Fallout Equestria: Silverside

Chapter Twelve: The monster of 134

Sterling galloped through the dark corridors, towards the sounds of the gunshots up ahead.
She had to reach her friends, whatever was in here, it was after her friends, and despite the very deepening feeling of fear that was now setting in, she kept running straight for the danger.
Sterling sprinted past rows of doors, recognising a few places, a storage room, a security office, a mess hall, and then going past places that hadn’t been in stable-126. A laboratory, an executive office, a server room.
She felt a sharp pain in her skull, and heard a voice. A voice she remembered, but not a voice she could tie to a pony’s face.
Turn left. It said softly.
She reached a T-junction at the end of the corridor. On the right were the sound of gunshots. Her friends were surely that way.
Go left. Said the voice again, harsher this time, demanding.
Was it her conscious? Was it some cowardly part of her, trying to remove her from potential danger?
She didn’t want to go left, she wanted to help her friends, there was something here that was attacking them, and she needed to-
Left. Now.
Sterling turned left.

She didn’t know why she was galloping this way. All she knew was that something was telling her to go this way. The pain rescinded as she looked to the doorway at the end of the hall, and returned whenever she looked anywhere else. Clearly, whatever it was in her mind wanted her to go through that door. What the hell is my life?
She slammed the button at the end of the hall, and the door to the lab shifted open.
Tables and chairs were strewn across the floor-save for a desk that was still upright. Health and safety posters had been torn off the walls, and shattered glass covered the ground. Carefully, she picked her way across the room towards the single standing desk.
Shining her pip-buck’s lamp onto the desk, she opened a drawer. Inside was a few loose papers, a pen, and-
The pain in her head stopped completely. She was staring at a holotape.
She breathed a sigh of relief as the stabbing left her mind, and picked it up, contemplating it. After a moment’s hesitation, she placed it in one of her saddlebags. I don’t have time to play it now.
She turned, and galloped towards the gunshots.

The pegasus skidded to a halt, just outside the room. Gordo was with her. When did he-
“What in Celestia’s name have you been doing?” He snapped, and Sterling shrank down.
“I-I’ve been at the terminal, I read that-”
“Oh It doesn’t matter!” He squawked, and the two of them peered around the doorway.
The gunfire had stopped, and Sterling had wondered for a moment, if they had been too late to save the Unicorn. Then she saw her, hiding behind an overturned lab bench, and almost called her name when one of Gordo’s paws clamped her mouth shut. “Look!” He hissed, and turned her head further around the corner, revealing to Sterling just what Nightlight was hiding from.
A huge, amorphous blob was sliding its way around the room, checking the corners, searching for Nightlight. The mass was huge, tortured faces of dozens of ponies were crying out their raspy bleats. It made a sickening, slurping noise as it glided around the room, too fast for something that size. Its front was covered in rows of mushy Unicorn horns, its sides and back layered with yellow, unblinking eyes.
Scraggly bits of multicoloured hair was clumped in random spots all over it, and an amalgamation of cutie-marks had all been melded together on its flank.
Sterling’s rad-meter was going crazy, and she quickly switched it off. This was what had been setting it off this whole time. This was the monster of Stable-134.

The room spun around her, and she blinked tears from her eyes at the horrible odour of this beast. This was what she’d read about, this was what Lightheart had warned her about, what Silver Thread had wrought-now, that scientist was somewhere in there, as were all of the denizens of the stable who hadn’t managed to escape.
As she watched, a piece of it flecked off, only to worm its way back towards the rest of itself, she recalled a series of words she’d just read.
‘The ponies just…melted together!’
How was this thing still alive? What did it feed on? How could something like this possibly have been created?
Those questions didn’t matter to her now. She had to help Nightlight, and they all had to leave the stable.
Sterling stepped out, into the room, away from the protesting Gordo.

Straight away, the beast locked twenty sets of eyes on the pegasus. She narrowed her own in response.
Galloping across the room (away from Nightlight), Sterling suddenly realised just how bad an idea this all was. If this thing touched her once she could get absorbed into its mass. She wasn’t even sure it could die. Twisting her neck around with a gun in her muzzle, she figured she’d find out.
Sterling fired two shots from her revolver, one of them missed horribly, the other caught it in the side of one of its many heads. The head reared backwards and the beast shrieked, a deafening screech that caused her and Nightlight to cry out. Behind the creature, she saw Nightlight stand up. “Get out of here!” yelled the Pegasus before she could attract the beast’s attention again. “I have a plan!”
Reluctantly, Nightlight nodded, and passed through the doorway.
Great. Now all I gotta do is get away from this thing too.

To be honest, Sterling’s plan hadn’t actually extended any further than getting Nightlight out of danger. Now she was trapped in the room with this amalgamation between her and the exit. The creature began to cautiously move again towards her, it clearly hadn’t been a fan of her shooting it like that.
She backed up against the wall and heard the ‘clack!’ of her back hoof striking something loose.
She glanced down at the wall vent. There’s always another way…
Sterling bucked back with all her might, and the rusty metal vent covering gave way. Had she been her old self, back in her old stable, she wouldn’t have risked cutting herself with something rusty. Now, contracting tetanus was the least of her concerns.
She had always been a smaller pegasus, able to squeeze into little gaps and hide whenever and wherever she could, so when Sterling pressed herself through the broken vent cover (feeling a dash of pain against her front hoof), she was able to worm her way into the vent with relative ease.

Bumping her way though, she heard that voice again. Faster!
Why would she need to go faster? It wasn’t like that creature would be able to fit in-
She heard a thumping noise and a horrible groan, followed by a squishy, oozing noise.
Sterling cranked her neck around, beaming her pip-buck’s lamp over to the way she’d crawled into the vent.
The creature was pressing itself up to the font, a series of drooling mouths somehow pushing their way through, sliming in and after her. Somehow, this monster was oozing itself through the vent.

Sterling quickened her crawling pace, hoping at every turn that she wouldn’t come to a dead end and have to double back. Left.
Trusting that this voice would hopefully have her best interests in mind, Sterling followed its directions, crawling through as the beast squished further and further in, forcing her to always move. She was cramped, sweating, and a few times she’d been on the very verge of being touched by it.
It was, without a doubt, the most horrifying experience of her life.
Sterling suddenly felt quite claustrophobic, and started to hyperventilate. This wasn’t good, this wouldn’t be helpful. Calm down. She heard, and wasn’t sure if it was her thinking it to herself or if it was that voice.
That was when she hit it. Another grate, another opening. She gasped in relief, and attempted to push it open. It wouldn’t budge. Trying a little harder now, she punched a hoof in front of her, and still the grate wouldn’t even buckle. She began to panic, unable to give herself proper purchase against the shiny, metal walls of the aluminium air duct in order to properly kick the grille open. Desperately, she shone her light back down the vent, craning back around, only to see the mound of eyes moving towards her, squealing all the way.
It wasn’t supposed to end like this, she couldn’t die, trapped underground in some rusty old air vent!
“No, No!” She yelled, banging harder and harder against the metal. “Please don’t!”
“Sterling?!” Yelled Gordo from the other side of the vent. “Is that you?”
“Gordo! I need h-help!” She could barely speak, tears were streaming down her face. “It’s gonna get me, I'm gonna end up like S-Silver Thread!” She whimpered, still banging against the metal, she was bleeding even more now, but she didn’t care. From behind her, Sterling heard an odd noise that the creature hadn’t made before.

Shakily, she turned her head back. The monster had stopped, just shy of three inches from her back hoof. She instinctively recoiled herself into a smaller ball to get away from its oozing mass.
She saw something then, in its animalistic eyes. Was that…a hint of recognition?

A magical glow wrapped around the vent cover behind her and there was a screech of metal as NightLight tore it off its bolts. Sterling was dragged clear from the vent-half scrabbling herself, as the beast lost its sentience once more and screeched, trying to push its way through, trying to reach her.
Sterling didn’t need to think about it, she ran. And so did the others.
Shivering uncontrollably, the pegasus ran all the way out of the stable, not even checking to see if her companions were with her. All she knew was that she had to get away, she had to leave this place. Gasping for breath, she burst out through the broken cellar door, and kept running, only stopping when she felt a tug on her tail.
“Let go of me!” She screamed, her eyes shut. She felt something wrap around her, and she desperately tried to free herself. After a moment, she caught a glimpse of the outside world.
They were out of the stable, the rain had stopped. The damp grass was flattened beneath their hooves, the ruin was off behind some trees.
Nightlight had wrapped her into a hug, shakily, the pegasus went limp, no longer fighting in the Unicorn’s grip. Instead, Sterling buried her face into the mare’s purple mane, and began to weep.

Footnote: Level Up.