Despite the pressingly obvious absence of any kind of breeze, the air at this given moment was constrictinly cold, as if there were a frost across anything and everything that was lying still enough to harbour such a chill. There was darkness all around, except for maybe the occasional flare of colour and guidance from the electric blue sparks which spat from the eviscerated cables and danced around the ground - which consisted of many deflated fabric bags which once held much air in an attempt to protect several equine creatures who had been travelling many times the speed of sound as their ship collided with whatever unlucky object that may have been in it's destructive wake. Water was leaking from somewhere, generating the steady trickle of a waterfall which had gradually filled the ravaged spaceship that could once have been referred to as the greatest achievement in Equestrian history up to ankle-height sub-zero liquid. A pungent stench of burnt plastic, toxic fumes and stale blood weighed down on the air like a lead balloon. It was possibly this that had woken the white alicorn in the first place: the putrid smell of decay invading his nostrils, making him heave himself awake from a long bout of unconsciousness, to open his eyes to the same darkness that had been filling his mind for the past day and a half.

Cantor sat bolt upright, the breathtakingly cold water acting as a firm wake up call. He had been laying on his back, just above the surface of the water. Not deep enough in to cause any lasting illnesses, but nevertheless, the sheer cold had taken it's hefty toll on his body.

With a laboured groan, the streaky red-faced stallion managed to roll over onto his hooves, instantly feeling the frosty air nip at his skin, urging him to sink back into the now seemingly 'warm' waters.

With as much concentration as he could muster, and for some reason, finding it way too difficult to accomplish than usual, Cantor managed to light a small fire in front of his face.

Finding hope in the newly burning flame, the elemental alicorn gradually added more and more effort into the flame until it was the size of a small campfire. Not very impressive, but, it did it's job of warming him up.

Cantor's breath came out in feint puffs of white smoke which appeared to shiver themselves as they passed the alicorn's trembling lips and chattering teeth until it came into contact with the same air around the artificial fire and returned to microscopic water droplets. Despite having the warming fire in front of him, Cantor still couldn't bypass the menacing thoughts that were marauding through his mind. Primarily, these thoughts consisted of "Am I still alive?" and "Where am I?"

The slow, groggy alicorn brain then steadily began to regain it's memory and regulate the assumptions. Cantor recalled crash-landing, but as far as life was concerned, he wasn't all too sure. This reality was either hell, or somepony's idea of a cruel joke.

He cast a surveying glance around, and sure enough, was met with a rather repulsive scene: within the flickering firelight, Cantor could make out burst airbags, the slight glint in the water as the light stroked the crest of the ripples cast out by the white pony's four hooves. He noticed that the craft he had called 'home' for the past month was dilapidated: storage units spilled their contents of books, scrolls and various other items used for documenting such as quills and ink had spilled over into the freezing water beneath, leaving thick streaks of inky shadows streaming down the dented and scratched wall, like long, black, slender fingers feeling around in the darkness for sleeping ponies.

The once sophisticated cockpit was now steadily lit by the fire, but now and again at seemingly random intervals, a bright blue flash would illuminate the room for a split second before the sparks cascading from the severed magi-electrical cable would strike the water and fizzle out to nothing but a mere band of smoke.

Intensifying his search, Cantor could make out the lumpy bodies of his crew lying in various places around the room. Initially (as any sane soul would), the captain feared the worst, and prepared to think of some possible way to get home with his ship destroyed and his only friends in what might as well have been the universe dead. That was of course, until he noticed the largest of the ponies' stomach rise and fall rhytmatically in time with the heavy breathing he soon picked up on. However, his lengthy sigh of relief was cut perilously short as he notice that the two doors which gave entrance to the main atrium were wide open.

It was not so much the doors that were providing Cantor with his dilemma. Rather, it was what was between the doors. More specifically, the thin trail of an unmistakable dark red liquid trailing along the floor and around the corner, in the general direction of the entrance of the ship.

If it weren't for the restless stirring that quickly came after the discovery of the blood trail, Cantor could easily confirm that he would have feinted from sheer fear.

Looking down to where the noisy sloshing had begun, Cantor noticed a winged presence groggily standing up from the bloody, inky water and making a point of shivering in lieu of the paralyzing cold. The thick-shadowed form of the mare was wobbly at first, but soon found her footing and managed to circulate several calming breaths before she could see straight enough to notice that there appeared to be a fire in close proximity to her.

She whirled around, splashing the icy water up her legs as she did so to come face to face with a slightly battered-looking alicorn. Dried blood coming from what once was a thick gash stained the right side of his face and had glued some of his ragged orange hair together. He looked a state, but who was she to criticize? Faith had sprained her left wing during the 'landing', and had a great bruise across her middle back.

She paced over to Cantor, limping slightly as she did so, almost slipping on the wet, off-level floor as she made up the short distance between them. One of the first things she noticed was the subtle fire which was lingering about in the air, seemingly burning nothing as fuel. The pegasus became slightly hesitant about getting any closer, but she quickly recalled that the alicorn she was facing could willingly control the elements, and seeing his horn shining a bright magenta confirmed that it was indeed him who was creating this necessary form of heat.

"Y- ...you okay?" Faith whispered, taking whatever comfort possible in the quietly crackling fire, rubbing her left shoulder blade in a mixture of pain and anxiety whilst peering around the dark room which took upon itself an appearance not unlike that of a gloomy cavern.

Cantor dipped his head briskly, clearing his throat before answering. "I'm fine." He said in his own hushed voice, bringing the campfire between to get a better look at her face. "What the hell happened?" He inquired in a raised whisper, thankful and relieved to see a friendly face after the short bout of thinking that he was the only one who had survived.

"You tell me." The grey mare whispered in response, raising her eyebrows tentatively. "You were the one flying this thing."

Cantor furrowed his brow towards the wet, bloody floor, trying to make headway towards what could have caused him to lose control of the ship to such a degree "The controls just- ceased up!" He exclaimed, hoping to justify his failure by relinquishing his understanding. "There were no signs- I-..." His sentence froze and his intense eyes turned as cold and dim as the air around them in a concoction of horror and understanding.

"What?" Faith asked, moving herself around so that she was facing the alicorn head-on. "What is it? What's wrong?"

"It..." Cantor started, not believing his own words - even as he said them. "It was almost as if... we were being attacked."

Faith matched the stallion's stare with just as much skepticism. "Whadda ya mean 'attacked'?" She began to venture into the realms of panic as she started to speculate her own crazy ideas. "This is a dead planet isn't it? Besides, we weren't shot at or anything!"

Cantor, once again, found himself deeply lost in thought. "The chances of other life... was always a... possibility." Was all he could manage to say.

Faith couldn't hope to find the words to reply. She was helplessly scouring her brain for answers, and for questions that would bring her to those answers. But try as she might, the young grey mare couldn't tear herself away from the looming idea she had convinced herself of; that there was indeed life outside of Equestria. And now, it seems, that life was... hostile.

Thankfully, the audio of splashing liquid, its volume accentuated by the intense darkness, pulled her away from the daunting thoughts. Both ponies turned to the source of the noise, seeing several pony-shaped objects rise up from the damp, dark floor.

"I haven't had a bash like that since kindergarten..." Mumbled Red's trademark voice. A slight bout of humour was detected within. "That there was some textbook flyin', kid..."

The alicorn failed to respond any further than bearing a slight grin, but the brief amusement swiftly disappeared when the remembrance of the situation came barrelling back into focus.

Cantor and Faith scurried along the treacherously slippery floor and back into the sub zero water, getting to work on helping up the crew of ponies who had clearly seen better days back onto their hooves.

However, once Titter, who, despite being involved in all this catastrophe, still had her royal blue scarf tied tightly around her neck stood up, a great dilemma quickly unfolded.

"Aah!" The lilac unicorn bleated like a lamb in great pain as her right foreleg collapsed underneath her and she fell face-first into the murky water. Upon closer inspection, once she had been uncomfortably dragged out of the freezing liquid, it was quickly discovered that she had done some severe damage to her ankle, and that even applying the slightest amount of pressure to it would cause a needlepoint pain to tear through the entire appendage. The two sisters took a seat on their rumps out of the water, their backs facing the wall to the right of the entrance as they struggled to keep themselves upright in the awkwardly-poised spaceship.

In lieu of a quick headcount, followed by a very fearful, much slower one, Cantor came to the realisation that the ship's crew was one body short.

"Where's Blue Bolt?" Asked Cantor, alerting the others to the green-maned unicorn's absence.

"I... I don't know..." Muttered Cloud Nine, the unknown whereabouts of her husband as well as the memory of how she had come to exist in such a horrible world causing her to begin to venture into the early realms of panic.

"Awww.... My head..." Groaned a rather hoarse voice from the front end of the cockpit, just in front of Cantor's chair, splattered with combustion oil and a deep maroon substance that couldn't be considered as anything other than dried blood.

It was Black Haze who had spoken. The relatively dizzy unicorn stumbled around the ruined chair, his winged accomplice in tow, rubbing his share of sore body parts. When the first of the red-eyed ponies came into focus, Cantor noticed that his ample horn was coated thickly with an easily recognisable red liquid.

"Haze?" Cantor enquired worriedly, already beginning to form frightening connections in his head. "When abouts did you lose consciousness after we first hit the ground?"

"H- huh?..." The black unicorn asked with tired eyes, massaging the side of his head.

"When we crashed." Cantor re-enforced with a sense of impatience. "Were you knocked out as soon as we hit the ground?" He asked, attempting to bring the drowsy pony's eyes to his.

Black Haze shook his head violently, clearing some of the post-unconscious nausea. However the gesture failed to jog his memory of the past hours like it was intended to.

"I... I think so... I don't remember..." Haze answered, still sounding a lot unlike his usual, strong self.

"Hmmm..." Cantor pondered deeply, scowling at the floor. It seemed that everypony had turned to him for a conclusion; their next set of orders, waiting for their captain to do his job. Eyes were still and breaths were held: if not for the verdict that could ultimately lead them back home and into the safe arms of their families, then for the ever-building tension that was radiating from the deeply in-thought alicorn who had begun pacing around the room. It was noticed that aside from wearing slight suggestions towards struggling to keep his fire alive upon his face, Cantor seemed unscathed from the crash landing, which struck everypony as odd, given that he was one of the physically weakest of the ponies there.

"I think..." Cantor began, turning to face each pony individually as he spoke. "Haze got knocked out as soon as we crashed, so he couldn't cover his horn with his hooves. So when we were all getting tossed around, he speared Blue with his horn, which is why his horn is covered in blood." He finished with a curt nod and a private smile, feeling far too much like a certain 'Sherclop Pones' he had read about in old world equestrian history, though if one were to compare the teenage alicorn to the well read earth pony of the pre-Solaritus era, they would instantly be able to decipher which one solved unfathomable crimes, and which one's pastime was saving the world. Though the latter of the two professions isn't too much of a shabby achievement.

"Well what happened to Blue Bolt, then?" Cloud cried, re-enactments of how easily the sharp unicorn appendage punctured her husband's fifty year old body far too graphic within her mind.

"I'm guessing he went outside." Cantor replied gently, catching on to the cream coated mare's restlessness, not wanting to throw her deeper into worry by talking as casually as possible. "He can't have gotten far, though: look at all this blood..." He motioned towards the trail of frequent red drips leading out of the door, oblivious towards how that sentence could have been interpreted until he caught sight of Cloud Nine's horrified expression.

"What are you saying!?" The chestnut-maned pegasus exclaimed, her midnight purple eyes wild with fright.

Cantor realised what he had just implied, and that how he had said it, if he did indeed mean to say that he was certain that one of Equestria's most skilled physicians was dead.

"Oh, no, I didn't mean it like that!" He quickly corrected himself, holding out his hoof disarmingly. "I meant that he probably didn't wander too far as he knew he was hurt." The alicorn gently explained, watching the cream mare relax a little before a second troubling thought decided to cross her mind.

"Why in Equestria would he decide to wander off!?" Cloud asked in a similarly exasperated tone as her last outburst, stepping several paces closer to the white stallion. "I know Blue better than everypony here put together; he wouldn't just leave if he knew he was hurt, and he certainly wouldn't leave his friends and his wife alone in the dark!" She was slowly beginning to find ways to convince herself that everything bad that could have happened had happened, no matter how hard she tried to suppress these thoughts.

"I don't know..." Cantor replied as he casually summoned possible ideas. "Maybe he went to look for help." He suggested with raised eyebrows. "Besides, you know what he's like with learning new things: we wouldn't have been able to stop him from going adventuring even if we landed according to plan." Cantor smiled hopefully, wishing to restore some of Cloud's usual optimism.

"Well one thing's for certain:" The grey pegasus with the striped headband proposed, taking on her own role of leadership. "Nothin's gonna happen if we keep sitting here waiting for something to help us. We should go find Brain-box, then decide how abouts we get home." She trotted over to the cockpit's entrance, the double doors jammed wide open, taking little care to avoid stepping in the blood trail leading further into the ship. Pausing and looking over her shoulder, Faith gave what could have been regarded as 'parting words'. "I'm no engineer, but anypony with half a brain cell can see that this bird ain't gonna fly." She scoffed to herself, raising her right foreleg to take a step out of the trashed room, adding one last burlesque comment before she placed her hoof down. "Let's see if the local wildlife knows anything about twenty-thousand ton spacecraft..."

As soon as the grey hoof contacted with the floor outside of the control room, a gut-churning sound of stressed metal clunked quietly through everypony's ears like a rapid iron clockwork tapping loudly on the ship's enormous undercarriage. The whole spacecraft seemed to tilt backwards, as if it were precariously balanced over the edge of a cliff, the only thing countering it was a weight exactly that of the ponies in the cockpit. And the shifting of that mass - even as insignificantly as it had done just now, was enough to cause the ship to topple backwards.

The movement tortuously ground to a halt, as did the terrifyingly loud sound, covering the crew in a silence as dark as the world around them.

"What the fuck was that?" Asked a very worrisome Faith, afraid to even move her eyes under the circumstance that in doing so, she would make the ship overbalance that much more.

Before anyone could reply, another terrifying noise filled the air. The sound was that of what could be described as a large metal ball bearing rolling along the floor. Cantor, also slightly fearful of any type of movement other than breathing, felt something cold and dense strike the back of his hoof before it rolled around in front of him.

Despite the fact that taking breath was unofficially allowed, the white alicorn still found himself tensing his lungs as he observed one of the gyroscopic stabilizer pins gain speed as it rolled toward the door. The large metal balls were extremely dense and heavy, and worked alongside the gravity centrifuge to keep the ship the 'right way up' when the gravity was turned on.

"Oh, that's such shit irony..." Cantor thought privately to himself as the shiny object continued to snowball towards Faith rear legs. It struck her left hoof and rolled around it, hitting the wall beside the her and coming to an abrupt stop, just overhanging the doorway, but not enough to actually fall down.

Everypony exhaled a soothingly deep sigh of relief, the panic and adrenaline seeming to leave their bodies through their breath.

Faith rotated her head at an excruciatingly slow speed, bringing her overly-cocky, but still rather shrunken straw coloured eyes to the captain's post-traumatic stare, and with as much sarcasm and satirical intention as she could master, begged the question: "Would it be taking the piss to say we're lucky?"

No sooner had she said this than the stabilizer pin found some haywire route around fate and toppled past the door, making haste on disappearing into the darkened depths of the decimated ship.

The tormenting rolling sound lasted only a few heart-stopping seconds before it was silenced with an abrupt clunk as it struck the end wall of EE1.

Cantor made the foolish assumption that they had escaped catastrophe yet again during the brief silence that followed, but those cheery ideals were shattered when the craft lurched backward, throwing everypony off balance and careering towards the cockpit door. However, unlike the first horrifying hint towards how the ship might be lying, once the initial tell-tale movement had ended, the entire ship could be felt sliding backwards.

Cantor wasted no time on getting everypony to safety, screaming for them all to "Get out!" As the spaceship quickly built up speed, it's rear end sinking deeper into whatever black abyss lie beneath.

The first pony to escape peril was Faith, who happened to be halfway to what in this circumstance could be regarded as safety. She was quickly followed by Cloud Nine, Red, and finally the two mercenaries. Cantor was seen headed towards the main entry door next with mere seconds to spare. He could see the other ponies just a few metres away from him, just as he realised he was not the only one left on the ship.

Cantor whirled around upon discovery of an ear-splitting scream. Upon his one-eighty turn, the white alicorn noticed that Titter and Flitter still held their positions against the back wall, the latter of the two refusing to abandon her sister, even to save herself.

Cantor had no choice but to turn back and help them, but just as he began to gain ground on the couple of screaming mares, the ship (which could be considered now more of a casket) finally lost what minuscule amount of ground it had, and toppled over into a pitch black void.

The captain slammed into the atrium's back wall with bone displacing brutality before he reached the same speed as the ship as it fell through the petrified air, feeling an unsettlingly familiar sensation of weightlessness take hold. Failing to take the time to acknowledge the nausea in the pit of his stomach, Cantor flared open his wings and thrust the downward, sending himself soaring towards the jammed entrance to the cockpit. During the shutter speed time it took the alicorn to reach the pair of flightless siblings, Cantor subconsciously noted the deflated airbags flailing desperately for their own freedom through the shattered pane of the once magnificent glass sphere. He reached the twins with not a second to spare, halting his ascent for the blink of an eye to snatch them out of their own terminal freefall by the scruffs of their necks.

Cantor felt the heat of contraction tear through his enormous wings as he threw them to the floor once again, sending all three ponies careering through the narrow opening, slicing legs and wings upon jagged metal on the way out.

The trio made it just in time to see their temporary and only home plummet further and further down until it became swallowed up by the inky black darkness.

Despite rapid breath and thundering hearts, the only other sound that could be heard was that of the alien air whirling around EE1 as it fell to it's inevitable fate. And only a few seconds later, the ghastly noise of metal snapping and crunching rung through the void, echoing around the unknown walls and instilling defeat and empathy into the helpless captain.

With a heavy heart, Cantor began his ascent, listening to the dull rumble of his ship's death fade away into the blackness around him. The two ponies he held below felt rigid, and unusually heavy for their age and size and soon, concerns of their well being overtook the crippling knowledge that the ride home was far beyond unrepeatable.

"You girls okay?" He asked quietly, peering down at them as he spoke. However no reply came; the pair of unicorns merely remained stiff from shock and as eerily quiet as the dark world around.

It took a couple of minutes for Cantor to clear the distance the spacecraft had covered in just a few seconds, and when he finally reached the other ponies upon what appeared to be some kind of metal catwalk, his gargantuan wings, despite being very powerful and enduring, felt as if they were on fire.

Everypony breathed a collective sigh of relief when they noticed Cantor carrying the two young girls upward from the abyss and rushed to the side of the metalwork to help them back onto solid ground. Titter and Flitter where somewhat ushered onto the wide, rusted catwalk by their comrades, sinking to their knees whilst breathing heavily in light of all the screaming.

The exhausted alicorn joined them soon after, crashing down onto an empty spot of the rust-withered metal surface on his back, his chest rising and falling at a pace that would have suggested he had just run a marathon. He allowed his wings to fall loosely out by his sides like a feathery bedsheet and simply closed his eyes, wondering how in this world they would get back to their own.

Several moments of intense silence stretched out, allowing everyone to collect their thoughts. But even when they had, the thoughts that shadowed their minds were not any less daunting than before. The only difference now, was that they could clearly see their demise amongst all the havoc.

"Always playing the hero, huh?" Faith jostled, turning around from the incapacitated unicorns to shoot the alicorn a lopsided smile in some attempt to lighten the mood.

"It's always the time to play the hero, Faith." Cantor replied in a guilt-free tone and a weak smile of his own, not noticing the previous hint of hopefulness leave the grey mare as she began to make her way towards him.

"Seriously, Cantor..." Faith began on a far more sorrowful note, pacing groggily towards the alicorn with dim, hopeless eyes. "That was our ride home... How are we gonna get back?" She gazed with an empty stare toward the flaking ground beneath the white pony's hooves, her up and at it attitude no more than a dwindling ember of what it once was.

The captain groaned, rolled over onto his side and stood up, folding the sore wings back to the sides of his body, feeling a slight breeze emanating from somewhere. The sensation of the cool air hitting his body alerted him to the shaft of silvery moonlight pouring in through an enormous hole in the pitch black ceiling. He could confirm that he was stood upon a slightly rusted platform which seemed to stretch out forever in two directions, only pale amber running lights illuminating the path until they disappeared behind what appeared to be a gigantic steel door, bathed in it's own clinical green light from an unseen source. There was a metallic smell in the air, so strong, in fact, that he could taste it. If it were not for the rusted surface he was standing on, Cantor would not have argued with the thought of the odour being created by an immeasurable amount of blood; the stench of which was just so distinct.

"Don't worry." Cantor replied with a relatively confident smile. Faith merely looked at him with an open mind, waiting for him to come up with something. "I'll find some way to get us back to Equestria."

"Couldn't you just use your magic?" Cloud Nine enquired, stepping away from the pair of shivering unicorns. "From what I've heard and seen, you can do some pretty amazing stuff... Can you not just teleport us all back to Canterlot?"

With memory of how strenuous simply creating a fire had been a while ago, Cantor replied with a feeble sum of enthusiasm. "Well, I- I guess it wouldn't hurt to try..." Sighed the alicorn who knew full well how powerful he was, but that his magical prowess meant nothing when faced with a situation like this. He took a couple of short steps back, spreading his front legs a little and bowing his head. Cantor clenched his teeth as his horn began to radiate a rich violet glow, casting a magenta aura upon the floor around him. His back tensed up and he screwed his eyes shut, for the first time in a long while, finding that he needed to focus this hard to perform an instinctual spell. He first envisioned Celestia's throne room: the regal mare sat atop her highly polished throne, ever pondering ways to better her subjects whilst being guarded from potential threats by heavily armoured pegasi and magically ample unicorns now that her planet's front line of defence, and if the need arose, most powerful weapon was partaking in one of the most unsuccessful vacations imaginable.

Try as he might, Cantor just couldn't forge a connection. No matter how hard he tried, no matter what his magic could do, he just couldn't overcome the impossibly vast distance between them.

The light around his horn dissipated into the surrounding air with a sound similar to that of a whip's crack, and the spent white pony fell to his knees in defeat, gasping for breath, and cursing himself under what little he had left.

"I'm- I'm sorry, guys..." Cantor apologised, feeling utterly useless in the knowledge that he was for once in his equine life, powerless: a sensation he had never hoped to feel ever again. "I can't do it, it's... it's just too far..."

Faith scooped her foreleg under his shoulder and with a forgiving sigh, hoisting Cantor back onto his hooves, where she shot him a sympathetic smile.

"Hey..." The grey pegasus started softly, punching her friend playfully on the shoulder in another attempt to make the situation seem a little less dire. "Don't worry about it, you tried your best. Hell, if I had one of those things on my head, I'd be so clumsy I'd be more dangerous than a grizzly bear with a flamethrower!" She shared a confiding laugh between Cloud and Cantor, somewhat clearing the negativity for a few moments.

"Speaking of which," The blonde-haired mare bespoke, trotting through the swarm of ponies gathered around the injured Titter, who was prodding at her right hoof, trying to determine why it was so painful. She reached the edge of the bent and swollen catwalk, peering gingerly over the edge and down into the vast darkness beneath. She swallowed loudly to try and extinguish the nausea the sheer drop was stirring within her stomach, dipping her head low and squinting in some frivolous attempt to see the bottom.

"Whoa!" Cantor foalishly said as he nudged Faith gently on the flank, edging her forward just enough to make her panic, whirl around and catch him in the side of the head with her hoof.

"Ow..." Cantor muttered, still regarding his stunt as a joke. What he failed to take into consideration, however, was Faith's cataclysmic fear of falling.

The pegasus punched Cantor once more, even harder this time, making him fully realise that he had done wrong. Faith jabbed her hoof towards his face, staring him directly in the eye with the fury of a thousand suns.

"Don't you ever, EVER! Do that to me again!" She barked ferociously, once again displaying her social prowess and the natural authority she held over other ponies.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" The alicorn hurriedly replied in a panicked tone, covering his face to avoid another meeting with the perilously close grey hoof.

Faith brought her hoof back down to the floor with an infuriated snort before raising herself to her tip-hooves to bring herself to the stallion's own height. "If you dare even think about doing something like that again..." She began in an evil, dangerously dark voice, her gold-hued eyes still burning with that inner inferno. "I will break your legs." She sunk back to the floor, never averting eye contact with that intolerable stallion. She shook her head slightly, signifying her vexation. "And I'm not even joking..."

Cantor didn't react any further than a worried gulp, shuffling on his hooves nervously as Faith gently eased herself back around towards the cavernous drop. She bent over again, almost making a mock of presenting herself to Cantor.

"Again?" She asked suggestively, shooting the alicorn a self-assured smile, tempting him with over-raised eyebrows. Contrary to her way of speaking, she still seemed in some ways afraid.

Cantor merely snickered and brought himself level to the pegasus, oblivious to the audience of confused eyes burning into him from behind.

"That's a long drop..." Observed the alicorn, afraid to put anything other than his head over the ledge, despite the reassurance of wings.

"Yeah..." Faith agreed after an awed whistle. "You think we should go get our guns and stuff?"

Cantor met her remark with worried eyes. "You think we need them?" He asked with a reluctant element in his voice.

The iron-grey mare swivelled her head around haltingly, peering at her audience through anxious eyes with an air of great upset. The faces which connected her glance seemed to fair no better, and as a result, failed to raise her spirits even a little like she had hoped.

Faith, after a seemingly long session of contemplation, returned her eyes to Cantor's, which, despite the astounding rarity of such a colour, held far more uncertainty than initially allocated.

"I hope to Celestia we don’t." She simply responded, still somehow managing holding back her feral fantasies. "But from what you said about being 'attacked'... I doubt we'll have a choice..."

Cantor and Faith cautiously, and with stunted pace, made their glacier-speed decent to the bottom of this horrendously dark and cavernous shaft. Hoof in hoof so as to not loose each other in the inky blackness, the couple of ponies meandered downward in the endless darkness, the light emanating from the feeble fire being produced by the out of place alicorn doing little more than illuminating the duo's faces with a comforting amber warmth.

When placed in the dark, even the healthiest of minds are faced with a loss; take away a sense, especially vision, and the other senses will begin to compensate for the loss of activity in the brain. One of the most frequent symptoms of ponies who have been blinded for scientific proposes, be that willingly or otherwise, have, after a short time, begun to report hearing voices or feeling presences they knew were not there. The same anomaly was clearly evident in both Cantor and Faith as their gentle but direct wing beats allowed them to flutter down gently enough to change course should anything startle them. The two ponies' ears regularly snapped around to listen to groaning metalwork or dripping liquid which sounded hundreds of times louder than they actually would have done if they had been produced from a bright and sunny meadow of daffodils.

All around them, they could feel eyes burning into them. It was passed off as a mere side effect of being so secluded in the darkness, but after some adrenaline-fuelled minutes, the uneasy sensation became too much of an instinctual reaction that the idea of the 'something' watching the two venture deeper into the unknown was almost a certainty.

With way past their fair share of fear, the decimated shell of Equestrian Explorers One came into Cantor and Faith's field of vision, bringing about a whole new meaning to the word 'ominous'. The pair exchanged tight-nerved glances before settling down on the side of the ruined shuttle, being careful not to cut themselves on the shattered windows or the razor-sharp bodywork which had peeled open in certain parts like a tin can.

With more caution than necessary, Cantor lowered his flame into the destroyed spaceship, stealing odd glances of the interior before sticking his head all the way in for a more educated visual survey.

Suddenly, Cantor felt a powerful force against his rear, making him loose his footing a little, causing him to nearly plummet straight into the shredded atrium of the once beautiful ship.

He whirled around in an instant, petrified by the idea of falling into the shuttle, but still terrified to find out what it was that had pushed him. In one swift movement, the trembling alicorn was facing the completely opposite direction, where he saw the wildly amused expression a certain grey mare was wearing.

"Not so funny when you're on the receiving end, huh?" She asked, cocking her head in a mischievous fashion.

Cantor let out the trembling breath he had stolen when he first felt the push, loosening his tensed limbs up somewhat from the fright, lowering his wings which had sprung up in surprise back down to his sides. He placed a hoof over his heart, feeling how it seemed that his entire chest was pounding like a bass speaker.

"Oh my god..." Cantor gasped as he regained his breath. He thought about how to justify his previous actions; how it was unnecessary for Faith to 'return the favour', but after several seconds' contemplation, Cantor decided that she deserved just such vengeance.

The stallion looked back up at the pegasus, waiting for her to say something cocky. However, no such remark came, and Cantor was forced to collect his thoughts, offer a brief apology to put the pair back on good terms and begin the treacherous descent into the mangled husk of metal.

EE1 Lay on its side, the only entrances available were through the dilapidated doorway near the cockpit and the smashed windows along the side. With one of the two options far too small to grant access to the ship, (not that it mattered anyway) the only option left was to use the door. Cantor once again lowered his light into the dark, allowing the flickering flames to smother the ink-stained walls with licks of light.

Once the alicorn had ventured inside after a long hesitation and made sure Faith made it safely in too, he found himself having to step on top of the web of brightly coloured wires that were sprawled carelessly across the floor. Panels in the ceiling had, at some point, snapped the bolts holding them up and fallen at random intervals around the room. The water in the cockpit seemed to have luckily stayed mostly in place, leaving the floor of the atrium only slightly moist from the wash of fluids. From this, it was decided that the electrical system on board had been deactivated, otherwise the ponies would have been electrocuted as soon as they touched one of the many sections in the wiring that had split and frayed.

Cantor led the way with his female co-pilot close in tow. They made little to no progress in advancing on the armoury, located right at the back of the ship - the same room in which the Peripharous crystal was being stored. But despite this, neither equine felt speed a necessity over keeping a watchful eye in front, behind and, before it was too late, above them in every bedroom and hallway they scanned. Faith was almost certain, but not entirely convinced that there was alien life on this planet: the sensation of being watched, she admitted, seemed far too genuine to be merely the effect of the black parts of the imagination, but if there indeed was some race of creatures living down here past the stars, then why in Equestria hadn't they come to investigate an enormous spacecraft that had crash landed on their settlement.

"Unless..." She thought to herself, knowing that such a thought would only make the situation much worse if brought into the open. "Unless they haven't come to see what all the crashing was because... they were still on their way..." She shook her head briskly, trying to focus on how the feel of cold metal wrapped around her foreleg would grant some form of sanitised security.

Some time later, after the most intense session of silence ever shared between two individuals at a time like this, the doorway to EE1's armoury came into view. Like most of the doors on the demolished craft, the armoury's entrance door, though heavily re-enforced, had also been succumbed to the same fate as it's metal brethren, and was jammed wide open.

As soon as Cantor entered the armoury, a deathly cold air met his coat, sending shivers all the way down his spine and making his teeth chatter. The dense material the walls of the room were made from, unlike the rest of the ship, were unscathed from the collision. The heavy lead and silver compound which formed the thick walls was the same material that the party's ammunition was made from: the lead gave each bullet it's weight, and the silver ore had been blessed by Celestia herself with unspeakably powerful and complex magic nopony else in the world possessed to give it unique physical attributes, such as a half life of over seven hundred million years. Not even Luna or Cantor possessed the knowledge to perform a spell such as this.

The reason for such a material to exist was unclear, but the good mare of the day declared that it would make the trip far safer. As to how this safety was ensured, however, was an even foggier pursuit. But Celestia never lied, and it was doubtless that she would not even dream of putting two of her most prized and loyal subjects in harm's way for what could be regarded as little more than an extravagant curiosity mission.

The first thing the alicorn noticed after venturing further inside the freezer box of a room was that several of the cabinets and gun cases had been forced open. Now, anywhere else on this obliterated ship, and such an unwanted entry would have been understandable. However, inside an impenetrable box at the rear of the craft, made of a metal so robust that it could survive an explosion of up to thirty kilotons, for footlockers containing heightened Equestrian technology that were bolted firmly to the wall to just 'happen' to bust open was the most unnatural thing about this whole expedition.

What really made Cantor confused however, was that upon inspection, no weapons, ammunition or anything else of partial interest had been taken; just one of nine saddlebags and several shots of morphine from the first aid cache.

"Odd..." Cantor's mental statement unintentionally passed his lips, alerting one grey mare who had her head buried in a case of vertically holstered rifles in the far corner of the room to his unease.

"What is it?" She asked in a voice barely that of a whisper as she set about checking that the Fawning-SSR Mk. III rifles she was stuffing into a very sizeable duffle bag were not loaded.

"Oh, nothing." Cantor answered back swiftly, taking one of the thick canvas sacks Faith was using to begin stuffing in food rations and medical equipment for the inevitably harsh journey ahead. "I was just thinking aloud..." He reinforced, following the statement with a nervous chortle.

"Well what's up?" The pegasus insisted, halting the progress she was making on loading the bag with guns to turn and face the stallion.

Cantor cast a thoughtful glance around the arctic-cold room once again, scanning the snapped locks and shredded seals before deciding to reply. "Well I just thought it was strange that all these units have obviously been broken into, yet nothing of a huge importance has been taken..."

"Who do you think it was?" Asked Faith, knowing full well who the culprit was, but decided to invest in a second opinion.

"There's really only one pony it could be." Cantor responded, remembering his duties and beginning to load saddlebags with morphine, bandages, and an assortment of other medical supplies.

"Blue?" Questioned Faith. Cantor nodded in agreement. "Damnit!" Scorned the pegasus, making a move to spit at the ground. "I knew he was gonna be trouble as soon as we set off." She turned to the left and flung open another set of cabinet doors and made a start on packing ammunition boxes full of a variety of death-dealing supplements into her duffle bag.

To any warped mind, to stand in this equine armoury would be comparable to a foal in a candy store.

"I'm sure he won't be too much trouble." Replied the alicorn, slowing his movements in packing the bag to think about what to do. "But our main priority is regrouping, then we should look for a way off this rock."

"How?" Asked Faith, humouring her own hopelessness, laughing and letting her head fall limply downward to her inactive hooves. "How are we ever going to get home? If there were other... things living here, they would have come and found us by now. I just..." She allowed a grumbling sigh to pass her lips, frustrated with herself for not knowing what to say to make things better. "...I... I'm scared... I just wanna go home..." She finally admitted, unable to face somepony she had always exaggerated her bravery and willpower to ever since they met.

"...Hey..." Cantor called out gently, offering a reassuring smile to the soft-hearted mare when she turned to him. "I know how you feel, Faith, and I'm sorry that we're in this whole situation. I know I can't promise we'll escape with our lives, but what I can provide is hope, and comfort in the knowledge that I will use everything in my power to keep everyone safe." He gave a brisk nod accompanied by an empowering smile, instilling some enthusiasm to the pegasus' dented persona. "Now sitting here in the dark isn't going to help us get back; let's just collect all our things, regroup with the rest and find Blue Bolt."

Faith replied with a stiff, agreeable nod of her own. "Right." She said, beaming with the newfound hope in her heart. However, as soon as she started to pack more boxes of shells, magazines and energy packs into her cumbersome duffle bag, that hope was swept aside by fear as a sound not unlike that of a distant howl rang through her ears.

She froze for a moment, staring up at Cantor with petrified eyes. The stallion met her gaze with a similar level of tension in some kind of mutual paralysis.

A moment's silence passed before anyone spoke, and it was Faith who broke the peace with a pointless question. "Did you hear that?"

She had barely finished her sentence before a second distorted howl blasted through the air again, making the very walls of the ship vibrate. The sound was comparable to a foghorn, very deep in pitch, but just as loud. However, the great booming wail held animalistic properties - whatever it was, it was living, and judging by it's demonic cry, it was also leviathan of stature.

Faith hurled the last few ammo boxes into her sack and tugged fiercely at the drawstrings, pulling the rim of the huge canvas bag to a tight puckered lip. She heaved the sack of guns and ammunition over her back, wincing as it's tremendous weight compressed the rich bruise between her wings. She hauled the load which was nearly as big as her from the armoury, down the corridor and into the atrium, where she began the troublesome flight to try and get the duffle bag into the air.

Without thinking, Cantor reached his foreleg into the sturdy wall safe where several earpieces and battery packs were stored. And in one swift motion, poured the communication devices into one of the eight saddlebags he had slung over his other foreleg in a cascade of clattering plastic and jangling metal.

It was unclear to Cantor; he was so swept up in the action, but as he fastened the strap on the saddlebags housing delicate articles, he could have sworn he felt the ground rhytmatically trembling - as if it were being pounded by enormous footsteps. But the frantic stallion had already decided that timing was crucial: it was now obvious that him and his crew were not alone in this world, and even though it was impossible to fathom whether that life was intelligent or friendly, the dark, decrepit shell of his former inter-stellar spaceship was the last place he wanted to be.

However, one last check would have later proved to be vital, because as the alicorn left with several bulging saddlebags across the whole of his back and halfway up his neck, the miniature tremors created by the gigantic creature's steady pacing caused the heavily guarded, lead-lined door of the cracked wall safe harbouring the Peripharous crystal - a gemstone containing enough dark magic to distort space and time in a several million mile radius swung lazily open without so much as a creak, revealing an empty casket where the enchanted stone once lay, nothing but a tangle of wires and an overturned pedestal in it's highly fortified place.

Cantor darted into the atrium, finding a hard time keeping the heavy bags slung across his back from falling to the floor. The ground was now quaking violently with every few seconds that passed. The white stallion scoured the room for Faith, and soon enough, his eyes fell upon the grey mare frantically pounding at the underside of the sack full of weapons which was wedged tightly between the edges of the door.

"Come on, you fuck!" Faith spurred through barred teeth; it was obvious to see that she was in a state of mass panic.

Cantor called up to the pegasus and ordered her to come clear of the door. Finding that nothing else was working, she trusted Cantor with whatever it was he was plotting. She jerked the oversized duffle bag from the doorway, allowing it to fall to the floor, unafraid of breaking any of it's contents as the frayed web of wires made for a soft landing.

Cantor poured all of his stamina into his horn, only feeling a fraction of the power such a strenuous effort would usually arise within the unicorn appendage. He bowed his head low to the floor, screwing his eyes tight in some effort to bring about more energy.

The rich violet glow emanating from the alicorn's horn was dim, yet more than suited to bring out the ravaged walls, shattered windows and the ominous black stains of ink which had been carelessly splashed onto every available panel of the interior metalwork.

Feeling as though he had reached his limit, and that if he persisted, his head would explode, Cantor swung his head to the heavens, unleashing a torrent of pure energy straight up with an anguished cry of desperation. The brilliant white beam tore through the ship's sturdy iron hull like a bullet through butter, leaving nothing more than a molten metal lip glowing red hot in the thick darkness.

The magically squandered alicorn fell to his knees, exhausted by his sudden inability to channel magic with barely any difficulty like usual. But before he could begin to collect his breath, he felt a rough tugging at his shoulders accompanied by a desperate, yet all-round encouraging Faith.

"Come on, get up!" She insisted, pulling Cantor and his burdensome load back onto his wobbly hooves. "Come on!" Faith repeated urgently, her body pulling her to dart off into the air to safety, but not a fibre of her heart would allow her to leave somepony behind.

"Okay..." Cantor mumbled, flapping his wings brutishly and stomping his hooves violently on the floor to wake himself up. "Alright." He said, a lot more empowered than previously. "Let's go, you first."

That was all Faith needed to hear. As quick as lightning, she snatched the hooffull of material at the head of the duffle bag, twirled it around her leg once and hauled it into the air, the hole Cantor had made proving far more than adequate to allow the sack of guns and ammo to pass through unscathed.

Cantor still had some doubt that blasting a three-metre hole in the side of the only way home was all entirely necessary. Despite the blatantly clear fact that repairing the ship was far beyond impossible, Cantor still felt that he were adding insult to injury. Forcing himself into the mindset of escape, the still rather breathless alicorn bent at the knees a little, raising his gargantuan wings high above his head in preparation of takeoff.

Realising he had no real means of pacing himself, Cantor filled his lings with air, held it there, and just gunned it for the sky. He sailed straight through the hole, up into the blinding darkness. He may as well have been blind, but direction didn't matter anyway; the only destination in sight was up, and he was rapidly accelerating with every punishing thrust.

It didn't take Cantor long to catch up to Faith, her wings beating like a hummingbird's as she struggled with her load. Lighting was minimal, but there was just enough of the valuable substance for Cantor to see the bottom of Faith's overbearing sack. He extended his hooves moments before colliding with the cargo, hearing a shriek of peril from the over encumbered mare above.

"Don't worry!" Called the alicorn with what little breath he had. "It's just me! Keep going!" He failed to hear a reply, but he suddenly felt Faith's sizeable contribution lighten, so it was clear she had understood.

With several panting breaths, Cantor sucked in another two lungfuls of oxygen and felt his wings erupt into psychological flames as he upped his game. Every excruciating flap set the bar of pain higher and higher for both ponies, but they didn't give up: they couldn't afford to.

Whatever lie a few hundred feet below at the bottom of that alien pit certainly couldn't reach them up here, and the thought of something that large being able to fly was implausible, yet the two winged equines continued to torture themselves with reaching the top of this treacherous chasm.

A substantial number of seconds later, Cantor and Faith finally reached the summit of their herculean climb, where they were met with exasperated expressions and worrisome eyes.

The strength in Faith's forelegs had completely diminished to zero, and the last leg of her journey was by far the hardest. She just managed to heave the duffle bag onto the rusted metal catwalk beneath several pairs of hooves. Even with the help of Cantor behind, it took both ponies every last ounce of effort they had left to get the sack into place.

Cantor gave three final rapid wing beats for the final push, feeling as though his bones would break in the process. He sailed over the bent lip of the metalwork, tumbling across the rim of the sack and landing on top of Faith. His many saddlebags slid from his back to join the canvas gun bag on the floor, a couple of needles and a radio fell free in the process.

Whether or not he landed on solid ground or not, Cantor's giant wings refused to co-operate with his body, for a short time, becoming dead limbs sprawled out untidily across the cold, rust-bitten floor.

Cantor did not oblige to laying on his pony-mattress; he didn't even notice the soft, warm mare below him through the breathless panting they were both consumed by. It would be appropriate to assume that these two equines had just run the autumnal 'Running of the Leaves' marathon ten times over at a full gallop without ever stopping for a break.

The mobile crew members set themselves the task of tidying up the weaponry, medical supplies, walkie-talkies and ammunition into orderly rows and appropriate bags ready to be equipped accordingly.

For the time it took the rest of the crew, spare Titter for what was identified as nothing more than a badly sprained ankle and Blue Bolt for obvious reasons, to set everything up, Cantor and Faith had found their hooves and were now drearily helping load weapons and ration first aid, yet they were still highly in debt to their aching bodies. But to be fair, the rest of the battered equine explorers failed to look 'right as rain' either...

"So it's just a sprain?" Cantor enquired in Cloud Nine's presence, nosing over at the blue-scarfed unicorn who was aimlessly surveying her surroundings whilst looking a little sorry for herself, a pristine white bandage now wrapped tightly around her lower right foreleg.

"Yes." The creamy coated mare answered with that soft voice of hers. "But it's a bad one - one of the worst I've seen. We're lucky it isn't broken: it would seem that way, what with all the pain she's in. But the morphine should be kicking in by now..." Her easy tone suggested she was extremely relaxed, but anyone with the slightest sense of common social knowledge could see in her eyes that she was loosing it.

"What do you think happened to your husband?" Asked the alicorn, his soul intention was to create conversation, though his tone reflected sincerity.

"Hm..." Cloud chuckled to herself, closing her eyes whilst still managing to insert needles through the little loops of fabric within her white saddlebag marked with a bold red cross. "I thought you were the one with all the answers..." She opened her dark purple eyes as she began, keeping it in mind to not sound too depressed. "You may be young, and there aren't many colts in your generation who I can look upon like I look at you." Her head fell to the side and she stopped arranging the needles. A serene smile of adolescent remembrance crept onto her face, and Cantor could tell from the little twinkle in her eyes that she was remembering a better place.

"Hm, hm hm..." She laughed again, shaking her head gently as if defying all the bad in the world. "You remind me of my brother when we were both young: ambitious, brave, inspiring..." She stared dreamily past the alicorn, seeing her sibling as clear as day.

"But I'm not really any of those things." Cantor replied, calling the brown-maned pegasus from her daydream.

She shot Cantor a wink, her easy smile undying upon her face. "He was modest, too..."

Cantor allowed himself an amused grin, but decided to insist his point. "No, really, I don't lead a particularly exciting life. Yeah, I love life, and I love my life and wouldn't change it for the world, but... I'm really nopony special, and I'm certainly not the bravest of souls; that title goes to my friend, Rainbow Dash: she would do anything for anyone..." Now it was his turn to become sentimental: imagining what his friends were doing now... It would probably be early autumn in Equestria now, so they were most likely helping Applejack collect this year's harvest.

The sound of Cloud Nine's fair voice brought Cantor out of his own vacant gaze. "On the contrary, my dear, from what I've heard about you from princess Celestia, you seem to be shaping up into the ideal stallion." Her enthusiastic tone cast a pale hint of rouge across Cantor's cheeks. "And knowing that you are going to be a father, too..." She breathed deeply through her nose, picking up a plastic - wrapped bandage roll from the ground and making a start on picking the smooth protective film from the clinical cotton. "I can see that foal is going to be very happy in their life with someone like you to look up to."

Cantor felt his eyes sting a little as small tears collected around the bottom of his vision, but he was pretty sure it wasn't enough to notice. "Thanks." He simply said, wrapping a foreleg around Cloud's shoulders as she did the same.

After they separated from the embrace, Cantor and Cloud mentally decided between them that the moment had passed, and now it was time to focus on the more important circumstances of this situation.

"Are we ready yet?" Cantor called out in an empowered tone, causing everypony to stop whatever it was that they were doing and turn towards him.

"All set, Cantor." Black Haze responded, waving a hoof over the neatly arranged selection of weaponry that had been laid out on the floor. In total, there were no less than fifteen guns set out in order: two prototype Enimagic laser rifles, five Buckshot guns, three displacement rifles, (which were a kind of high-velocity, long ranged weapon) and the rest were submachine guns, capable of eight rounds per second. Large metal boxes painted a milky green were piled high on top of each other in a triangular formation.

Everyone gathered around the stash in a circle, privately marking which gun was 'theirs'.

Despite his initial objection to firearms, and his present resistance to accept them in this world, Cantor couldn't help but crack a smile at the power that could come from a mere arrangement of metal and a chemical reaction.

"I call shotgun." The alicorn decreed with an unnatural glint in his eye.

Geared up, fully loaded, kitted out, packing mega heat, whatever one could think to say, these eight ponies fit the ticket perfectly. With saddlebags tied around their mid-sections, and a plethora of deadly arms bound tightly to their forelegs, Cantor and his crew set off along the gritty, rusted walkway, heading left towards the door closest to them. Little did they know the next few hours of their lives would be an accurate insight as to what life in hell would be like.

Cantor had a ridiculously overpowered shotgun wrapped around his right leg, the weight of the gun giving him a little more confidence as leader. The pace was kept at a brisk trot, with the two Vlaamperdian mercs behind Cantor and Faith and Red bringing up the rear. The more vulnerable ponies, though still equipped with weaponry of their own, were kept in the middle of the group for protection's sake, and to prevent anyone from wandering off who happened to be less suited if a situation developed than the soldiers of the group.

Titter was surprisingly nimble with only three fully functioning hooves, and was managing to keep up quite well with the others, but her sister maintained a concerned eye over her sibling at all times, yet the mare with the red scarf failed to identify any discomfort in her twin’s eyes as they trotted along.

Blue Bolt's location was still hazy, but after the discovery that he had in his possession one of the nine walkie-talkies from the armoury, and following a quick reconnaissance report from the unicorn, it was decided that he wasn't too far away from the landing site. Several of the things mentioned in Cantor's conversation with the royal blue pony rattled the alicorn's imagination. For a start, Blue Bolt kept mentioning these things he called: "the croaking black dragons", but would ignore any question raised as to what exactly the black dragons were. But that was not of huge importance: Blue said he had only gone down a couple of corridors for about an hour before he had hidden in one of the rooms he had found on the way back to the crashed shuttle. But when questioned about why he didn't return, the middle-aged stallion only replied with: "there were too many." And once again, he insisted upon another topic when asked what there were too many of.

Needless to say, Cantor was apprehensive to go adventuring, but with the reassuring metal wrapped round his leg, and the self-adopted mission to retrieve Blue Bolt, the white stallion soldiered on with dauntless perseverance.

The stallion in charge - that is, the pony who should have been patient and seen reason with everything, resorted to punching the expansive control panel on the side of the great iron door in an attempt to get it to open. He found it ridiculous that one door required such an array of switches to operate: there must have been at least thirty on this panel alone! For all Cantor knew, this door could have been welded shut with rust - it sure looked that way from the outside. Initially, the male deity had hoped to rip the enormous metal blockade from its holsters, but once he rolled up close, he assumed that by the tremendous dimensions of the door, being several metres wide and nearly twice as tall as it's width, the rust-eaten gateway was at least a foot thick, and therefore impenetrable given his current depleted magical prowess.

Eventually, after much frustration and a little bit of panic, Cantor struck the correct sequence of illuminated buttons and the door began to slowly crawl up into the ceiling with a painful screech of tortured metal.

The alicorn turned to face the others with a chuffed expression consisting of a cocky grin and self-assured eyes, only to receive an irk look from a familiar female pegasus in the back row.

Once the opening had granted enough access so that Cantor could comfortably slip under, the white captain ducked into the next darkly illuminated part of the journey. Two more corridors, both lit by blood red running lights in either side of the floor, splashing crimson onto all the aged walls and casting ominous shadows upon their surfaces.

As soon as Cantor paused to inspect the two options of which to turn, an unholy stench of blood invaded his nostrils, causing him to dry-heave and cover his muzzle with a foreleg.

"What's wrong?" Deathwing enquired, looking under the door before deciding to join Cantor.

The stench was so strong, Cantor could barely breathe. With watery eyes, he turned away from the path and poked his head out under the heavy, malfunctioning door for a cleaner breath of air.

"Smell-" The alicorn managed to choke out between breaths. "It stinks in there!" He exclaimed, just as the pungent aroma struck the two ponies at the head of the queue.

The pair of black mercenaries wrinkled their noses and covered their snouts with their forelegs, turning away slightly in some attempt to escape the disgusting odour.

"Holy shit!" Black Haze exclaimed with the utmost revolution. "What's gone on in there!?"

"I don't know..." Cantor confessed, walking back into the red-shifted hallway, staring down the extensive section of luminous crimson walls. "But there's only one way to find out." He pulled hard on the bolt on the side of his choice arm, creating a satisfying click which echoed slightly through the long hallways.

The white stallion could have sworn he heard some slur involving the word 'show-off' from somewhere at the back of the group, but it wasn't as if he had a choice about whether or not to acknowledge the dig, so he simply carried on.

In one swift movement, Cantor ducked under the fortress-like door and outstretched his right foreleg down the blind corridor to the right, which only went several metres before being cut off by another, much smaller doorway. However, the main aspect of the passageway that caught Cantor's eye was that it was as deserted as the first.

"It's safe." He reported, standing back on all fours to watch his fellow ponies duck their way into the less than spacious clearing.

"Ugh!" Flitter cried out in abhorrence, the rancid stench of blood far more real than she first anticipated. "That's disgusting!" She added, feeling her eyes prick with tears as her nose flared at the sour smell.

"Which way, guys?" Asked Cantor, voice slightly withheld as an effect of the odour.

"You tell us." Flitter replied, the rich red lights sending her pale coat a similar hue to the one-tone scarf around her neck. "You're in charge, after all..."

After several seconds' consideration, the stallion 'in charge' decided to take the route closest to him: opposed to venturing for too long with this smell lingering over him.

"This way." He instructed, giving a windmill motion with his hoof in the direction of the reasonably sized door to the left.

A much less intimidating interface met Cantor as he cast his eyes to the right of the door where another panel of only three buttons backlit by a dirty yellow glow. Going out on a limb, the alicorn pressed his hoof into the dull yellow bump on the left of the panel with low expectations. However, once his hoof made contact, a very audible 'click' was sounded from somewhere within the framework.

"What happened?" Cloud enquired, stepping next to the alicorn for a better view of the control panel. The corridor could comfortably fit two ponies side by side at any one time; three at a squeeze.

Cantor ceased to reply, but the mare with the midnight eyes could tell that, from the stallion's expression, he was mentally answering her question. Cloud ran her eyes along Cantor's body, noticing how miraculously his wounds had healed: it was not five minutes ago that a rough nick in his shin was gushing blood, but was now little more than a bruised scrape above a dried up river of deep red liquid.

After fumbling with the scarce array of buttons, Cantor felt as though he had 'cracked' the code to opening these doors: it seemed as though the left button locked the passage, the right one unlocked it, and the centre one engaged it. The alicorn decided not to dwell on the subject for too long however, and decided instead, to try and make the sequence that of second nature. Not a difficult task at all, but given the circumstances, such a procedure would require as much concentration as any other lock.

The steel door, not a whole lot closer to pristine, but still much more maintained than the first one, slid up into the ceiling, opening up a whole new, much darker, and in a word, sinister room than previously. Even the dull, flickering lights hanging crookedly from the high ceiling provided enough light in order to make out overturned tables, blood splattered walls, and old paper strewn across the ground as if a tornado had rampaged through. Near the far end of the trashed dining hall, one corner was illuminated brightly by several spotlights shining down from the pitch black ceiling. Dust particles buzzed around aimlessly like lost flies in the narrow shaft of light filtering downwards until it struck the wall, where it slowly vanished into the same inky darkness that made up the futuristic rafters.

Cantor slowly turned to the brown haired pegasus to his left, who was staring into the ominous area with hesitance. "Looks like fun..." He commented, a brief tone of humour within his voice.

Cloud only swallowed in response.

Cantor took one step forwards, and instantly felt something cold and wet surround his hoof. He reared backwards in shock, nearly knocking Black Haze over in the process.

"What's up?" The red-eyed unicorn asked, irritated, his blood-hued irises seeming to glow in the last of the crimson light leaking into the morbid, cavernous hall.

"Who's got the light?" Cantor hurriedly called out, holding his right hoof as far away from his body as possible.

"Here." Cloud Nine answered, turning on the demure torch on the side of her laser rifle, sending out a powerful, albeit thin cone of pure white light from the glossy black metal tool. She shone the circle of light down Cantor's foreleg, halting abruptly with horrified eyes at the sight which befell her when she crossed the stallion's hoof.

At least an inch of Cantor's limb was coated with blood, the powerful contrast between white and red made the infliction that much more worse.

Terrified, yet unable to stop herself, Cloud swung her foreleg out across the room, notifying all of EE1's crew to the shallow lake of blood that had collected around the base of the door. The glistening red life fluid caught the shimmer from the magic-empowered rifle and cast a tauntingly bright and cheery starburst across the smooth surface.

"There's so much blood..." She relayed in a quivering tone, her leg trembling from fear.

"...But no bodies..." Cantor whispered darkly with a grim scowl.

"Oh, this shit jus' keeps gettin' weirder by the second!" Exclaimed Red, the familiar docile tone in his voice completely absent now.

"Sounds like a date with Faith..." The jet black pegasus remarked with a warped smile.

"Fuck you, Rookie!" The enraged mare in question yelled angrily in retaliation, pawing fiercely at the ground with her hoof.

"Has it occurred to any of you that whatever did this could still be in here!?" Cantor seethed, ushering everyone into a silence with his tone. He peered over his shoulder, casting a glance over the other ponies with no distinct individual in focus. "I'm gonna radio Blue Bolt." He informed, raising a hoof to his ear to open up the airwaves.

"Blue Bolt, where are you?" The alicorn asked quickly, now far less eager to go through the ravaged room until he was provided the evidence that it was the only way to wherever the 'adventurer' had concealed himself.

When no reply came, Cantor spoke up again. "Blue, did you go through a room with loads of blood at the door?"

Silence.

"Blue Bolt, can you hear me?" Cantor asked, receiving nothing but dull static when he took his hoof from the receiver. "Shit." He cursed, snapping his hoof back to the hard metal floor.

"What do we do now?" Titter piped up, until now keeping quiet with nothing but her troubling thoughts to keep her company.

The white stallion shifted his attention from the formidable room to his anxious crew, who all seemed to be exchanging nervous looks while their leader made a decision. None of this seemed real; it was all too nightmarish to believe. Maybe it wasn't real: maybe they had all died in the crash - and this was just hell. Whatever the outcome, neither reality appeared clearly preferable over the other, and yet here they were.

"Let's go." Cantor declared, turning back around and crossing without hesitance the great pool of blood, the ill feeling of the viscous liquid swirling around his solid hooves made his whole body tingle with a ghastly sensation of immorality. "And stay close together: we don't want anyone else going missing..." He added with a dash of spite.

Once the sea of red had been crossed, admittedly, one of the most unpleasant things they had ever done, Cantor and his crew found themselves stranded in the middle of this cold, seemingly desolate environment, still with the sordid smell flowing through their lungs. The only sounds were those of careful hoofsteps clopping voluminously around the cavernous space. Too may times were hooves stubbed on objects which were unseen in the non-existent light, and after tripping over one last table, Cantor lost his patience and fired a flare into the musky air using one of the few specialized spells he had in his memory. The intense white flame burned bright like magnesium, and miraculously hung unsupported above the group, bathing the room in an incredible light. But once the skylight had been lit, Cantor instantly regretted using the spell; in an instant, the entirety of the calamity which had occurred in this morbid place came into view.

Corpses of some odd-looking creatures lay slumped against the far wall, bones tearing through lacerated skin that was consumed by rot. Some were strewn across the overturned tabled that dominated the ground, their insides presented in such a manner that one would assume they had exploded. Grotesque sights of what appeared to be knives and forks buried into the heads of a few of the beings stained and violated the ponies’ minds and they all screamed out in pure, unrivalled horror.

Their equine eyes, familiar with bright colours and happy smiles were infiltrated by this massacre of a scene. Strange writings were scrawled along the walls in what could only be assumed to be blood. Notice boards and posters hung torn on the walls, their scripture unrecognisable behind the gruesome splatters of yet more blood which screamed up the walls as if it had been some frivolous excuse for an attempt at painting.

Titter sunk to her knees and emptied her stomach onto the floor. Her sister quickly followed her to the ground, rubbing a hoof tentatively along her heaving lilac back.

The sound of agonized crying sliced through the thick air like a knife as the young purple mare bleated out screams of dread in-between spluttering coughs.

The sight was too much to take in at once, and for several seconds, Cantor and the four other battle-orientated ponies could only whirl around in circles as the full extent of catastrophe was forced onto them.

"What the fuck happened here!?" Faith finally managed to cry out, feeling rather queasy herself now that she had discovered the source of the stench.

"Hell if I know!" Cantor yelled back, clueless.

"I can't do this, let's get the fuck out of here!" The grey pegasus exclaimed in exasperation, making a move to dart backwards towards the door they came in from before being halted by Red's enormous foreleg.

"Mare up, Faith, you've got a job to do!" The huge crimson pony ordered, the blood stained upon his hoof a lot harder to distinguish from the rest of his body. A rare sight of anger was caught in his easy-going brown eyes.

Faith slammed her hooves into bloodstained floor out of horrified frustration. "Everything's! Fucking! Dead!" She expelled in a voice not too different to that of a mentally scarred teenager, shocking herself with the knowledge that she was close to tears.

"Shut up!" Cantor barked, yet Titter was the only pony to ignore the order and continued to sob uncontrollably into her hooves.

"QUIET!" Roared an extremely out-of-character Cantor in a voice that was not his own, to which the petrified young mare promptly quietened down and stared up at the alicorn with frightful eyes.

Cantor stared intently at a certain part of the floor beneath his hooves, mouth slightly agape and his ears twitching in all directions. Everypony looked at each other, confused, but then the white stallion broke the heavy silence.

"Can you hear that?" He whispered, still focusing his eyes downward.

Following a short moment's intense listening, Faith answered his question. "No." She calmly said in a similarly hushed tone. "I don't hear anything..."

The heightened alicorn senses were picking up a sound not unlike that of a light purring coming from an obscured corner of the room. It sounded like somepony with a sticky throat was wheezing: the exhale sounding slightly croaky and laboured.

Cantor followed his ears to the source of the noise, stepping over and around decomposing bodies that were so mutilated, it was impossible to even guess what they looked like before death. He eventually came across a curious black lump pressed into the very corner of two walls. It was crystal clear now, that the odd purring sound was emanating from this mysterious object, more for one of two reasons. The first being that everypony could now hear the noise, their breaths catching in their throats as they advanced. The second reason, (and probably the most haunting realisation) was that the dark black shape was moving in an almost respiratory manner in time with the heavy breathing sound. Almost as if it were...

Alive...

"What... is that?..." Cloud nine questioned, the mannerisms of her tone hard to distinguish whether she was scared or fascinated.

"Not sure..." Cantor admitted - not that any of the other ponies had much of a clue anyway.

Gathering a surplus amount of courage, and just a smidge of carelessness, Cantor edged himself closer and closer to the animate object, keeping careful track of how it expanded and deflated with every scratchy breath. He shuffled perilously slowly forward with one hoof outstretched, offering his best smile should this strange article turn out to be some kind of animal.

"H-h... Hey..." He weakly said, eyes nowhere else but in front.

The thing snapped around, and instantly declared its identity. It was, in fact, some kind of animal as was predicted: a quadruped, jet black in colour with sinister - looking bone-like spines running down either side of its back. Cantor froze stiff as the creature revealed itself to him, lowering its large head to the ground, the two odd lobes protruding from the back of its skull seeming to set into place along its spine. It backed into its corner, raising a thick, muscular tail high up the wall, the ridge along the top of the appendage raising broadly out in an intimidation attempt. Its ribs could be seen clearly through the rough black skin on either side of its body, sticking out as if it hadn't eaten for weeks. It elicited a feral hissing noise, its face splitting in half to reveal rows of razor-sharp teeth set in its gaping mouth. Reflective, glossy eyes of purest black radiated fear and anger as the dark being rose to its four feet, three toes harbouring morbidly long claws protruding from each.

Cantor found himself to be petrified, but he just managed to summon the strength to begin backing away slowly. However, as soon as he made the slightest movement of retreat, the savage beast leapt from the floor with terrifying speed, clamping its array of needlepoint teeth down onto the alicorn's foreleg.

Cantor yelped in pain and shock, firing off a powerful shot into the wall, sending white hot sparks flying from the metal surface. He began punching the creature brutally in the head in an attempt to knock it off, but its jaws were like a vice, and were not easily going to budge.

The stallion rolled onto his back, listening to the awful snarls and growls coming from the mass on top of him as his leg tore to pieces.

"Shoot this fuck!" Cantor cried through barred teeth, insisting on pounding at the monster's cranium despite the lack of progress.

Seconds later, a huge red foreleg came swinging through the air accompanied by a tremendous grunt, colliding with the deathly animal and sending it careering into the solid metal wall behind it with a sharp cry.

Without hesitation, without even pausing to acknowledge the pain rocketing through his torn leg, Cantor rolled over onto his side, extending his arm out, lining up the thin beam of light coming from the end of the piece of metal strapped tightly around it with the feral creature's head.

Cantor tensed his leg, and a second deafening explosion ripped through the air, followed by a distinctive crunch and splat.

The stunned alicorn lay there for several seconds, letting the dopamine rush quell some of the searing heat burning through his body, simply watching a dark red liquid pool around the scrawny black cadaver before finding the motivation to get up in the form of a strong red hoof.

Using Red's leg to pull himself up, Cantor scanned the mortified faces of his crew before turning his attention to his sopping right foreleg. He remained silent for a moment or two, familiarising himself with the sensation of copious amounts of his own blood trickling through his once white fur.

"What the hell was that!?" Flitter screamed, already beginning to lose her sense of protection in the company she was with.

"What did it look like, sister!?" The other lilac unicorn shot back, glaring at her sibling. "We're stuck here, with no way of contacting home, monsters like these running around, and no hope of ever seeing mom and dad again!" Her anger-laced tone was reflected momentarily in the Flitter's eyes, but instantly dissipated when she saw tears form in her troubled sister's. "I don't want to die, Flit..." She sobbed, promptly being embraced by the other emerald-eyed twin. "I just want to go home..." Her head fell into Flitter's shoulder, and she began to cry hopelessly with some effort to keep her voice down. "I just... want to go home..."

"It's okay." Cantor softly called out, peering over to the door several paces to the near wall before turning his gaze upward to check how his flare was doing, nodding privately when he calculated it had about three or four more minutes of life in it. "No one's going to die: I'll get us out of here." Sympathy was intended in his voice, but after what had just happened, little compassion shined through. "...Somehow..." He added quietly.

"What about through there?" Came Black Haze's rough voice, sounding a little enthusiastic, despite recent events. He pointed a hoof towards the door on the right, not too dissimilar to the one they had came from, except this one had a simple yellow and blue design on it that had faded over time.

Cantor followed the unicorn's hoof to the gateway, closely trailed by a suddenly much more vigilant team. He reached the door and paused, checking the surrounding shadows for any sign of unnatural movement. But, he saw nothing, only more overturned tables, torn papers and blood. He gently nudged the right button with the tip of his injured hoof, noticing when he brought it up, that his leg had already begun to heal. He privately thanked his amazing regeneration ability that came with being such a unique race and pressed the centre button, causing this door to split horizontally in the middle and each half concealed themselves accordingly.

"Great." Cantor muttered when a pitch black hallway became the scene stretching out in front of him.

Silence descended over the heard as they all converged around the opening, the sounds of shuffling hooves and rubbing fur came to a halt as everyone took in the unappealing sight.

"Let's get another flare down there, Cantor." Suggested Faith, squinting past the alicorn to try and get a better view in the blinding darkness - but she had no luck.

A dull purple aura collected around Cantor's horn, and an intense orb of white light formed at it's tip. After several seconds' charging, (which would have taken next to no time usually) Cantor rocked his head forward, pointing his glowing unicorn anatomy towards the impossibly dark shaft.

History repeated itself, and Cantor wished he hadn't have sent the flare when he did.

He released his hold on the ball of light, sending it flying down the long black corridor. At first, all seemed fine...

...Until the walls started moving.

There were hundreds of them. On the ceiling, on the floor, all over the walls. Demonic replicas of the same creature Cantor had killed seconds ago began to crawl and squirm from their resting place like some kind of disgusting, hellish nest.

Everypony's eyes went wide, and they slowly began to back away as the first few monsters came snarling from their hiding place. They kept low to the ground, bearing their many white teeth like some kind of lethal trophy as they slowly advanced on the terrified ponies.

"Run... or shoot?" Asked a panic-stricken Faith, raising her displacement rifle with a slightly trembling leg, her red laser dot joining the many already poised across the several creatures' bodies.

Cantor said nothing, but continued to back away with terror in his fiery eyes.

"Run or shoot!?" Faith cried urgently, turning to face the alicorn with a probing expression.

"Both!" Cantor replied, to which all hell broke loose.