Discord Space

She remembered the blade slicing down through the middle of her body, severing the spinal cord in an impossibly fast swipe. After that, she had blacked out. But how could she remember her death, if this was in fact death? "What... Who's saying that?" Applejack's eyes peeled open stiffly. White, all she could see was white. No substance, no shadow. The purest of tones, without blemish or stain.

Why, I'm saying that of course. The only way she could actually tell there had been a flash of light was due to the reflex of covering her eyes. An impossible realm of light, not exactly the sort of thing she expected to see after being torn to bits because she hesitated. The tall, twisted figure before her however definitely didn't fit into her impression of what came next.

"Well done Applejack. Well done. You were doing so well, despite the fact that you were silly enough to leave those bodies untouched. Did you not consider the fact that they could have valuable resources for you?" She lowered her head into a snarl. Discord, seemingly free from the stone prison that he had been left in all those years ago. When the Elements of Harmony still lived together in Ponyville.

"What the hay is going on here Discord? I should've guessed that you'd be the one behind twisting up ponies into horrible creatures." Her question was met with hysterical laughter. While Discord rolled around in his fit, she got back up to her hooves. Her leg was back in place, and her RIG showed a full bar of health. More importantly, her helmet was intact and working fully.

It took some time for the evil draconequus to overcome his hysteria and stand back up. "You're so hilarious Applejack. I mean, you actually hesitated when that twitcher was charging right at you. What did you expect would happen? That it would come, sit down and have a tea party with you?" A click of his claws brought the monster that had killed her back. Only now it was dressed in a posh red suit, holding a cup and saucer with its long blades awkwardly.

Applejack felt her head beginning to grow hot in fury. "This is not funny! Ponies are getting slaughtered, and I swear if you don't undo this damage right now..." Discord appeared right in front of her to stare her down. His humorous tone had shifted into a far less pleasant malice. Going from chocolate milk rain and cotton candy clouds, to something like this had a very bad feeling all over it.

"My little Applejack, this isn't meant to be funny, for you at least. It's all a game, admittedly a game I borrowed, but that's not the point." He returned to his original position in a huffy manner. The 'twitcher' vanished once he turned back around. "You have three respawns in this game, only you used up one of them just now. I make the rules; you survive in whatever manner you see fit. It's as simple as that. If you survive, I let you go."

Something about the way he said 'simple' sounded very fishy to her. And the mention of rules wasn't exactly pleasant either. "What are these rules then? I ain't budging one bit until I know what the deal is." Playing Discord's game was the last thing she wanted to do. But he controlled the situation, and she needed to survive long enough to save the others. If one wrong move doomed them all to a terrible fate, she'd never forgive herself.

One thing did come to her attention. Her plasma cutter still seemed to function. That she kept hidden from Discord. If worst came to worst, she could always try gunning her way out of the madness. Fortunately Discord hadn't noticed, consulting a large book that bore a picture of Applejack's own hoof, floating in space above Station Luna on the cover. The title read Discord Space. A chill ran down her spine.

"Alright, your goal is to learn what is causing this outbreak in the real world, and defeat it, I'm just inside your head after all. First rule, no leaving the station until you win the game. That means no shuttles more than five hundred metres out. Second rule, no cheating. That means using any form of magic not normally available to earth ponies. Becoming an alicorn counts, though I doubt that'll happen. Third rule... have fun!" His arms went up in a show of celebration, causing the white scene to collapse in around him.

Applejack found herself standing in the doorway to the stasis room at that moment. The control panel had been reset, and she couldn't see any sign of the twitcher, yet. "This is just way too weird." As she moved to the control panel, de ja vu overwhelmed her. Now that she knew more about the situation, it seemed very likely that Discord would balance it out by making things harder. Could she really loot bodies though?

"Applejack! Oh Celestia, we thought you were dead! We watched you die!" Plasma's message had come at the same time as the last, only it was far different. Discord can't control time at least. "How are you still alive? You got torn in half by that thing!" During the time it took to rewire the stasis module, she pondered on how exactly to put her encounter with Discord. The module fired as before, she had a few seconds to take out the twitcher.

"Give me a second." She stepped back out and fired two shots at each limb holding the blades. As the stasis wore off, her former killer fell into a lifeless clump. "Sorry, just needed to make sure that events didn't repeat themselves. Now, Discord's the one behind this disaster, he took me to some place and gave me the run down as part of his sick game. I'll tell you all the rest later when I get there."

By then the module was in easy reach. Once grabbed with her kinesis, she firmly attached it to her left hoof. In a pinch, she could lift it up for better aiming, though it would prevent her from moving. But until she got that better suit, it would do enough to keep her from dying. "Better hop to it AJ, there's only three charges in this module. Wouldn't want to encounter more of those things." The fact that they had clear, descriptive names was rather unsettling. Rather akin to pony names.

There was a tram station nearby that she could ride to the docking bay, located on the outer edge of the deck, near the middle. Walking the rest of the deck and getting through Ship Repairs would take too long. She needed to reach them before the monsters did. Oh, did I forget to mention that they're called necromorphs, not monsters? Please, do accept my apologies. Applejack shook her head to keep Discord's voice out.

"If this is going to become a regular thing with you Discord, I swear..." As she entered the tram station however, his words came back clear. There were bodies, which potentially had valuable materials she needed. By now she had become accustomed to the carnage enough to keep moving. Removing items was another step into chaos that she didn't want to take. Not yet at least.

The tram was there at least, though it seemed like ponies had been fleeing to the medical deck, only to be met with death. She could only ask herself why, until she took into account their clothing. Residents of the inner ring, which was visible through the tram windows not far across the empty space. Virtually all who lived there worked on the station in some form of common job. Though in comparison to Equestria, they would be very wealthy.

None of that mattered anymore. There were the survivors, the military, and the dead. As for herself? No military training, and she wasn't dead either. She had become Discord's pawn, that made her something other than a survivor. Other ponies' lives depended on her now. "Re-initializing shop access. Welcome to the Station Luna kiosk."

Applejack turned her head to find a shop on the station had finally opened up. At last, she could start fighting back more effectively, without having to worry about being stabbed just once. "Took your sweet time about it. Let's see what Plasma's whipped up." A loud gurgle echoed across the room before she could approach. It sounded frighteningly like a pony in pain.

From one of the vents came a rather skinny necromorph, dragging a large glowing sac beside him. She didn't need a second moment to work out that sac wouldn't end well for her. "Ponyfeathers, this is going to get rough." It had a rather sluggish movement, but the moans were very frightening to listen to. At least she could keep well away from whatever was contained inside that sac.

As she lured it further away from the tram, she readied her cutter again. "I'm sorry, but it's you or me partner." The resulting blast from her single shot into the sac knocked her back into the wall. It was only a minor blow to her health, nothing that she couldn't ignore for now. This time her caution had paid off well. "Get some distance between anything that glows. The rest, dismember as quickly as possible. Nothing I can't handle." After a small bout of coughing, she made her way over to the store.

"Welcome, Applejack. CEC Zero Gravity Engineer, Rank Six. You have one new suit, ready for change. Other items are waiting in storage." The hack had worked after all. At least something was going right for once. She checked the safe first, finding a few clips of plasma, and the schematic for the military engine Plasma mentioned before. They could wait until she had the new suit on.

"Here goes." She took a deep breath and stepped up into the machine. A pair of mechanical bracers lifted her forelegs up to allow for the suit materialization process to happen. Standing upright was uncomfortable, but it would only be for a few seconds. As her old engineering suit was broken down into energy, she felt exposed for a moment. A small reminder of why she was doing this in the first place.

Tingles ran right down her body as she felt the cool, crisp inner lining of the suit take form. At last, the bracers lowered to let her step back. "Not bad, I'll have to ask about making the engineering suits more like this one in future." The stasis module she had taken before was now firmly implanted in place. And her plasma cutter felt smoother to move. "Let's see them necromorphs try and stab through this."

At last, she could board the tram and get moving again. Some of the windows had signs of attack, but this line didn't go out into open space. Ah, so you finally beat the easy part of my game. I must warn you Applejack, things are not going to be easy from here. Those little trinkets aren't going to be nearly enough to hold off your inevitable death. Applejack shook her head as the tram began to move. Discord wasn't going to fool her that easily.