COMA

It was the interior of the airport, and it was ridiculously large. She'd never seen a hall of this size before. There were lots of balconies and walkways, on tens of layers. Doors everywhere. Opposite of Twilight, on a walkway three stairways up, was the dragon from before still dragging the glorified lump of metal and their armament with them. But, in between them was something she'd never seen before - An airship of ridiculous size. Way larger than any she'd ever seen. Not that she could recall ever actually seeing one, but that was beside the point. It was massive. Multiple houses would fit in the large gondola, not to mention the towering balloon holding it suspended mid air. But, her awe came to a quick stop when she remembered why she was here. The moon icon.

If she recalled correctly, it was supposedly in the basement. She looked to be on at least the seventh floor, in the dead center between the ceiling and bottom, so it was quite a way down. That's what confused her the most - if she'd entered on the ground floor, why was she this high up? Was everything beneath her underground? It didn't actually matter all that much, but it perplexed her nonetheless. Immediately, she began looking for a stairwell leading down. It wasn't that hard to find, only a few meters away from her. They were faded and old, but they were more than enough to support her weight. Brass wasn't a weak material, per se, but there were better options. Come to think of it, nearly all she'd seen was brass, despite that this place had quite good technology, capable of making robots - albeit simple - she was surprised they weren't using iron. Maybe said material wasn't common in their realm? She shook her head, realizing she'd gone on a pointless thought train again. She'd been doing that a lot lately.

It was considerably darker at the bottom floor - there were streetlights here, but none of them were powered. How come the automatons were able to be powered with no one to produce power? Maybe they were self-sustaining. They are dangerous either way. Despite the shadowy presence, she could clearly see a door. She approached it, and pulled on the handle. But it didn't open. The solid steel door didn't budge a bit.

"This is the right door, but it's locked."

"Do you know where the key is, captain obvious?"

"I do not, but I assume it would be near the top."

"That sounds an awful lot like you know where it is."

"That's just how hierarchies work. The important ones reside the higher floors, and usually have a skeleton key."

With a sigh, Twilight began to move up the stairs again. Only this time, twice as many sets, and upward. Suddenly, this place's size was more annoying than astonishing. Some of the steps creaked threateningly ominously under her hooves, but she figured that if many had walked on them before, they'd hold for her too. That theory proved to be correct as she reached the top without a hitch. Mostly. The stairway didn't reach all the way up. Only one floor up from where she started. Peering out over the hall, she remembered where she'd seen the faulty concierge cross over. Maybe there were stairs there. Twilight began walking down the walkway which trailed the edges to the room, most likely to accomodate for the massive airship she could now see from a different angle.

Just like she'd thought, the stairs leading upward were on the opposite side. They looked more worn than the last, showing clear prints of the robot's metallic claws in the dust. This place had been abandoned for quite a while, she reckoned. As she began ascending the flight of stairs, she could faintly hear the clicking of metal once more. Had the automaton turned around? Did it know she was here? She stood still for a few minutes, not daring to walk further up nor down on the loud metal. As the sound drew closer, she noticed how slow and irregular it was. As if it was stumbling. Twilight looked up above to where the sound was coming from, to see the same dragon from before - it looked like it at first glance, at least. It was carrying something different, though. There was something else off about it, but she couldn't tell from a distance. Eventually, it stumbled its way to the other side out of earshot. Twilight seized the opportunity to continue moving unnoticed.

It was all going according to plan until one of the steps gave way and crashed into the ones below, its crash echoing across the hall. Mechnical footsteps from multiple directions were heard, all approaching her. It was too late to hide. Twilight immediately began to rush up the remaining steps, right as a bolt from a crossbow whipped by her, narrowly missing only a few inches in front of her. That's what the dragon was carrying. A crossbow. As she got higher up, she got closer to the shooter, and could notice some details about it. The dragon was clearly more faded and damaged than the last, missing its lower jaw and standing unstably while sloppily reloading its weapon. Despite its shakiness, its face resembled pure apathy, staring into her soul with its only eye. Luckily for her, its impaired vision caused it to lack the proper perception to even get close with most shots. However, it didn't take long to notice that more problems would soon arrive.

When she reached the top of the staircase, she immediately heard something behind her. She whipped her head back, only to notice another mechanical pony with tesla coils on its back and lightning buzzing loudly around its horn. Suddenly, arcs of lightning bolted from it, though they didn't even get near her. That didn't exactly matter, as she still felt part of the shock through the metal grate floor. It wasn't enough to serve any actual threat, though. Looking down, various robots of all kinds had gathered near the lower floors. Some didn't fit up the stairs, and the rest weren't exactly moving that fast. Most of them seemed non threatening, especially since the griffons didn't even seem capable of flight, until a pegasus with wings of sailcloth bolted up from out of nowhere. As soon as it caught sight of Twilight, it dove down and crashed straight into the floor before her.

The sheer force of the impact caused the walkway to fall off its hinges, only held up by the supports from the floor beneath. It bent under the weight, making the entire path drift away from the wall and tilt slightly over the gap where the airship was. The mare behind her lost her grip, barreling straight through the walkway and landing on the airship in a burst of sparks, and then further slid off the rounded balloon and down into the crowd below, who yet showed complete indifference to the bedlam. As she was about to start running once more, she quickly realized that the mechanical mare in front of her had unfolded its wings as to block her path.

With the swarm slowly approaching from behind and the obstacle edging closer in front of her, it seemed this might just be the end for her. In a final act of quick thinking and desperacy, she lit her horn in hopes of performing a teleport spell. She'd hardly ever managed to do it in real life and with her weakened magic, the chances of it working seemed slim. She noticed as soon as her horn flared up with magic that it hurt. Really, really hurt. An etching pain, as if someone was carving straight through her bone. With her heart full of determination and closed eyes full of tears, she let out a screech of pain as she was enveloped by the purple light.

She opened her eyes again, praying for a miracle... There wasn't anyone in front of her. She heard it behind her. It'd worked. She'd teleported around the mare. Despite her conflicting emotions of agony, joy, and panic, this was no time for celebration. There was no time to stall. She straightened herself and began sprinting as fast as her legs could take her, running for a sturdy-looking bronze door. The pegasus behind hadn't had time to realize what happened until Twilight was already pushing the door open. Twilight could hear it rushing for her but she ignored it as she slammed the gate shut behind her and locked it.