing rock that twisted around in a strange shape. There were hundereds of symbols along it. They were only symbols, but they instilled a fear in Twilight much greater than when they had been ambushed in the medical bay.

The alien spoke, "This is Admiral Wu of the USG Odyssey. We have found a strange artifact deep within the planet. And, we brought it up as you can see. It seems to be having some sort of a mental effect on the crew. It's as if they're not themselves. There have been twenty six suicides in a matter of days, and I believe that this rock has something to do with it. I... it's having some sort of an effect on me as well. I suspect that something about this large rock is sapient, much like us humans."

The admiral looked rather disturbed by what he said next, "I'm in this room by myself... anyone else would think I was crazy if I said this. I'm hearing voices from this rock. It says that what we had picked up was called a marker. Whatever that is. But... I keep feeling this sense of impending doom, like we had made a mistake about bringing this damn thing up. I'm going to order that this thing be buried on the planet. Whatever's happening, it isn't natural. It'll be hard to get this thing off, though... the Unitologists aboard are ready to mutinee. They think that this thing is some kind of relic, an ancient power that will... ascend them to a higher level, purify them. Whatever the hell that means."

The admiral brought his hands up to his head, dropping to his knees. A look of ultimate pain crossed his face, "I... I... NO! I won't do it, you hear me?!"

The admiral screamed out in pain as he fell to the floor, crying his eyes out. Whatever was happening, it was hurting the admiral a lot. He seemed to be experiencing a lot of pain at the moment.

The admiral got up, his hands still holding his head, his mouth hung open in agony. The marker behind him was glowing a brighter red, as if it was the culprit behind the assault. He stumbled to the side and slipped, hitting his head on the edge of a metal table. He simply laid there now, his eyes open and wide. Blood started to pool around his head, making it obvious that the man had died. The marker's glow dimmed down to what it had been before.

Other humans ran into the room and checked his pulse. They didn't seem to be very interested in whether he died or not. A human, who Twilight assumed was a female, walked in front of the marker and brushed her hand along it.

The femal hunan said, "The Marker has dispatched the non-believer. Now we can purify the rest of them. Ascension is at hand, ladies and gentlemen."

She turned around, a crazy look upon her face. She brought oher arms, as if she were going to give someone a hug, but she simply held them in the air, "And WE are the tools of this GLORIOUS purification!"

A human with a rather worried expression walked up to the video camera and whispered, "She's fucking crazy... to anyone that sees this, you need to stop her. She has too much support."

The others were too focused on cheering on the woman to notice this obviously male human say this and shut the video off. He had obviously taken the file with him and uploaded it into this console. But why here? Wouldn't this video be easier to see if it were somewhere more public?

The others, besides the two soldiers, had been watching the entire time. They all had realized that there was something bigger than all of them going on here. And if they weren't careful, it would be the death of them all.