...beep...beep...beep...

The first thing Dash felt when her brain started working again was a sharp prick in her left leg. Or was it her right? Dash couldn't tell.

...beep...beep...beep...

Slowly, her nerves came online, sending weak pulses of electricity to her brain. She felt soft sheets covering her body, wrapped tightly around her. Or were they simply draped on her? Dash couldn't tell.

...beep...beep...beep...

There was an uncomfortable sensation on her chest, as if something mechanical was rhythmically pumping along with her heart. Or was that just her heart, heavy with sadness? Dash couldn't tell.

...beep...beep...beep...

And then, finally, her eyes opened. At first, they were barely more than slits. But, as she woke up, safe in her bed, safe in her cloud house in Ponyville, her eyelids made way for a pair of magenta eyes, criss-crossed with crimson veins. And nothing made sense anymore.

She was, indeed, lying in a bed, but it was hard and uncomfortable, instead of soft and foamy. Blinking, she struggled to adjust to the darkness around her, lit only by the green lights coming from a nearby contraption. A green line jumped sharply on a pitch-black screen, flailing erratically with no distinct pattern. A large tank with glowing green liquid was attached to it, a line filled with the substance crawling underneath her sheets. A hodgepodge of displays and viewscreens completed the trashy look. To Dash, it seemed as if somepony had stacked a ton of boxes on top of each other, tied everything up with a rat's nest of wires and tubing, and hoped that it would stay together.

Her throat hurt badly, almost as if somepony had stuffed a tube down it. Why would anypony do that? It didn't make any sense. She tried to get out of the bed but her legs wouldn't move, and she couldn't feel her wings. There was a faint pricking sensation in her left leg that twitched every once  in a while, and her body felt uncomfortable, as if something was moving inside her veins.

Was she hurt? Was this Ponyville Hospital? Must be. Dr. Cardiac Arrest would come in through the door any moment now and ask her how she was doing. It was daytime, right? There was light - brighter than any Dash had seen, flooding through the seam of the door.

She collapsed back on the pillow, still unsure of what was going on.

Then, the door hissed open, and she only had more questions.

Two... things walked in. One was some sort of hairless ape, standing upright and wearing what looked like an armored chestpiece and loose blue pants. The other was some sort of machine - completely made out of metal with a glowing green monitor where its face should be displaying a crude rendition of one out of pixels. The only thing similar was that the chestpiece, tan with two symmetrical red vertical lines, was replicated on the metal ape's own hunched-over chest.

The machine went over to the monitors next to Dash. She watched as its rightmost appendage - with two graspers - disappeared in a flurry of action and was replaced with some sort of probe, which he stuck into a port in one of the displays. The hairless one went to her bedside and looked her straight in the eye.

"We're going to get you out of here," it said.

Immediately the hospital shook. The armored ape fell onto Dash's leg. Something moving within her and she had the desire to scream as loudly as she could, but her throat would not make a sound.

"Observation - Subject is injured," said the machine. "Do not further injure subject."

"Heh, sorry Doc." It turned back to Dash. "Don't worry, I won't let that happen again."

The hospital shook, much stronger than before. The ape braced itself against the bed this time. There was no pain, only a mild discomfort as a few pinches registered all over her body.

"Request - please cover me."

"Roger that," said the ape. It was now that Dash realized that it also was carrying something on its back - it looked like a weapon, and was glowing the same bright green as the liquid being pumped into her. He (it was a he, right?) grabbed the weapon with his graspers (they were called graspers, right?) and ran out the door. Sounds like warped gunshots echoed in from the hallway.

"Statement - you will be fine," said the machine, pulling off the covers.

She wasn't in a bed. This wasn't a bed - this was a dissection table. She was lying in a vaguely pony-shaped groove in what else would be a table. Small plates pressed against her legs, and restraints mounted on the side of the groove walls kept her in place. She was wearing some sort of paper-thin garment - it was like nothing she'd ever worn before. Dash had liked some... weird stuff back on Equestria but this was the greatest extent she'd seen her friends go out to please her.

If only her throat would stop hurting.

The machine fumbled around some more with its probe, and the restraints came loose. Dash felt her legs come back to her, but she still couldn't move them.

Then, the machine reached into the table with its steely appendages and picked her clean off. Hoisting her firepony style over its broad shoulders, it started running towards the door. The sound of gunfire and explosions still echoed off in the distance.

The instant Dash took a proper look outside, she completely removed any notion of her friends pranking her.

She was in some sort of hospital - it was clean and utilitarian, lacking any creature comforts whatsoever. Two massive windows flanked the open room, with an asteroid field in plain view. The hairless ape was standing behind a large pillar, the same color as his chestpiece, with a large amount of the same vicious green liquid inside. It was holding its weapon in its graspers, firing a stream of what looked like green balls at...

Nopony would ever dare to look that thing in the eye - it seemed to radiate fear.

It looked like an ape made entirely out of ruby crystals. It was so red that Dash saw everything with a green tint for a few seconds after. The green balls that the hairless thing was shooting at it didn't seem to do anything at all - merely making the monster bob up and down as if he was laughing.

It then fired a crystal straight at the pillar, causing green fluid to slosh all over the floor. But then the machine rounded the corner, and the ape followed soon after, with two more crystal shards embedding in the window.

As the machine carried her along Dash began to see other things in the breaks between the door-filled walls. Red crystals spreading a creature's brain over the machinery; green insect-like creatures spitting some sort of acid at more crystals; a figure shaped like the crystals but made of rock beating down yet another set of crystals. And everywhere, Dash saw the blood-red shards floating in space, shooting more shards at the ship she was in.

Celestia must've hated her. This was a banishment. Dash closed her eyes and tried not to look.

The sound was unmistakable - heavy footsteps. Heavy, heavy footsteps. And the noise of gunfire. Green flashes crept in under Dash's eyelids.

She tried to look.

It was another crystalline being. As red as blood, with tiny white dots that looked like eyes. Wing-like protrusions of crystal jutted out from its wide back. The floor and walls bent as it ran closer, unhindered by the endless surge of green energy the ape fired at it. It was making a sound like laughter, but deeper and crueller. Dash heard a vaguely feminine touch in its voice.

"Out of energy!" shouted the ape.

"Suggestion - continue running"

The green weapon, which wasn't glow so green anymore, was tossed to the side just before the machine ducked down and leapt into the air. Dash saw the cramped medbay corridor disappear behind them as the machine sailed over a huge flight of stairs. There were red crystals everywhere - wrapped in and around the steps and railings, and covering the floor of what appeared to be a massive hangar building.

The ape burst out of the same corridor they'd been running though and began to sprint down the stairs, somehow not slipping on the crystal. Suddenly Dash felt a sinking feeling in her stomach as the machine began to fall - the floor approaching faster and faster with every passing second.

Just before they were to crash through it, the machine's legs shot green clouds at the floor. Dash and the machine hit the floor running without so much as a dent - the ape right behind them.

"Pom! Find a shuttle and get her out of here!"

"Objection - not leaving organic behind."

There were hundreds, if not thousands of small, vaguely ship-shaped objects sitting around the hangar. Most of them were smoking - several completely swallowed by crystal. A few were charred wrecks, with shards of Sombra's favorite plaything scattered loosely around them, scorched and devastated. Apes, insects, and machines mixed in with the ships, in the exact same states - some with crystals embedded in their armor, some with bloody holes where there used to be crystal, and some desperately firing their weapons at an enemy who was more than happy to take the damage.

"Pom!"

The machine stopped. It's mechanical head looked back.

The hairless ape was pointing a pistol - Dash was sure that was a pistol - at the crystal monster. Barely. It barely got two shots off before the blunt crystal arm slammed into him and sent him flying into a spacecraft. The machine immediately began running towards the ship - it was in only one out of the lot that wasn't smoking or burning in any way.

Dash saw the ape spit blood out of its mouth - she was sure that was blood - and pull itself to its feet. The pistol was still in its hand. The mass of crystals laughed its ugly laugh and began charging towards the injured ape. Dash reached out with her hoof and tried to shout out.

The crystal fist found the ship, tearing the machine out from under her and sending her sailing across the room. Paralyzed and barely able to breathe, Dash could not help but stare up at another crystalline being as it stared back at her.

In the edge of her vision she saw the ape point its gun at the misshapen mass, only for the gun and half his grasper to be taken off by a crystal. His scream of pain was only dulled out by the ringing in Dash's ears.

A crystal mass walked by, carrying the machine in its hands.

"Good run," said the winged mass. "Take 'em back to the ship."

The normal mass nodded his "head" and began walking towards the massive exposed section of space on either side of Dash. As she watched, it re-formed itself, becoming a living projectile as it flew out of the hangar and into the asteroid field.

She then felt boring eyes gaze into her soul. The winged mass was standing over her, along with another, smaller one. She pointed at the ape, now lying in a puddle of blood, and the crystal man picked him up and carried him away.

Dash's uncomfortable paper robe squeezed tightly around her neck as she was picked up by the thing. It had no face - merely two glowing dots. Swirls of energy zipped around inside its crystal form, bouncing off the edges and concentrating in a single ball near the middle. It looked at her menacingly. Dash tried stand her ground but what little energy she had left failed her. She was nothing more than a ragdoll in the hands of an angry child.

"Well now, I haven't seen anything like you before," said the thing, its voice so loud that Dash thought it was being projected into her mind. "Maybe you'll have information like them. Maybe you'll make good eating. We'll take you along."

Suddenly, Dash was enveloped by a shell of crystal. There was barely enough room to move around, much less fight back. Dash couldn't do both. The sudden change in velocity thrust her against the rear wall of the cavity as, through the semi-transparent crystal body, Dash saw the ruins of the rectangular ship, covered in a sheath of red, like it was bleeding.