Unknown Contaminant

Strong winds whipped past the three ponies, blasting them with snow and ice. Octavia, Lyra, and Fluttershy slowly made their way down one of the white 'streets' that went between a row of squat, blackened buildings. The pathway was full of half-buried debris from some of the buildings, and had a thin layer of ash covering it. Even though the thermal jacket kept her from feeling the full force of the freezing wind, Fluttershy shivered as she followed the gray earth pony and green unicorn, folding her wings in just a little more than usual. The strangest thing about the cold was that her breath didn't cloud up like it did when she'd visited the Crystal Empire. Her mind pushed that thought aside when she looked around and saw the destroyed buildings around her. Memories of dragonfire and what it could do to a pony flashed through her mind, and she shivered a little more than she had a moment ago.

Octavia tried not to let the cold wind bother her. As she walked by the decayed, rotting buildings, Octavia quickly glanced over them to see if anypony might still be in them. Secretly, she hoped she wouldn't see any movement in them. If a pony had been inside one of the shelters when it had burned... Octavia shook her head. Best not to dwell on that, she thought.

Lyra nervously looked around the remnants of the colony. The unholy shriek from the distress call still echoed throughout her mind, and the fact that a few of the shacks looked like something had barreled through them, instead of collapsing in the fire, did little to comfort her.

"I wonder what started the fire..." The green unicorn glanced at the little flame coming from under the nozzle of her incinerator, and then back to the destroyed shacks on either side of her.  She had the distinct feeling that she had just answered her own question. Most colonies did have at least one incinerator, and it would only take one to start a chain reaction. Maybe whatever it was ran through some of the buildings after they'd attacked it.

"We can ask the pony that Pinkie was talking to," Octavia said. If it weren't for the radio headsets, the ponies would have had to shout at each other in order to be heard over the storm. As it was, they still had to talk fairly loud. "He can tell us what happened."

"You mean the pony who told us to go away before cutting off contact with us? He didn't really seem like he wanted to make some new friends..."

"Lyra, he's the only colonist we've been able to contact. We're going to go search the area around the colony's radio tower and see if we can find him."

Fluttershy looked at the crumbling shelters on either side of the group. The walls are just big enough for a pony to be hiding behind them, she thought.

"Shouldn't we see if anypony's in the buildings?" she asked.

"Fluttershy, we don't know if anypony's in them. What we do know is that somepony is near the radio tower. We'll check the buildings on our way back." Octavia stepped around a corner and spotted the radio tower through the snow and ice. "And there it is. Come on, let's go."

Fluttershy was about to follow the two ponies when she saw something near one of the destroyed shacks. Unable to tell what it was at first, she squinted in an effort to focus through the white haze of the storm. It looked like...

"There's... Somepony's lying in the snow over there," she said.

Octavia and Lyra turned around.

"What do you mean, 'there's somepony lying in the snow'?" Lyra asked. "Are you sure it's not just a rock or something? I don't think folks usually just go out and take a nap in the middle of a blizzard."

"I'm sure that whoever it is needs help." Fluttershy made her way towards the shape in the snow.

Octavia and Lyra quickly followed the yellow pegasus across the frozen wastes, trying to get in front of her in case it was something none of them wanted to meet.

They all reached the shape at the same time. They stopped, and stared at the partially buried thing.

Fluttershy had seen several violent, horrible things when she had been caring for animals. But what she saw went far beyond anything a predator would do to another animal. Her brain couldn't comprehend what it was seeing, it was so, so wrong.

Octavia stared at the mass in front of Fluttershy, unable to believe what she was seeing.

Lyra turned away, groaning and trying not to empty her stomach on the snow and ice.

It wasn't the fact that a pony had been set on fire and the body had been left in the snow that disturbed them so much. It certainly had something to do with it, but what pushed them over the edge was how freakish, how wrong, the body looked.

The body in the snow looked like some twisted science experiment that had gone horribly, horribly awry. There were too many hooves growing out of it, and something none of them could describe was breaking out of the back instead of a pair of wings. On the side of the unfortunate pony's charred head, what looked like the deformed, misshapen head of a completely different pony seemed to be forcing its way out, stretching and distorting the original pony's face into a silent, agonized scream.

Octavia was the first to recover. She pulled an unresponsive Fluttershy away from the corpse, and slowly guided her away from the twisted thing.

Stumbling along behind them, Lyra tried to regain control of her stomach.

"Let's... Let's... Let's find that radio guy and get the buck out of here..."

***

On the Acheron, Time Turner sat at his station in the bridge, watching the vital signs of the away team on his monitor.  When he saw their pulses start to fluctuate, he reached over and flicked one of the many switches on his desk to the 'on' position, and grainy video feedback appeared on his monitor. Through it he could see Octavia, supporting Fluttershy as they walked through what was left of the colony. In the distance he could see the radio tower, though he couldn't figure out why Lyra kept wobbling all over the place as she walked. Maybe-

"How're they doing?"

Turner almost jumped out of his seat. He looked behind him to see a surprised pegasus holding a cup full of some sort of drink in her hoof.

"Sorry, I-"

Turner cut her off. "No, it's fine." He cleared his throat before continuing, "They're um, they're looking a bit sick for some reason. Lyra in particular. But I missed whatever it was. Good thing, too, because I've never seen Fluttershy look like that. I think they're going to the radio tower. Probably trying to find Pinkie's new friend. Did uh, did you want something?"

Derpy shook her head. "Not really. Just, uh... Just... You want some hot chocolate?" Derpy offered the cup in her hoof to the science officer.

Time Turner blinked. "What?"

"Oh, well, Pinkie found a way to get the autochef to make hot chocolate. I don't how she did it, but it's really good and I was wondering if you'd like to- any, if you'd like any."

"...Sure, just put it on the desk..."

Derpy placed the little cup on the stallion's desk. She awkwardly made her way to her station as Turner went back to watching the feedback on his monitor. An awkward silence, for Derpy at least, followed.

Derpy started to say something to the science officer, but before she could open her mouth, Applejack's voice crackled over the intercom.

"Y'all might want to come down here. We've got a problem."

***

The away team had finally reached the radio tower. It was a tall, ice-covered metal tower standing next to a run-down, but mostly still intact blue shed. The three ponies of the away team were sitting at the base of the hill, the storm raging around them.

Octavia looked at her two companions. Fluttershy was still in shock, and Lyra looked like she was about to puke her guts out.

"I'm going up there," she told them. Neither Lyra nor Fluttershy said anything. "Lyra, you stay here in case something shows up, OK?"

Lyra slowly nodded her head, and then she started vomiting.

While Lyra emptied her gut onto the ice, Octavia slowly climbed up the snow-covered hill. She hoped, for the sake of her sanity and that of the others, that whatever was in the radio tower was a normal, regular, scared out of his mind pony and not some insane scientist straight out of those trashy magazines her old flatmate used to read. That was if there even was a pony in the little shack. For all she knew, Pinkie's 'Meanie McMeanmean' was in one of the decaying buildings the trio had walked by on their way to the tower.

She hoped that wasn't the case. Octavia was fairly certain that neither of the ponies with her was up to the task of searching the colony's burnt husks.

Octavia stopped at the door to the shack. She glanced behind her to see how the others were doing. Lyra had recovered and was watching her, while Fluttershy just stared into the hillside.

Octavia placed the incinerator's trigger in her mouth, took a deep breath, and pushed the faded door open. Inside, sitting on a small table, was an old, poorly maintained radio. But no mysterious radio pony. Octavia spit the incinerator's trigger out of her mouth.

Can't say I'm all that surprised, Octavia thought. Looks like we'll have to- Wait a minute... What's that?

Sitting on top of the radio was a strange little creature that Octavia had never seen before. It looked a bit like a dragon's claw that had grown a tail, its skin a dull, pale yellow. Octavia leaned back a bit, unsure of just what she was looking at.

The creature crawled a little closer to her.

Octavia started to back up, and reached a hoof up to shut the door.

The thing launched itself off of the radio. For a brief second, Octavia saw it fly through the air towards her. Before she could slam the door shut, it had landed on her face.

Darkness.

Can't breathe, get it off, get it off, get it off...

Her hooves desperately pulled at the creature, trying to pry it off of her head.

Bony claws dug into her skull.

The creature's tail wrapped itself around her neck.

Something forced its way into her mouth, slid down her throat.

I can't breathe...

She stumbled backwards out of the shack, and she could barely hear somepony screaming at her before she lost consciousness.