“WARNING: Oxygen supply low. Please keep breathing controlled and follow the guide to your evacuation point.”

Fluttershy stares at the Transit Hub door, shaking with the red and blue lights shining on her from in front and above her. She sits down, brings her hoof band up, and activates it map. With the dome destroyed that means she will need a space suit to get to the Residential Wing, and the space suits are held in maintenance rooms, so…

Fluttershy’s eyes zip left to right and up and down on the map, and her hoof shifts the projection until she finds a few maintenance rooms. One is by the Transit Hub, which is outside in the void of death; the other is behind her, past where she was locked up for an unknown amount of time; and the last one is at the South end of the ICU.

Fluttershy’s eyes go dim as stares at the maintenance room icon (a crossing wrench and screwdriver). Her hoof drops and she stares at the door in front of her, stiff and unblinking.

The ICU… Of all the places, the ICU…

The ICU is behind her, through the hallway where she was almost killed by those Necromorphs, and now she must go back with only medicine, an Artificial Telekinesis Module, and a pistol with no ammo.

‘Great.’

Fluttershy looks at her map again, takes a deep breath, and marks the maintenance room. After that, she trots towards the broken door leading to the hallway she left minutes earlier.

Red emergency lights are swirling with the occasional flash of blue guiding lights leading to the Transit Hub. The combination of flickering blue and swirling red splashes the walls and floor with distorted shadows, and with these lights, Fluttershy can see her handiwork down the hallway. The Infector is still impaled in the wall, the gurney is still mangled, and the Slasher is still a mess of broken bones and torn flesh. However, the injured Slasher is no longer there.

Fluttershy rubs her heart for a moment, and then proceeds forward. As soon as she enters the hallway, a hiss makes her jump, but a quick look is all she needs to see that it was just oxygen being pumped into the hallway. She shudders and walks forward, straining herself to keep her breathing easy, and as she walks, the flashing and swirling lights briefly reveal hieroglyphs on the wall that fade as quickly as they appear.

“Ooh, dark hallways. These are familiar,” says Zephyr over the radio. “Reminds me of when we played hide and seek with the Unitologists. Do you remember? Or are you pretending not to? That would be typical of you to pretend nothing’s wrong.”

Fluttershy growls and shuts off her communicator again. She then creeps forward, stopping when she is by the dead Necromorphs, and she looks at her map again. After figuring out what her next steps are, she takes a left and hurries down the hallway, keeping mind of the blood trail leading to a broken vent covering by the wall. She stops by the vent and watches it for a few seconds, straining her eyes and ears for any clues of something lurking in the dark.

Seconds of silence later, she moves forward. Glass crunch under her hooves, and dim lights shine on torn corpses, and on the wall are arrows pointing to various locations, from nursery to low priority medical care, and dental to cosmetic, and last the ICU. Fortunately, the arrow for the ICU is pointing the same direction she was going, so she just needs to keep going straight.

As Fluttershy travels, she comes across a dead security officer in the middle of the hallway. The officer is a griffin with their gizzard torn open and one of their arms cut off. Their rifle has been cut in half, but they still have a pistol, and after a quick search, she finds ammo in his saddle. So, she takes all the ammo, reloads her pistol, and keeps going forward. However, she comes to a sudden stop and she slides to a stop and aims her pistol up when a terrified shriek echoes from the vent above. The vent rattles, the screaming continues and there is a roar with a set of hard and fast thumps shaking the vent and going after the source of the scream. Then there is a wet slash and a bloody scythe claw rips through the vent. The claw pulls back and scraping travels above Fluttershy’s head as blood drips down from the whole.

Fluttershy gulps and presses herself against the wall, traveling slowly down the dark hallway, which is pocked by red swirling lights. She keeps her pistol trained ahead, stopping when the wall ahead is illuminated by bright flashes and the blasts of rapid gunfire echo in the halls.

Soldiers scream, some in fear, others in pain, others in rage, and a loud roar shakes the walls, followed by thumps, metal bending and breaking and electric discharges.

As the chaos goes, Fluttershy snakes her way through destroyed gurneys, broken glass and carts, bullet casings, and supply crates. Sparks pop out of exposed wires, and light flickers behind posters covered in blood while yellow emergency messages scroll across black screens.

“Retreat! Retreat!” shouts a soldier.

Fluttershy rushes towards a destroyed gurney and lays low to the floor while poking her out. The gunfire continues and three griffins in security armor fly past her, leaving only one left. She can’t see the remaining soldier, but she can hear the gunfire and his cursing. All that ends with a thud, and what follows is a heavy silence.

Fluttershy bites her tongue and keeps watching the hallway.

A growl rumbles, and scraping and heavy thumps shake the walls again, which also brings the lights to flicker.

“Help me,” calls a computerized voice. “Somepony, please help me.”

Fluttershy’s ears perk. The voice is close -very close- and it is following the steps of whatever is down the hallway.

“Help me. Somepony, please help me.”

A large shadow stretches on the wall, and Fluttershy’s heart races, her muscles tighten, and her throat clogs as the shadow grows. The swirling red lights at the end are soon covered by a hellish beast whose features are obscured by the dark. The lights barely luminate its flesh before they pop from its sharp spines rubbing against them. In the darkness, all Fluttershy can see from her position is a computer terminal in its arm, flashing green text messages, and bits of metal reflecting the green light.

“Help me,” flashes the messages on the screen, and the voice from the computer’s microphone. “Somepony, please help me.”

The beast keeps going, unaware of Fluttershy’s presence, and in the dark, she sees the silhouette of its large tail and hind legs for just a quick moment before it is entirely gone from sight.

Fluttershy waits a few more seconds, and then bolts down the hallway. Counting the intersections as she goes.

First right.

Second right.

And third!

Fluttershy skids to a halt, grips the wall for support as she catches her breath. She looks left, then right, then behind her, and seeing nothing, she takes the right and slides to the next intersection on the left. There, she pokes her head out again, quickly pulling back when she sees a Slasher hooking its claws in the ceiling and pulling itself in the vent and leaving a dead doctor on the flooor.

Fluttershy swallows and stays still, keeping her ears perked as she listens for the familiar rattle.

Nothing.

She gallops forward, and skids to a stop a few seconds later when she sees a sign saying “OPERATIONS OBSERVATION”. An idea lights up in Fluttershy’s brain, and she approaches the locked door the sign is above. Said door is easy to get past since Lyra’s band unlocks it with the same welcoming message as before being broadcasted. The voice carries down the hallway, as does the sounds of the metal door sliding and banging, and Fluttershy ducks inside and quickly closes and locks the door. She then presses her ear against the door, heart racing and breathing unsteady. She can’t hear anything, besides the humming behind her, and she carefully back away a few seconds later and turns around.

The room is circular, dimly lit with circles of light being reflected off the tile, a glass dome covers an opening in the center, and off to the side is another locked door. Fluttershy quietly approaches the observation dome, passing spilled papers and coffee. The dome is surrounded by chairs with computers, and above the dome is a ring of cameras.

Fluttershy goes to the nearest chair and squints her eyes on the live video feed, seeing an operations bed, soaked in blood with deep slashes in the mattress, and the floor is also soaked in blood with more sprayed on the wall. Vital monitors lay on their sides, broken with flickering data, and above the mattress are four c-shaped devices with lenses that look like magnifying glasses on their edges, each connected to a different mechanical arm that has its own circular rail. Lastly, there is an orb shrouded by a ghostly blue aura above the mattress.

Fluttershy moves her camera, noticing it rotating on a separate ring from the rest, and its zoom and focus rings expand and twist to adjust for best footage. She sweeps the room with the camera, not seeing any bodies, but she does see the carpet of glass and the dark hallway on the other side. She looks over her shoulder quickly, and goes back to looking at the camera feed, now focusing on the equipment. She can see emergency battery pack slots on the surgery cutters, and a space to easily disconnect them for maintenance purposes (that brings back memories), and as for the glowing orb, it looks like Stasis energy to her. So, she puts her focus on the orb and sees that it is inside a small tube, which is also connected to a set of wires and a tube that lead to a Stasis refill station off to the side.

Fluttershy pulls back, looks at the band on her hoof, then at the dome, then at her pistol, then at the dome again, and finally she jumps up and trots towards the door. It unlocks like it is supposed to, revealing a dark stairwell bathed in dim red lights and little emergency lights on the steps. She goes carefully goes forward with the pistol in her mouth, and her eyes and ears scanning the area.

Clip… Clop… Clip… Clop… Goes Fluttershy’s steps.

Down she goes, further and further. Each step is careful and quiet, and only her heavy breathing is making noise. She reaches the bottom of the stairs, also locked, and when she unlocks it, she finds herself staring at a clean operations chamber. No blood, no glass, only a chair with an opening for the neck, a stinger styled robotic arm with a syringe filled with black liquid, and a featureless shadow figure standing next to the bed.

The shadow figure holds its hoof out to the bed and looks at Fluttershy.

“Come, Fluttershy,” says the figure.

Fluttershy backs up, but her rump bumps into a solid mass, and she turns around to see the door is locked, decorative with elegant curves, and marked with a double helix in its center. Her eyes widen and she looks back at the figure; their hoof is now extended to her, and her heart races as pain eats away at her veins and heavy beating heart with a sharp tingle in her spine.

“Do not be afraid,” says the figure.

Then comes a high-pitched shriek, and Fluttershy’s vision snaps to normal just in time to see a Slasher in a torn doctor’s uniform swinging at her. Fluttershy ducks underneath the swing and unloads a few shots into the Slasher’s leg, popping out squirts of blood and strings of muscle. The gun blasts ring in the chamber, and the Slasher buckles as more scream from outside, and Fluttershy follows up with ramming her current target into the wall and beating it down as its limbs flail.

Rust colored blood splashes on Fluttershy’s limbs and chest, and one of the Slasher’s limbs pop off. Glass breaks, and Fluttershy turns around and sees three more Slashers in ripped up doctor uniforms running towards her with another window broken.

Fluttershy uses her Artificial Telekinesis to throw a cart at one, and she unloads her pistol on the closest one. The cart slams the first Slasher into a window, cracking it and splashing it with blood. The second one buckles from the pistol shots, but keeps going towards her, forcing her to dive out of the way and scramble from the third one as it swings at her. Sparks fly, screams echo, and with the floor slick with blood, Fluttershy falls, covering her uniform in a new layer of sticky crimson.

The nearest Slasher jumps towards Fluttershy, and she kicks it back, bringing it to stumble and fall over the gurney, and the second one charges her, swinging its scythes wildly. The large claws scrape against the floor and force Fluttershy to backpedal. As she does, she levitates a severed claw from one of Slashers and launches it her attacker. The claw spins like a boomerang and slices off her attacker’s claw and head, bringing it to stumble around as blood sprays over its body and floor. The last Slasher whacks the gurney aside, hitting its crippled partner, and it rushes Fluttershy.

She punches it.

Bones and teeth pop out from its mangled muzzle, and it swings in a frenzy, which is brought to an end when Fluttershy shoots out its legs with what’s left of her pistol ammo and stomps on it until it stops moving. Then she finishes off the headless Slasher by also stomping it to hell. When all is said and done, Fluttershy is panting and dripping with sweat and foreign blood.

There is only silence now.

Fluttershy looks around, swallowing and rubbing her chest, and when she sees nothing else coming to kill her, she extends her wings, wincing as the tight muscles and sore bones work together in making her miserable. She gives her wings a few moments of slow, graceful flaps that don’t bring her in the air, but get her blood flowing. She follows up with a shorter moment of slow, hard flaps. Again, there is no lift off, but she can feel a little bit of the tension fading away. However, flying is still out of the question, so she pulls the bloody gurney towards the cutter’s arm, stands on it, and gets to work.

There is a conveniently placed red switch at the tip, where the cutter and arm meet. After Fluttershy disconnects the cutter, she aims its at a dead Slasher. The magnifying lens serves as an odd scope, but it is better than nothing. After that, she checks the battery, finds it is good, and she carefully sets the cutter on the mattress and works on detaching the others. With the others off their arms, she pops them open, takes their batteries… and realizes that her saddle is full.

Fluttershy frowns and looks around the room again.

Nothing close to a satchel or a saddle. But there is medical tape…

Fluttershy trots to the tape, grabs the batteries, and with an awkward combination of hoof and mouth work, she manages to tape the spare batteries to her limbs (using lots and lots of tape). Stupid? Yes. But surgical cutters are designed to cut flesh and bone, and with how fleshy and boney Necromorphs are, she will definitely need as many batteries as she can. Besides, there must be more saddles and satchels laying around this area somewhere!

With the batteries now strapped to Fluttershy’s limbs, she gives her hooves a quick twist and wiggle, finding that the tape is holding quite well… For now. That said, there is still a certain Module high above her. This one is something she will have to fly to, so she grits her teeth, gives her wings a few test flaps, and then flies up.

Each flap is like a burst of fire in her wing’s joints and muscles, and tears pool in her natural eye as she grips the Stasis Module. Blue light shines on her, and the cylinder is cold enough for the icy temperature to seep through her jumpsuit sleeve. Her flesh sticks to the sleeve, and when she disconnects the tube and orb, Stasis mist sprays out with a loud hiss.

Panic rushes in, and Fluttershy before she can fly off, she is covered in Stasis, putting her in free fall, but the descent is slow and cold. Very, very cold. Shivers run through her nerves, and when she hits the ground, it is slow, yet still hard with frost growing on her. The mist flows to the floor like a waterfall scene from Hell and it spreads across the floor as Fluttershy rolls upright. Her muscles feel like cold rocks as she holds the tube close to her chest and runs towards the broken window.

One. Step. At. A. Time.

Cold tears sting her face, her mane clumps together, and her heavy heartbeats thump in her ears and vibrate her ribs and throat.

Closer and closer she gets to the broken window.

Her vision is pulsing. Her heart is beating harder. Her teeth grind and her mechanized eye flickers with flashes of yellow, hieroglyphs and shadows watching her. Both hallucination and reality overlap, making a mess of colors and making her dizzy.

The Stasis has taken over almost the whole floor, and puffs of it are kicked up as each hoof is painfully lifted and moved. The frost crystals grow, bringing the red lights to reflect off Fluttershy. She grabs the window’s opening; broken glass digs into her jumpsuit and darkness bleeds around the edges and the Shadows move closer.

Fluttershy’s heart feels like it is about to burst, and she screams through gritted teeth as she pulls herself over the edge. Then, like a spring being let loose, all the built-up inertia returns and Fluttershy throws herself into the wall. The impact knocks her vision out of focus, and she drops the cylinder; her mouth hangs open as she wheezes for air and she clutches her heart while curling up. Her vision is almost dark now, and her hoof shakes as she fumbles with her medical supplies, but she can’t grab anything, she can’t focus, and her supplies spill all over the floor.

“No, no-no,” wheezes Fluttershy. She turns on her side, grunting and trying to focus on her supplies, but in front of her, she sees Zephyr. His black eyes stare at her, and he walks towards her with rapid steps. Fluttershy grits her teeth and aims her surgical cutter at him. “Not… One… Closer…”

Zephyr keeps walking. “Not one what, sis?”

Fluttershy’s grip waivers. “You’re not… You’re not him… Not real. Not real.”

Zephyr keeps walking and grins. “So you say. Yet, here I am.”

“You’re not. Real!”

Fluttershy pulls the trigger and the surgery cutter’s green beam strikes Zephyr’s chest, making him howl and charge her with wild swings of the scythe claws. Fluttershy shoots the Slasher again and again, tearing off pieces of it at a time. When it finally drops due to its leg breaking off, it crawls towards her with the help of its massive claws and she rapidly shoots it in the head, chest and limbs, leaving it as a lump on the ground pumping blood all over the floor.

Fluttershy keeps her surgical cutter trained on it, and she keeps her mouth shut as her nostrils flare from her heavy breathing. The corpse remains still and Fluttershy’s hoof drops.

“WARNING: Oxygen level dropping. Please report to evacuation site immediately.”

Her vision fades and her head falls on the cold floor.

“WARNING: Oxygen level dropping. Please report to evacuation site immediately.”

Fluttershy’s eyes drift shut, and-

A sharp pain forces them open again, and she finds herself in a room shrouded in a dark mist. There are no walls, no floors, and the ceiling is darkness with pockets of dim light. Fluttershy’s limbs are strapped down to where she cannot move, and they are covered in IVs and sensors, and there are prickles on the back of her skull. In front of her are orange screens with scans of her vitals, bones, muscles, nerves, and brain. Behind the screens is Lyra levitating a pad and typing something on it.

“When you were on the Bon Voyage, did you notice your extreme changes?” asks Lyra. “Emotionally? Physically? Mentally?”

Pain floods back. Every stab, every slash, every fall, every burn. It hits Fluttershy. She saw people die, too. Who died, though? They’re just blobs in her memory, but every one of those adds a hefty weight of guilt on her shoulders.

A saw revs somewhere in the darkness and a mare cackles. She also feels fire on her back and face, eating away at her flesh.

Fluttershy wants to scream and break, but her mouth won’t work, and her limbs are heavy. The machines she is attached to beep and the signatures on the screen flare, but Lyra shows no sign of noticing this.

“Or better yet, did you die momentarily or experience near death while on the Bon Voyage?” asks Lyra.

“Troublemaker~ Troublemaker~” says a distant mare.

“Can you answer me?” asks Lyra.

Fluttershy’s throat and back feel like they are being ripped and burned at once. Tears cloud her vision, and Lyra sighs and approaches her; her head tilted slightly while red light pulses in the dark.

“We only want what is best for you, Patient 54, but we can’t help you unless you help me,” says Lyra. She stops when she is face to face with Fluttershy. “Let me help you. Let me make you whole again.”

Fluttershy jerks awake with a sharp, raspy gasp and immediately a hoof retracts from her hoof band. But the retraction is not quick enough, for Fluttershy is able to grab it and ram whoever it belongs to in the wall while pressing her cutter against their forehead.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I thought you were dead!” cries the pony.

Mare. Young. Probably a teenager judging by the height and build.

“Are you real?” says Fluttershy, her voice hoarse and her hoof pressing against the mare's neck.

“W-What?” stammers the mare.

She has an accent. A familiar one. Still…

“Are you real!?” repeats Fluttershy, pressing her hoof harder and digging the cutter into the mare’s head.

“Yes! Yes! I’m sorry! Please don’t kill me!” sobs the mare.

“Say it!”

“I’m real! Please don’t shoot me!”

Fluttershy’s chest is heaving and she remains locked in place, but eventually her grip loosens, and she backs away. She then collapses against the wall and takes deep gulps of air while keeping her cutter trained on the mystery pony, who is now sitting down across from her, pale and shaking. The oxygen warning is still playing in loops through the speaker, too, as well as emergency lights swirling.

With the lighting, Fluttershy is now able to see more of the young mare and she can safely say that the pony is a teenager. Probably eighteen at the oldest. She has bright gold eyes (currently bloodshot), pale yellow coat and a thick red mane; she is also wearing a red jumpsuit with white plating that trails her ribs and limbs, and there are small boosters on her boots, shoulders and flanks. There’s also a beat-up Stetson and a pink handkerchief tied around her neck. The Stetson seems familiar for reasons that Fluttershy can't peg.

“What’s your name?” asks Fluttershy.

“A-Apple Bloom… I’m an intern for the Sparkle Station Maintenance Department,” replies the mare. “I-I was trying to find a way off this Wing to get to the residential area and-”

Apple Bloom keeps talking, but her voice fades in Fluttershy’s ears. Rather, the ex-medic’s focus is drawn to a hazy memory. A docking bay, blood, fire, rage, the hat, and… “Make things right.”

Fluttershy’s eyes widen. She doesn’t know why, but she needs to protect this mare.

“And that’s when I saw you and I thought you were dead so I started looting you and then your band started beeping and I was trying to see why it was beeping and that’s when you jumped up and tried to kill me!” says Apple Bloom.

Apple Bloom falls silent after that, and Fluttershy’s posture softens with a sigh, and she quickly pops a heart pill into her mouth before speaking.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I’ve just had a really bad day so far,” says Fluttershy quietly and without looking at Apple Bloom.

Fluttershy then stands up, using the wall for support, and she briefly glances into the operations room and sees the blue Stasis liquid has stopped spraying, but its mist is lingering in the air and some of it is rolling out the window and onto the floor. With that observation out of the way, Fluttershy checks her battery, finds it is good, and proceeds forward.

“We need to get to the Unitology Citadel. There is a ship waiting for me there that will get us to safety,” says Fluttershy.

Apple Bloom has yet to move from her spot, but she cocks her brow while Fluttershy walks ahead.

“Hold on a minute. Did I miss something?” asks Apple Bloom.

Fluttershy stops and looks at her. “What?”

“I tried looting you, you tried shooting me, and now ya want me to travel with ya to the Unitology Citadel to escape on a boat to the mysterious beyond?”

“Yes.”

Apple Bloom scrunches her brow. “Yer also dressed like a psycho patient. How do I know ya ain't some kinda psychopath?”

“Do you want to live or not?”

“Yeah, but…” Apple Bloom groans and stomps her hoof. “I don’t know you, and you’re, well…” She waves towards the blood covering Fluttershy’s jumpsuit. “That!”

“I understand. Good luck on your survival.”

Fluttershy starts walking down the hallway again. This time slowly. With her slow pace she quietly prays that Apple Bloom will follow her, and seconds later there is a groan and metallic thumps in tune of a gallop rapidly approach Fluttershy. Apple Bloom then appears in Fluttershy’s peripheral vision and she has a small scowl aimed at the pegasus.

“Do you really have a ride outta here?” asks Apple Bloom.

Fluttershy nods. “They won’t leave without me, either.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I’m important to them, and I’ll refuse to leave without you.”

“Are ya some kinda priest, priestess, leader thingy?”

“…You could say that…”

Apple Bloom rubs her chin, and then she points at Fluttershy with a little spark in her eyes.

“Okay, I’ll follow you to the Citadel, but before we leave the Station, we gotta get my brother and his family and my friends. They’re staying at the Orchard Rise Hotels in the Residential Wing,” says Apple Bloom. “I’ve been trying to contact them, but-”

“Done,” says Fluttershy.

Apple Bloom blinks in surprise. “Oh, that was easy.”

“I’m easy to work with.”

Apple Bloom nods and the two become quiet. Though, after a few seconds of walking in silence Apple Bloom looks at the Stasis tube in Fluttershy’s possession, as well as the batteries taped to her hoof.

“So, uh… you need help carrying any of that or are ya good?”

Author's Note

So, funny story, I meant to publish this chapter a couple of days ago. When I got it pasted on here, I realized that a chunk of the middle was missing. Like, a big chunk. It was the equivalent of ordering a burger at your local Hearty's Junior and not getting the meat. Luckily, I caught my mistake and fixed it before sending it out, unlike certain other people who forgot to put meat on my burger. Like... bro. C'mon.

Anyway, Apple Bloom is totally going to die.

Or will she...?