Discord Space

It wouldn't win any awards for outstanding work. Nor would it survive anything more than a hard kick. Out in space, beyond the city's shields, micro asteroids would tear her patch job up to shreds. The shuttle's own shields had been disabled to allow them to move it, and she didn't have the parts required to rebuild the generator. But it moved freely, and she could get around in a far safer fashion.

"Time to take this thing out for a spin. I hope that a hundred hours flying was enough to qualify." Straps clipped around her RIG to keep her secure. Gravity plates required too much power to be fitted into the smallest vessels. In this case however, she was willing to put up with the discomfort in order to make her trip over to the Manehattan Towers much faster.

For once, she noticed the silence. Up until that point, either Discord had been speaking; she was fighting off a necromorph, or performing some sort of action that made noise. Travelling back up through the transfer tube was a completely silent process. Not even the small thrusters at the back and front to keep her steady made a noticeable sound inside the tiny cabin. Her breathing was slow and quiet. No noise, nothing.

At last, she exited the station in something a bit more substantial than her security suit. Side by side, the CEC deck looked relatively intact compared to the mess of a medical deck. A close fly-by nearly caused a run in with more necromorphs. These ones glowed, and somehow propelled themselves through space. Anything that glowed seemed to explode; she could do without losing her shuttle not even a minute into flight.

"They always watch you..." This time, the voice in her head was a low whisper, a slight rasp to the voice. She recalled that line from her brief encounter on the medical deck. All of the necromorphs she had seen so far lacked eyes, hunting by some other sense. What good would a necromorph with eyes be to spreading chaos? Considering the prospect of becoming a zoologist, are we Applejack?

The other messages she didn't like at all. Decapitation, burning flesh, and something about never dying. None of those sounded pleasant as far as features for enemies went. She did have a rocket launcher however. Admittedly not the sort of tool she'd harvest apples with, but it certainly did a great job of blowing dead ponies to bits. The only downside was the small amount of rockets she had on her.

"Alrighty then, time to find out where Plasma is hiding out." She positioned the shuttle a good distance out from Manehattan Towers. Each of the tall apartment complexes was ominously dark, highly unusual given how much power those ponies loved to chew up. "Hey Plasma, I'm outside in the shuttle. Do you have a rough idea of where you are? No avoiding the fact that I'll have to walk part of the way, but I'd rather not stay longer than we have to."

No response came. Earlier that day, Applejack would be panicking. But there was a good chance Plasma was doing the smart thing and keeping silent. There was no telling what the Chaotic ponies would do if they found her hiding. A minute passed, nothing came. No momentary flash of a struggle, or a static loop. More importantly, no blare of a terminated RIG.

"I'm here, heard something walk by outside. I'm sure it had a bit of a hiss to it as well, like acid eating away at metal." She looked unhurt for the most part. And under the circumstances, she was keeping a very level head. "I think I ended up somewhere above the promenade. Schematics say that there's a private bay three levels down, it's about a fifteen-minute walk. I could go there now..."

Applejack bit her tongue. That would speed things up, but Plasma didn't have a very strong RIG. Nor did she have a couple of respawns to fall back on. "Just stay there, okay? I think there's some sort of acid necromorph wandering around, it may be what walked by. The engineering RIG's aren't protected against corrosion, this one should be. I'm heading in now."

It took a few moments for the on board computer to track down Plasma's RIG. As she had said, there was a private bay not far from her. "Time to make an unscheduled maintenance check-up." Her stomach lurched briefly when the shuttle began moving again. Once she had gotten over the daunting silence, the peace of just sitting there in space had given her some much-needed rest.

"Docking procedure; commencing." Slowly moving into the gravity area caused a strange sensation through her body. Blood settled back down into her lower body, given her upright position. The docking systems were still active to her relief. Nopony else had gone down to sabotage the core again. "Re-pressurizing docking bay. Welcome to Manehattan Towers."

Applejack freed herself from the harness after a few moments of struggling. Her suit was starting to show signs of wear and tear, but it would last her a while still. "I'm locking my locator onto you now, see you in fifteen minutes. Unless I run into trouble, in fact I can guarantee there'll be trouble." Down the hallway to her left, a sign to indicate stairs just barely flickered bright enough for her to see. Further down, the promenade itself with the spanning view of Equestria's east took hold of her attention briefly.

"Oh, I look absolutely horrid! Applejack, please help me!" Applejack turned to see a large ball of what looked like acid flying right at her helmet. It caught the covering of her ponytail instead, splattering all over her suit with a loud hiss. Worse, the resulting corrosion caused the suit to lock up tightly. Her movement was restricted to a very laboured and slow walk while a nasty unicorn charged towards her.

Out of all the varied necromorphs she had faced, this one was truly the most horrific. The front hooves hung limply to each side, replaced by internal organs and bones to form thicker legs. Acid had eaten away at the twisted limbs, most of the body in fact lacked skin from the oozing liquid. Enough remained of the cutie mark to identify Rarity as the one coming towards her.

"Consarnit Rarity, I told you that being fussy wouldn't work out in the end." It took five shots from the cutter just to take out one of the front legs. Another acid ball flew back in response. A mix of horn magic and actual vomit. This time Applejack managed to avoid it, albeit very awkwardly as the acid continued to battle against her suit's repair system.

Another series of shots broke her mangled horn off altogether. There was no hesitation, no moment of regret. Only a cold stare as the necromorph that resembled Rarity crawled towards her. "Applejack... Am I still, beautiful?" Applejack recalled the early hours of the outbreak. She had been hesitant to take off the limbs of the dead, to preserve herself. That was a stupid decision, one she wouldn't repeat.

"Sure, sure you're beautiful..." The crunch of Applejack's hoof crushing its skull down into tiny pieces seemed to echo around the hallway. Taking out necromorphs had become a routine. Something she knew how to do, quite well in fact. "Shame that you always took that for granted in the end. Enjoy being an acid face in Tartarus." She wiped the remaining traces of acid on her hoof into the floor and proceeded onward.

"You haven't said anything for a while now Discord. Why don't I like that?" She didn't get a response. Not even a faint laugh of something unexpected and bad awaiting her. Nothing crawled in the vents when she entered the lift at least. Either most of the necromorphs had gone back to the medical deck, or they were fighting the barracks. The government ring could potentially detach from the station, but that process took days. They wouldn't have days at the rate those things could tear through the station.

She began to move upward. Again, she found herself recalling an earlier memory. Hiding in the lift for hours after being attacked by Loud Mouth's remains. All it took was seeing a close friend come back as one of them to tip her over the edge. Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, and now Rarity. They stopped being her friends after they defeated Discord. They turned their backs on her for their own lives.

Applejack turned to the doors when they opened to see Sweetie Belle's head crawl past on a set of tentacles. A choked scream soon followed, one she recognized quite well. "Oh horseapples. Hold on Plasma!" It was hard to gallop around the debris and body parts. She had to. They remove your head, and take your body. "No, I won't let it happen."

She rounded a corner to see the corridor where her locator had pointed. Plasma's head popped off at that moment, rolling towards her until it stopped. Sweetie Belle's head implanted itself into the body, her cutie mark becoming distorted in the process. "Well done Applejack, you finally see the price of cheating. You broke the rules by not playing properly, and now I get to have some fun."

Discord snapped his claw, restoring Plasma to her original state. A twitcher rushed down the hallway and proceeded to shred her in much the same way Applejack recalled dying herself. Throughout, Discord was laughing hysterically from a beach chair he had materialized. Another reset followed, this time an exploder came and turned the unicorn into tiny bits of flesh that flew everywhere.

Applejack's helmet folded away to expose her face of pure rage. This was beyond a sick game. "That's it." Her hoof twisted up to shove the barrel of the rocket launcher right into her chin. "Stop it Discord, right now. Or I will blow my head off until this game is over. I don't give a flying buck about what you say; I will not play for one more second unless you stop torturing Plasma! You hear me?"

For once, Discord took her threat without merely laughing. It was clear in the way he vanished the beach chair and strode over. "You won't do that. Because if you do, Plasma will die anyway. Face it Applejack, you cheated. and you now have a price to pay. This is how the game goes, suck it up and keep moving." He turned away to continue watching Plasma's many deaths. Applejack primed the rocket launcher with a firm click.

"No. You want a price to pay? Take my chances then! I don't need 'em. Undo what you've done to Plasma, or else the game is over. You can't force me to play!" Discord grabbed her throat in a fierce grip. Despite the choking, she was determined to hold her ground. Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Rarity dissolve Plasma from the inside out, both of them vomiting uncontrollably.

It all vanished in a flash of light. Plasma huddled behind a small barricade of boxes, and there was no sign of any fresh carnage. Discord remained, plain as day to her. "This isn't over Applejack. Remember, your goal is to find out what is causing this. And you have no chances to fall back on now, I suggest you take more care if you want to survive." Another flash marked his exit.

"Oh yeah, I'll show you Discord. Nopony gets the hoof over Applejack!" Her body still felt hot from the anger rush. It had a bad effect on her empty stomach. But she had succeeded, to some degree at least. She could stand up to Discord alone, and survive. Plasma on the other hoof... "Hey, you okay there?" Applejack stumbled over what remained of a filly's head before making it to the barricade.

Plasma looked dazed and confused. Her expression changed as she finally saw Applejack there in front of her. "Who were you shouting at? Everypony here has been dead for hours, and I haven't heard anything on the radio." Applejack chewed on her lip. She had completely forgotten that other ponies didn't know Discord was behind it. And she didn't need anypony thinking that she had gone Chaotic under the stress.

"I'm okay, just a little tired. Let's just get moving before anything else decides to pay a visit." As an extra precaution, she pulled a few blades off a pile of dead necromorphs. They slipped into a makeshift holster tied around her body by Plasma. "I'm fine. This has been a really stressful day, and I've gone a while without food. No need to worry about me, okay?"