After the impact, all Fluttershy feels is pain, and she screams and sobs as every bone in her body feels like it has been snapped and glued back together. Next to her, the Pyro grunts and shifts on the ground, trying to stand as he coughs specks of blood. Sparks fall all around them, and the alarm wobbles, going from low to high pitches, and the red lights flicker with the computer screens going dim. With everything crooked and blurry, Fluttershy can barely make out the data being projected from the projector, which is barely working as is. But when it all comes to focus, her eyes widen at the sight of a blueprint of the engine room being in a shade of red, as well as a set of numbers above it.

Fluttershy lays on the ground, grunting and forcing her muscles to move, despite the fresh wave of wounds slowing her down. Every shift brings a fiery flash or a scraping pain, and her vision pulses, going in and out of clarity with the display of the engine room and the countdown in her focus. Alarms sound, orange light bleeds through the damaged plating of what was once the observation window of the bridge, and there is a shrill howling outside on top of the alarm in the bridge. Fluttershy watches the numbers drop, and dread freezes her in place.

30:00
29:59
29:58
29:57
29:56

“W-W-W-W-AR-ARN-ING. WARNI-ING-NG: WARP CORE FAI-AIL-LURE. EVACUATE IMMEDIATELY. WA-WARP DESTA-LIZ-TION Immmmmmm.... Pop.”

“Oh, no,” says Fluttershy.

The Pyro's groan draws Fluttershy's focus away from the timer, and she watches, pale and wide eyed as the psycho rolls upright. After the Pyro stands up, he cracks his back and neck, looks at Fluttershy and aims his flamethrower at her.

“Now we end this,” says the Pyro.

In a burst of speed Fluttershy didn't realize she had in her, she rolls away, narrowly avoiding a stream of fire. The fire sweeps towards her, and she leaps over a tilted computer panel, laying low as the fire melts it. With ragged breaths, Fluttershy checks her cutter and sees that it is empty, and while cursing she switches to her SAD rifle, which has plenty of ammo, and after taking a deep breath she gallops towards a new location, being careful to navigate the new environment of tilted stairs, rails and computer consoles.

The Pyro's flames stop, and he gallops after her, taking a sharp turn and dive for cover when Fluttershy turns around, guns blazing. The bullets ricochet off the panels and the floor with a series of sparks, and when the Pyro takes cover behind a terminal, Fluttershy climbs over a railing and takes cover behind a row of navigation computers. She pokes her head up, just to dart down when the fire returns in a long burst.

Fluttershy crouches and runs along the edge of the level, straining her ears in the chaos of the alarm, the roaring fire and whatever the howling outside is. Computers explode, and lights flicker, and when the fire stops, Fluttershy turns around in time to see the Pyro leap down to her level, looking right at her. Before she can fire, he unleashes another stream of fire towards her, engulfing her.

Fluttershy shrieks and fires blindly until the fire stops coming, but with the fire eating away at her suit and pads, she runs blindly, hits a computer and falls to the ground, rolling madly as her suit's fabric burns and goes into her skin. With her rolling, parts of her burnt suit fall off and the fire quickly dies out, and she struggles to get up, shaking intensely as she injects herself with a dose of adrenaline and hastily sprays medical foam on her wounds. As this happens, the Pyro is slumped against the wall, wheezing with a pool of blood growing around him and more streaked on the wall and staining his suit. He grits his teeth, stands up and marches towards Fluttershy again.

“You are tainted by the Marker. You cannot save us,” says the Pyro, his teeth stained red and his face dark around the eyes. “But I can. I can save us.”

Fluttershy reloads and shoots him again, and he stumbles back, gasping and his limbs shaking in their struggle to keep him up.

“Through faith and flame I have purged this ship... Through faith and flame I will save us...” The Pyro lifts his flamethrower again and he uses his other hoof to inject himself with a large syringe of adrenaline. “Salvation through fire!”

The Pyro gallops forward, biting hard on his flamethrower trigger to eject a large stream of fire, and Fluttershy climbs over a railing to get to the upper level, and she shoots at the Pyro's back while he sweeps the flames up to her. The flames blind Fluttershy and force her backwards while a ball of fire rolls up with an agonizing scream. Fluttershy's visor cracks and the lights inside flicker, forcing her deactivate her helmet, exposing her battered face. Immediately, the stench of burnt flesh fills her nose, and she gags and stumbles forward. Before she can get to the edge, the Pyro's hoof grips the railing, his flesh blackened with chunks of burnt flesh falling off to reveal red flesh muscle beneath with portions of his clothes fused to his skin. Fluttershy steps back, and he climbs over, wheezing with his fuel tack popped, embedding metal into him, and his flamethrower is a twisted mess. His skull is cracked and showing past strands of skin with his one eye focused on Fluttershy.

He releases a raspy scream and leaps at Fluttershy while she shoots at him, but despite the bullets tearing into him, he still forces her down with a tackle and bites at her neck. Fluttershy screams in agony and punches him in the jaw, breaking his teeth. He retaliates with a punch to her nose with a loud crunch; blood gushes out from her nose and Fluttershy pushes him off with one hoof holding her face, and as she stumbles up, he tackles her again, covering the both of them in his blood. The tackle brings both rolling towards the holographic display of the timer. The Pyro lands on top of Fluttershy, and when she tries to push him off he headbutts her and presses his hoof down on her throat, his one eye peering into hers as his burnt flesh dangles off of his body and his blood drips on her.

“Die with me,” wheezes the Pyro. “Make us whole!”

Suddenly, a massive body lands on top of the Pyro, and his head is jerked forward as bone breaks and blood pours out of his mouth and nose. Then cracks pop around his skull, what is left of his skin bulges, and bugs pop out from underneath his hide, with more crawling out of his mouth or breaking through his skull. Fluttershy shrieks and pushes him off, scrambling backwards into a broken computer panel as she watches, horrified as the Pyro's body is mutilated from the inside out; his flesh snapping open, bones breaking and bugs ripping off pieces of his body and chunks of his bones organs falling out. He goes limp in the pool of blood and standing near him is a Griffin Necromorph with a saw blade lodged in its back.

“No,” whimpers Fluttershy.

The Slingshot Necromorph looks at Fluttershy, roars and charges her with the bugs crawling towards her, and she screams again and shoots at them in a wild spray of gunfire. The bullets push the Slingshot Necromorph back, tearing apart its body and popping the bugs in the process. When the bullets tear off its limbs, it screeches until its head is pulverized, leaving bits of brain and bone on the ground while its body twitches.

23:35
23:34
23:33

Fluttershy bangs her against the computer, shaking and sobbing as she looks at Slingshot's destroyed body.

“I'm sorry,” sniffles Fluttershy. “I'm sorry...”

23:27
23:26
23:25

A slow clap echoes in the room, and Fluttershy looks to the side, still shaking as Zephyr stomps the floor in a dramatic applause.

“Cool. Cool. Very cool, sis,” says Zephyr. He walks forward, grinning. “You have changed a lot. Why couldn't you be like this when we were younger? When I needed you?”

Fluttershy reloads her rifle.

“I mean, remember when we were kids and there were those bullies? Then there was all that weird Unitology stuff,” continues Zephyr. “Sis, oh sis, where are you? I asked for help, and like all these fancy gods and mom and dad, you never helped me.”

23:11
23:10
23:09

Fluttershy aims her rifle at Zephyr. He is now by the projector, his figure going through the dwindling numbers as he continues towards her.

“How many times did I need you and you never helped, Fluttershy? How many times did you leave me in the dark?” asks Zephyr. “I was forsaken by you, mom and dad. Sure, they never loved me. I was always the problem child, so I would hate me if I were them, but you? My dear, big sister, left me here to suffer and die alone!”

“Don't come any closer!” orders Fluttershy.

“Right, keep me far away,” says Zephyr, stopping a few paces away from her. “Keep far, far away! Even when I needed you most you chose to stay far away. But I'm not mad, no, not mad at all. In fact, I want to go back in time when we were kids. Those were good times. I especially loved playing tag with you.”

22:38
22:37
22:36

“I think we should play tag again, for old time's sake,” says Zephyr.

22:32
22:31
22:30

The emergency lights in the bridge flicker off for a moment, but when they flash back on, the Hunter is charging Fluttershy, and she jumps out of the way. The Hunter's claws dig into the computer panel, showering with sparks, and it howls in rage and pain when Fluttershy shoots its arm off in a spray of gunfire. After its shredded arm pops off, she shoots off one of its legs and gallops towards a gaping hole in the bridge's plating. She peeks outside and sees the colony ship has a slope she can slide down, and not too far from the ship is the Marker laying on the ground with Applejack's ship plus more ships scattered, as well as a row of hangars and a destroyed skyline with odd tendrils of flesh wrapped around the monoliths. The atmosphere has become a reddish orange, with a circle of energy swirling from the Marker and going into the sky, and bodies are flying up like metallic flakes to a magnet.

“What the hell?” gasps Fluttershy.

Behind her, the Hunter roars, and Fluttershy turns around and shoots its legs again while it charges her. The bullets do their job, breaking the legs off at their knees, and the beast collapses, but uses its claws to crawl after her. Fluttershy curses, then quickly wiggles her way through the opening in the ship, and when she is outside, one hoof grips the opening while the other feels for the battery and Applejack's hat. They are still there. Burnt, but still there with the battery still blowing. With that, Fluttershy looks down, gulping at the long drop, but after a set of claws stab at the floor near her, she shrieks and releases her hold.

Sporadic sparks trail her as her destroyed armor scrapes against the hull of the Bon Voyage, and her heart races as everything zips by her. She tilts her body left and right and uses her hoof to break or turn sharply to avoid jagged gaps in the ship’s hull, and out of sheer reflex, she grabs a steel beam that has impaled the ship and dangles down, heart racing and throat convulsing from her gags as the next drop is a few dozen feet down and is a ball of broken rebar and concrete.

Fluttershy winces and pulls herself up and takes a deep, shaky breath while she balances herself on the beam. As she stands there, she eyes her next spot, another dip that is a long jump away, and while she makes mental calculations her thought process is interrupted by metal ripping. She looks to the source and sees the Hunter sliding down after her using its claws to adjust its speed and direction while other Necromorphs crawl out of the holes of the Bon Voyage just to be sucked into the sky.

“Shit!”

Fluttershy coils her body and leaps to the next part of the ship, bouncing and rolling for a moment before she straightens herself out and jumps off the last bit. While in the air, she tucks herself into a ball and rolls across the concrete. She unrolls and flops on her side, wheezing and struggling to push herself up.

“Oh, Fluttershy~” calls Zephyr

Fluttershy looks over her shoulder and sees Zephyr walking towards her, the dark light of the Marker giving him a red glow as the dark pools of his eyes change to a bright white.

“Tag is not a game if you're standing still!” says Zephyr.

“GO TO HELL!” yells Fluttershy.

She unloads on Zephyr, causing him to stumble backwards as blood squirts from him, and when her magazine drops, completely empty, she slips a new one in and marches towards him. Shooting him again, tears streaming down her face.

“You are not Zephyr! You are not my brother!” cries Fluttershy.

“You wound me with your words. You still reject your big bro,” says Zephyr.

Fluttershy screams again and shoots off Zephyr's limbs, and he cackles as she shoots his chest open, splashing the ground with his rust colored blood and torn bones and organs. When she stands above him, aiming her rifle at his head, he keeps laughing.

“Run while you can, Fluttershy. The game is still on!” taunts Zephyr.

Fluttershy blinks, and finds the Hunter laying on the ground as a hunk of meat with its limbs gone and chest mush. But the broken parts begin healing with green energy, and Fluttershy backs up, and then gallops away with panic flooding her veins and clouding her thoughts. As she runs, the hangars she passes are either empty or have destroyed ships. Save for one.

The door is wide open, and a group of Necromorphs have crawled out of the ship, only to be pulled into the atmosphere. Fluttershy runs towards the hangar, wheezing and stumbling, and when she reaches the ship -a simple rectangular ship with a sharp nose and two cylindrical engines on stubby wings- she finds blood on the back door.

Fluttershy opens it and steps back, sweeping her rifle between the back door and the hangar entrance, firing off another stream of bullets at the Hunter as it marches into view. It falls again without one of its legs, and at this point the back door is fully open. Fluttershy hops on, gives it another sweep and when she finds nothing, she closes the door and runs forward, scanning the area with a racing heart for a warp battery slot. She quickly finds one by an engine made of cylinders, wires, and pipes, and she slides the battery in without a problem. The battery glows bright with a hum, and Fluttershy runs to the pilot seat.

Once seated, she starts flicking switches, pushing buttons, and turning knobs, bringing the engines to whir to life. She looks out the window and sees the Hunter running towards her.

Fluttershy narrows her eye and pushes the power lever forward, and the ship's engines whine loudly as the vehicle lunges towards the creature. It jumps up and grabs the ship with its claws, bringing the alarm to sound, and she turns another knob that increases the speed of the ship while she makes a sharp ascension, glaring at the Hunter while it clutches on to her ship.

An electric storm erupts behind Fluttershy, and the Hunter releases Fluttershy's ship, taking a brief fall before being sucked into the sky, leaving deep scratches in her ship. The orange and red light tainting the atmosphere is then beaten back by flashes of blue while discharge and rumbling pierces the noise inside, including the screeching warning alarms that are bringing pain to Fluttershy's ears.

Fluttershy pushes another button that leads to the battery behind her to glow brighter than it already is. The energy being released inside the ship tugs at her while outside, clouds are evaporated, and Fluttershy grits her teeth and pushes the speed lever forward as far as it can go. The ship shakes from the rumbling, electronics and lights flicker as electric bolts whip at the ship and crack the sky. A bright blue and white light burns Fluttershy's eye, forcing her to squint, her fur and mane stand and her heart races as tears soak her cheek.

“Please... Please, please please please please,” begs Fluttershy, her eye darting from the window to the flickering monitors and back again.

The ship shakes violently and starts to slow down and go backwards while the battery in the slot hums louder and glows brighter.

“Don't do this me,” says Fluttershy, her voice cracking and her vision going white with deafening rumbles of the earth breaking apart and the stench of atmosphere burning flooding her nose. “I did not come this far just to die!”

And with that, like a voice above heard her, there is a pop inside her ship, a bright flash of light, followed by the sudden appearance of the stars in the black expanse of space. The ship's electronics flicker out, some bursting with sparks breaking out of their buttons and screens, and an alarm beeps loudly as red lights flash above Fluttershy's head. Even the battery has popped, sending shards of burnt crystals twirling in the zero gravity. However, she is not worried about that, what she is worried about is her ship spinning uncontrollably in space. She quickly hits an emergency booster button that causes the ship to eject a number of controlled bursts that slow the spin, with a couple more that put Fluttershy looking directly at Onyx, which has a large blob of flesh hanging in its outer atmosphere.

Fluttershy clutches her heart, now beating heavy and fast with a tightness in her throat and a sharp pain in her lung. Her mouth hangs open, trying to swallow air as she sees a circle of nothingness in the clouds, revealing the habitation strip of Onyx nestled between the black ice and red mountains on either side. Fluttershy presses her hoof against her chest, wheezing and coughing with the taste of iron flooding her mouth as tiny blobs of red and yellow float up around her from her bleeding throat, and her vision starts fading to black. She shakily grabs her last adrenaline syringe and injects herself with it, bringing her vision to snap back, but at the cost of her heart beating faster and with more pain. She grips the control panel, seething in pain with her other hoof holding her chest.

“Unknown craft, identify yourself,” says a stallion over her radio.

Fluttershy looks at the radio, eye heavy and droopy, and breathing reduced to labored gasps.

“Unknown craft, identify yourself or we will be forced to take action,” says the stallion.

Fluttershy shakily takes the radio, licks her cracked lips, and in a raspy voice, she says, “Bright Pear. Butter Mac. Perfect Pair.”

“Password confirmed. Stand by for further instructions, Agent Apple.”

Fluttershy looks towards Onyx's moon, not seeing anything, but she knows the Harpoon is there, and it will only be a matter of time before they see she is Fluttershy and not Applejack. With that thought, she slumps in her seat, whimpers, and clutches her face. Then her whimpers turn to wails and she kicks the dashboard repeatedly as a torrent of tears flow down her cheek, mixing with the blood and grime on her face.

“Agent Apple, an unidentified signal has been discovered near you. Hang tight, we're coming to get you,” says the stallion.

Before Fluttershy could process the words, a bright flash of light appears next to her, and a long rectangular ship with stubby wings and fins glides out of an orb of swirling blue and white energy. Once the ship is fully out, the orb disappears and Fluttershy stares at the ship as it glides towards her.

“This is the 'Explorer' responding to the 'Bon Voyage' distress signal. Any survivors, please respond,” says a female.

Fluttershy activates her radio, her hoof pressed hard against her chest while her eye looks between the Explorer and the moon.

“I read you,” says Fluttershy.

“How many are on your vessel?” asks the mare.

“Just me... I'm the only survivor.”

“Stand by for boarding.”

The Explorer inches closer to Fluttershy's craft, and in the distance, a sleek ship that looks like a sewing needle with a bulbous back approaches at a great speed. After the Explorer takes its place behind Fluttershy's ship, there is a thud that shakes the craft. Fluttershy quickly readies her rifle and bounces through the ship, towards the back, passing floating crystal shard, broken electronics and burnt wires. When at the back of her ship, she takes aim and waits. Several seconds pass before there is a beep and a brief holographic projection that flickers and dies by the door, leaving just the audio.

“Permission to board?” says a mare.

Fluttershy hits a red button near her, bringing the back door to slide open, and she steadies her rifle, keeping her breathing as even as possible, which is impossible at this point. Just to breath or pump blood is painful, now, and every shell of medical foam feels like it is falling apart.

As the door opens, a bright yellow light floods the chamber, and crackles of radio chatter is heard behind Fluttershy, but she ignores it. The door is fully opened, and the group in front of her appears to be shadowy apparitions. But after a few seconds the shadows solidify into a group of Kirins wearing thick, gray jumpsuits, save for one, a male who is wearing a cheap, metal plated suit and armed with a saddle shotgun that probably came from a pawn shop. They would have died had they showed up a few hours sooner. That said, there is something Fluttershy must do before making any moves towards them.

“Are you real?” asks Fluttershy.

The crew stares at her, silent and perplexed by the question, and Fluttershy steps backwards with her rifle sweeping them.

“Are you real!?” yells Fluttershy.

The crew gasps and retreats a couple of steps while the gunner moves forward and aims his shotgun at Fluttershy's head. She turns her rifle to him, chest heaving, and eye and cheek wet with tears. But before anyone shoots, a female Kirin steps forward and gently lowers the stallion's shotgun.

“Wait,” she says. The stallion glares at her, and she tilts her head to Fluttershy. “Let me talk to her.”

“Are you nuts?” says the stallion.

“She is obviously traumatized. Let me talk to her. I can calm her down.”

The stallion looks at the mare, and then at Fluttershy, who has yet to lower her weapon, and her eye is frantically darting between everyone. A moment later, the stallion reluctantly steps aside, but keeps his shotgun ready, and the mare approaches Fluttershy, leading to the lone survivor to snap her rifle to her. This brings the Kirin to stop for a moment, but that quickly passes as she carefully steps forward with a soft smile and her hoof extended slightly.

“It's okay, we're not going to hurt you,” says the mare.

“Are you real?” asks Fluttershy.

“I am,” assures the mare. She gradually extends her hoof the rest of the way and offers a warm smile. “See? I'm real.”

Fluttershy stares at her for a few seconds before hesitantly approaching her. She reaches out and her armored hoof, caked in blood and covered in dents, scratches and gashes, brushes against the boot, then moves up the sleeve of the soft gray jumpsuit. Feeling the soft fabric, Fluttershy's lips quiver and her hoof feels the mare's limb and face, equally soft, and when she looks her in the eyes she collapses into the Kirin and weeps.

Fluttershy hugs the Kirin tight, sobbing into her shoulder as her legs buckle and her body trembles. Her weeping is muffled into her shoulder, but everyone hears it, and the mare gently shushes her as she rubs the back of her head. The stallion calls a pair of other security Kirins to investigate the ship Fluttershy was in while the other crew mates rush into action, getting the medical bay and a room ready.

Soon, Fluttershy is gently pulled away from the mare and is led to the back where she is taken out of what is left of her suit. She doesn't need a mirror to see her condition. She can feel everything, from the wet scars, to the blood and sweat that stains her. The stinging and throbbing from the wounds are only made only worse when she is put through a decontamination shower. After that comes a rigorous session of thoroughly cleaning the wounds, placing new bandages and putting splints on her wings and limbs, braces for her ribs and hips, stitching (especially for her neck), a new eye patch with a cleaning of her eye socket, as well as procedure that pumped out all of the chemicals in her body.

When all that is done, she gets an impressive list of injuries she sustained and the ship doctor finishes with: “So, basically, you've poisoned yourself with how much medical foam and adrenaline you've used, your heart and lungs are shot and will need to be replaced, parts of your tissue and nervous system are destroyed, your bones are barely together, your infected with something unknown, and with all the blood you lost you're lucky to be alive... Do you have any questions? Any requests? Perhaps a drink? Or a meal?”

Fluttershy stares at the doctor blankly, her hoof rubbing Applejack's burnt hat in robotic motions, and he nods, lifts his hoof to pat her shoulder, but after a brief moment of observation he pulls away and asks her to stay seated and relaxed while he puts information in his pad. Fluttershy watches him with her lifeless eye, wondering how he can call her lucky.

She doesn't feel lucky.

She feels dead, and cold. Cold to where she is shivering and needs a thick blanket to cover her pale form while hooked to an IV stand.

And now that she has settled down, she wonders why she got the curse of living while everyone else got the gift of death. They don't have to live with the torment any longer. It is all over for them. They don't have to endure the nightmare anymore, unlike her. She is stuck having to relive what happened. Stuck having to watch Rarity get mauled in space, Slingshot getting his back split open with a saw, finding Thunderlane has bled a slow agonizing death while she chased a ghost, seeing Rainbow Dash's neck popped and Applejack impaled by rebars. Not to mention the rest of the crew that was ripped apart by the monsters. And to top it off, she failed.

She failed her team.

She failed Zephyr.

How can she possibly make anything right when everybody she was supposed to keep alive died?

How can she live every day knowing that her brother and her team died because of her?

How can she endure that?

How can there not be any punishment for her failure?

There must be punishment for what she allowed to happen; for allowing her brother to die.

Fluttershy looks at a locked cabinet marked with a scalpel icon and she rubs Applejack's hat.

Maybe there is justice for this event. Maybe there is a way she can make things right, after all.
Fluttershy observes the doctor typing away on his pad, moving his eyes from his notes to the scans on other screens. He's an old, fat Kirin with a thin mane and thick glasses. An easy target.

A hard jab to the horn, followed by slamming his head against the table for extra blunt force trauma will render him in too much pain and will nullify his magic. The door to the medical room has a lock that she can easily break to buy her time.

Fluttershy looks at the scalpel icon again.

Time to save herself.

Before she can move, the door opens and the Captain walks in. He is a Kirin stallion with bronze scales, orange fur, and a thick mane of red, yellow, and orange, and he has red eyes, and his tag says, “S. Blaze”.

“Fluttershy, there is someone who wants to talk to you. They're from the government,” says Captain Blaze.

Fluttershy nods and slowly trails him with the IV stand in her grip and the blanket clipped around her to create a makeshift robe. She keeps her eye on the scalpel icon until she can no longer see the cabinet, and then goes from a shuffle to a slow walk after Captain Blaze. He leads her down the hallway, which is now populated with soldiers in dark armor, full faced helmets, and battle rigs, and all of them have a “0” on their shoulder pads. She can tell by their build that they are mostly griffins with a few ponies and goats, and while Fluttershy and Blaze walk, she spots a few more soldiers searching computers on the small bridge while the crew is lined up along the wall. She didn't even hear them board the ship, but, then again, the concept of time has entirely disappeared for her and she has been in a state of limbo ever since they brought her on the Explorer.

When Fluttershy reaches her destination, Blaze opens a locked door with his band and motions Fluttershy into a room. She looks at him, then at a pair of Section 0 soldiers down the hallway before entering the room. The room is long, with a table that goes most of its length and is surrounded by enough chairs to seat two dozen people, and in front of the table is a screen with a logo of a sun and moon fused together on display. Once Fluttershy sits down, the Captain dismisses himself, leaves the room and locks the door, and Fluttershy looks at the door for a few seconds before turning her attention to the vent in the middle of the ceiling. Then her eye flicks to the screen when a face appears. A unicorn stallion with a gray azure colored coat, dark blue mane done in a comb-over, and amber eyes. He is wearing a suit that has a pin of a flaring sun on it. He also looks to be in his late fifties or early sixties, and he doesn't say anything for a few seconds, putting the two in a stare down that ends with him speaking.

“Fluttershy Breeze, we heard what happened to your team on the Bon Voyage and you have my condolences,” says the stallion, his voice matching Pinnacle's from Arcos' audio log.

Fluttershy says nothing, but her expression hardens.

“I have instructed Captain Summer Blaze to bring you back to Sparkle Station. When you arrive, you will be required to give a full report about what happened on the Bon Voyage. Everything to the best of your abilities must be explained with nothing held back. I know it will be hard for you, but this is vital for our investigation.”
Fluttershy stares at him, breathing heavily with hot tears pooling in her eye.

“Do you understand that we will need a full report about the incident?”

Fluttershy nods.

“Good. The Harpoon will provide security until you arrive at Sparkle Station. Once there you will receive the best treatment available and you will be compensated accordingly when the investigation is complete. Thank you for your service, and I wish you a quick recovery.”

The feed ends after that and Fluttershy stares at the same icon from a minute or two ago before her eyes drift back to the vent. Then the lights flicker, and her body stiffens as her ears perk. A shiver runs up her spine, and her eye widens as she slowly turns around and sees Zephyr standing in front of the door, his fur grayed, his eyes dark voids and his head on a limp neck. As soon as they lock eyes, Zephyr lunges and Fluttershy screams.

Author's Note

Sorry, no giant weird tentacle Hive Mind monster to attack Fluttershy (that'll happen next time). I just could not get a Hive Mind scene to work right in a way that would line up well with that happened. It looked good on the (admittedly old) notes, but then came the execution and it was delete, retype, delete, retype, and everything was coming off as border-lining ridiculous, plus this story had to end. Everything was right there and I didn't see a point in drawing it out any further. So, no giant tentacle monsters to attack Fluttershy, this time. It has been one hell of a ride, but I think we can all agree that Fluttershy has been through enough torment and needs a break from all the monsters and hallucinations ~~before the inevitable happens.~~
So, sleep well, Flutters and bon voyage!

As for you guys, thanks for reading!

(Add this to my small list of completed stories. )