Chapter 9: Loss of Bitter Luck

"Well he seemed rather upset." Blue bolt proposed in light of Cantor's outburst as the sound of gunfire and shouting came loudly through everypony's earpieces, accompanied by the white alicorn's successive profanities.

"Crap." Faith muttered in pseudo-engaged retaliation.

Cloud Nine appeared horrified as she grasped the grey pegasus by her shoulder. "We've got to help them!" She cried, eyes wild with panic as the digital screaming grated away at her eardrum.

Faith just sighed nonchalantly, acting as if she couldn't care less. "Nah..." She said, turning away from the group and cutting Cantor off from her frequency, returning a silence to the room. However it appeared a broad ringing was still present in everypony's ears. "They'll be fine." Added the pegasus with an easy tone. "Cantor is more than capable. Besides, he's got two other soldiers with him."

"But how can you be sure?" Cloud insisted, bringing herself up close to the blonde-haired mare. "I know Cantor and the other two are... 'capable'..." She stated with a little hesitation. "But Flitter can't handle fighting like before on her own; making her own decisions - what if she-"

"They'll be fine..." Faith answered back, conviction buzzing about her entire form. The magnolia coloured pony took a petite step backwards - and she looked to be taking the younger pegasus' words into account. "You heard what Red told me: if we give up hope, there's no chance of us getting out of this. But if we believe we can, we might. That's what I'm gonna do: give Cantor his space; he'll get us out of here, I'm sure of it." She finished with a confident nod, but the other female pony was still not entirely convinced.

"But..." Cloud began, focusing on the tatty floor for a short while. "What if Cantor becomes unstable?"

Faith cocked her head. "Huh?" She asked, dumbfounded.

The pegasus' purple eyes were laced with foreboding as she explained. "When a unicorn suffers an injury to their horn - however mild it may be, they begin to turn... 'hostile' to the ponies around them and develop symptoms on the same line as... dementia..."

Faith's mind turned back to just under a month ago, when Celestia had informed her of the male alicorn's newfound tendency to become 'violent'. She hadn't really taken the precaution into consideration, but now it seemed, the celestial mare's warning had been more concrete than she had given it credit for.

"What sort of dementia?" Enquired the stone coated pegasus, her prying yellow eyes scanning the mare in front of her closely.

Cloud Nine's brow flexed with fright. "...The bad kind..." She replied with genuine fear.

Faith narrowed her eyes. "They're all bad."

The chestnut-maned pony drew her face up to Faith's - to the extent where they were nose-to-nose. "No, Faith." She said on a deadly serious note. "The worst kind."

The grey pegasus felt a harsh chill traverse the length of her spine before the strangely relieving sound of radio static snatched hers’ and everyone else's attention.

"I'm out!" Came the harsh alicorn voice, promptly followed by a succession of mutual agreements from a number of other sources. That was when the gunfire stopped and the pounding of hooves ensued. Quiet snarls and hissing could be heard through the speaker, but it seemed as though the other group's assailants were far enough away.

"Faith!" Cantor cried out, sounding slightly pressed for breath from the thunderous galloping. The grey mare's ears perked up when she heard her name called, and she took a breath to reply, but the luck-derived alicorn beat her to it. "We need to reload, I'm bringing the party to you!"

"WHAT!?" The pegasus yelled in astonishment. "How many are there!?" She asked in a panic - stricken voice.

"...Lots!" Was the reply neither she nor anyone wanted to hear. "I hope you're ready!"

Faith was momentarily at a loss for words, but her senses rapidly returned to her. "I- I'll see what I can do." She affirmed with an unseen nod of reassurance.

"Every door on the left?" Cantor asked.

"Correct." Faith answered firmly.

"Got it." The white stallion responded before giving a laboured, loathsome sigh. "This should be fun..."

The chaotic radio call ended abruptly, and it was soon noticed how monumentally quiet it was without a feral pursuit going on inside one's head.

Faith let out a groaning sigh; she knew something like this would have happened sooner or later. She turned to face her expectant group with chilled, thoughtful eyes. Everypony met her glance with their own imperfect imitation; ranging from slightly apprehensive to full out scared.

With a second disgruntled groan, the mare in charge gave out her orders in a kind of 'self-inflicted' superiority. ('Orders' being the inoperative assimilation.) "Get full mags in those weapons, guys: I think we're about to walk into a world of shit."

Few times can ponies claim they had literally 'ran for their lives', yet Cantor and the three others around him could, during the past hour, say they had done. Twice. They bombarded down the hallways, the steady wisps of steam displacing around them as they set about their relentless gallop.

The sounds of deep resonating clops emanating from the hard metal ground and resilient hooves overpowered the violent hissing baying up from behind.

Cantor daren't look back - he could sense the heinous monsters' presence inches away from his form, feel their powerful jaws snapping at his tail as it whipped behind him in the dash.

The alicorn leader had taken the back of the pack: spurring on the others without the wish to put them in harm's way for his own safety. He was well aware of the fact that if he stumbled and fell just once on these slippery corners, it would all be over before he stopped tumbling. He took a sharp breath through his nose and held it, lowering his head as he belted through the corridors. Right now, Cantor was feeling decently relieved and resourceful about the decision to leave every door crossed open; saving time - saving lives.

Pipes, boiler systems and lengths of sheet metal radiating intense heat were all but a blur as the team of four whipped past them. For only about two minutes they ran - which, under regular circumstances wouldn't seem all too difficult, yet now they were pushing one-hundred and ten percent of their will to survive, two minutes of arduous galloping seemed like a marathon.

After the two minute mark, the head of the group, one lilac unicorn named Flitter, spied the ultraviolet - blue light washing out over the heavy, mustard-yellow floor, spurring her on to call out to the rear.

Cantor had seen the light way before the young mare, and before she could even begin to separate breathing air for speaking air, the white alicorn was already shouting over the din.

"Take the big door on the right!" He called out in his loudest possible tone. But amid the strenuous breathing and the previously thrashed voice, all Cantor could seem to do was reach a modest yell. "Then take every door leading off to the left! Keep going until you get to Faith!"

Flitter nodded in agreement, but the gesture went unnoticed in light of her furious gallop. She shot through the narrow opening and into the cool atmosphere of the locker room, nimbly scooting around and making a beeline for the passage the other half of the crew took, keeping in the mindset that she was making the pace for everyone else, and that if she were the one to fall, not only would she be dead, but her friends as well. She couldn't let that happen: failure was not an option. Rallied on by this notion, Flitter bowed her head, held her breath, and gunned it, shooting off down the first hallway and making a beeline for the next door.

After Deathwing and Black Haze had slipped through the doorway and darted off to the right, Cantor was soon to follow, allowing himself a half-second glance towards his pursuers. As it turned out, they were a lot further away than expected, but one could hardly call the separation 'comfortable'. Bursting back into the blue-shifted storage room, he caught himself on the doorframe with his left foreleg. In one swift motion, the rust-maned stallion whirled around and mashed his hoof into the control panel on the right of the door, noticing it begin to close just before he sprung back into action.

Cantor performed a swift three-sixty as he passed through Faith's vantage point, seeing how the door was holding the creatures back to an extent: one was trapped under the crushing door, and the others before it were pushing it back up into the wall as they tried to force their way under.

"Good." Thought Cantor as he made a dash for the open door on the left, making good progress in catching up with the two black ponies who had already built up quite a distance between their comrade. "That'll give us another five or six seconds at least."

He took another lungful of air and bolted forward, his only motive within this wretched world now taking the form of survival as a bray of infuriated wails echoed through the halls from behind.

Faith, who stood in the middle of the glass-walled hallway, was darting her head back and forth; Cantor could come from either end of the corridor, and wherever he was, so was the danger.

Cool beads of sweat were seen matting her mane to her forehead and neck, making it seem as though she had been unfortunately caught in the rain. Of the two situations, anyone in their right mind would rather get drenched, than endure this bloodbath, and the grey pegasus was no exception.

She eased her shoulders down low whilst stretching her forelegs out in front, feeling right in assuming that running would soon prove to be an inevitability. She flapped her wings harshly a few times as well, realising only now that they hadn't seen enough action recently based on the stiff, unoiled sensation they caused in her back.

Rapidly, the sound of hooves clopping upon metal grew from the dense silence, and equally as quickly, a young lilac mare was seen galloping hard along the hallway with her eyes screwed shut and her straight mane whipping in front of her eyes.

"Flitter!" Yelled Faith, standing up quickly and trotting towards the sprinting unicorn.

The deep purple-maned mare looked up, and slammed on the brakes all too late, barely making a point of stopping before she collided with a doubtful Faith. The pair tumbled to the floor in a flurry of pained grunts and "Sorry's". And before the two could even recall their orientation, a couple of black ponies with blood red eyes accompanied by a scratched and bitten 'white' alicorn were seen bolting down the catwalk.

This time, Faith desisted in approaching the oncoming traffic and merely held her ground, waiting for the trio to come to her at the risk of another head-on.

Haze and Death shot past her and came to a halt just behind the group, dipping their heads and breathing with much emphasis. Cantor just managed to lock up his hooves in time to stop a little in front of the cautious grey pony, giving her a look of joyful reunion before falling to one knee and beginning to pant.

Cantor's limbs were burning, but Faith relished in the chance to make a sly remark. "Ready for retirement, are we?" She jeered, seconds before having her attention consumed by the beastly cries of the monsters currently filling the room at the far end. They cascaded from the doorway like soldiers, a little slower than they normally would advance. Either they were tired out from the chase, or they were playing some kind of trick. Whichever reality, nopony was desperate to wait around to find out.

Once again, like an inner demon, that ghastly voice re-established itself inside Cantor's brain. "Bad guys gotta eat too." It stated, arousing an aggravated growl from the alicorn.

"Damn it!" Shouted the white stallion. Despite being stood directly next to her, Faith, nor anypony else seemed to register the outburst. "Just what do you want? Why do you keep haunting me!?" Cantor's fiery orange eyes were fixed upon the slowly approaching enemies, but his attention was tilted solely towards the foreign entity echoing in his mind.

"Listen to me, Cantor..." It began in a 'warm' tone, by far the most unsettling variation as far as its host was concerned.

Faith was tugging on Cantor's shoulder, pulling him slowly backwards towards the exit, where everyone but herself and Red were looking onto the scene with intense stares. "Come on! Come on! We've got to go, Cantor!" The grey mare pleaded, but the stallion she was dragging did little more than glare into the faces of the encroaching beasts.

"You and I are like two sides of the same coin, Cantor." The voice continued, snaring the alicorn's attention like a fish on a hook. "The only thing that matters... is which way the coin lies..."

The rusty-maned stallion's frown slackened a little in curiosity. "What are you saying?" He asked.

"What!?" Faith cried out in exasperation, nearly yanking her captain's foreleg out of its socket by now. "Are you talking to yourself again!?" She began to wrench his body back and forth, as if he were up to his knees in mud. Red had already bolted from the scene to make sure everyone else was doing okay; he knew Faith could handle things on her own, though now he wasn't so sure.

Everypony had cleared off once the horde of monsters was in sight: to attempt to deal with them would be to toss ammo out the window, however the Faith and Cantor seemed to be getting themselves into a spot of unnecessary bother.

By now the creatures were just several metres from the pair of winged ponies, and no less than twenty seconds away. Yet Cantor's twisted conscience desisted in quietening down. "I can help you get out of this... All you have to do... is accept my presence in your body..."

Faith continued to pull. "Come on, let's move!" She groaned, panic rapidly consuming her voice.

"I... I don't know..." Cantor replied, shaking his head which was currently swimming with speculation and doubt. "What are you?"

"Please, Cantor! I'm not leaving you!"

"Just say it."

The black monsters were drawing closer. Their feral cries chilling the tight air.

By this time, tears were beginning to stream down the grey pegasus' face. "Cantor, they'll kill us! Please... Run!"

The threatening voice continued to insist relentlessly. "Do it! Ask!"

Faith continued to beg.

Cantor shook his head and shut his eyes tight in a grimace. "I can't- I know what you want."

"I don't want to leave you! Come on! Let's go! I don't want to DIE!"

"Set me free!"

"ENOUGH!" Screamed the alicorn in a hellish tone, spinning round and knocking Faith violently to the ground. The blonde mare merely peered up at Cantor, her own horrified reflection clearly visible in the darkness that dominated the entirety of her friend's eyes. "Fine! Help me!" He added with vile force.

Faith scrambled to her hooves, but remained frozen stiff in light of the new form Cantor had taken - his lustrous amber eyes were totally consumed by a glossy jet black, radiating a darkness that spoke in death’s place. His teeth had sharpened into a tidy assortment of interlocking daggers and his mane was a billowing cascade of fire all around his body - like some sort of fearsome safeguard.

"Run, Faith." The alicorn just managed to choke out in a voice nothing like his own.

The grey mare darted her eyes toward the approaching aliens: they were mere seconds from Cantor, but strangely, she sought ten times the horror within the pony directly in front of her, than in the many fearsome creatures behind.

"What the hell are you?..." She asked, a harsh tone of resent in her voice. She turned around and bolted away as quickly as possible, unsure as to what exactly she was running from - the initial nature and form of the enemy now seemed unclear.

Cantor fell to one knee as unspeakable power surged through his bones. The first wave of monsters leapt upon his back and began gouging at his rump with their treacherous claws.

The alicorn's last sight was that of the young pegasus dashing away from him, which deep down was what he knew he wanted, but for some reason, couldn't seem fit to want to accept. His vision was hastily obscured by the spindly black creatures, their sleek bodies covering him like some kind of grotesque web.

"If I am to die..." He seethed with that evil, demonic tone, staring through the scorching pain with his infinite glare. "Let there be fire."

Faith couldn't have reached the safety of her friends any faster. As soon as she traversed the open door, she rushed to press the button to seal it again, hiding the swelling mass of monsters currently eating who she assumed to be Cantor.

She dropped silently to her flank and cursed several times under her heavy, shaking breath.

Flitter kneeled down to attempt eye contact with the resentful grey pony. However the lilac unicorn's kind emerald eyes failed to see through the anguished tears.

"You..." Flitter started, welling up herself. "You couldn't get him to move..." She stated, blinking away some of the heartfelt tears. "...He's dead."

The bereaved hush of the room was explicitly torn apart by Cantor's arduous scream. It sounded as though he were trying to rip apart the world with his bare hooves.

Instantaneously, there was a great explosion from the other side of the tick metal door, and Flitter jumped out of her skin and scooted away. She didn't stop shuffling backwards until she struck the back wall, where she proceeded to curl up into a foetus and cover her ears from the tortured sound.

It was as if the burner from a hot air balloon was burning in the middle of the room; the sound of pressurised flame infiltrated everypony's ears and forced them to seek out the source.

No sooner had they turned to face each other's clueless expressions to try and make some kind of sense with themselves, another article featured itself before their eyes. The broad iron door Faith had passed through alone began to glow a dim red, yet quickly came to glow a bright orange. The grey pegasus who was still moping on her haunches found that she had to scurry away from the blazing piece of metal before her mane caught fire.

The air around the brightly glowing entrance became unsettled, and looked as if there were some kind of gaseous forcefeild in front of it.

This scene played on for an extended number of seconds before the separated stallion's unholy bellows cut off harshly, filling the room with another tense wash of silence. Privately deciding against talking, everypony just stood perfectly still, waiting for something to happen - anticipating some kind of lethal explosion to come and shatter their skeletons.

They held their breaths, and waited. Flitter slowly uncurled from her terrified spot against the wall, lifting her hooves from over her ears as she started peering around the deathly still area.

For a long time it seemed they waited, but in reality, it was probably only several seconds. Either way, the cumbersome iron door began to lose its glow, until it was nothing but a slab of scorching hot metal steaming slightly in the damp light.

Gingerly, Faith took it upon herself to approach the door. If not for curiosity's sake, then to find out what fate had befallen her friend. With her hoof slightly shaking, she reached out and made contact with the switch on the wall, not expecting it to respond at all after its burning session. Regardless, the large iron entrance slid up into the wall cavity with no problems except a fair screech of metal

Everypony else in the room gathered around the grey mare as the door opened up, staring down the hallway, which was now blackened and scorched. The glass walls and ceilings were scarred with oily yellow streaks poking out from the breaks on the flaking charred surface. Bodies of the creatures lay lifeless all over the ground, their flesh bubbling and melting from their bones. Some were even set alight with flame. It appeared as though this hallway had been utilised as an incinerator, with a certain white alicorn acting as the source of heat.

"Cantor!" Cloud Nine cried out as soon as she saw the lone stallion standing some distance away down the passage, his body was turned away and surrounded by vivid flames. "You're on fire!" She exclaimed with fright.

The alicorn angrily snorted a burst of fire from his nostrils. "No I'm not." He muttered harshly as the flaming mane billowing around his form lost its heat and fell to his body in the usual unkempt bangs.

Faith rushed towards Cantor, promptly followed by everyone else as they made a point of avoiding the smouldering bodies. The smell of charred skin was powerful in the air, but was not entirely disregarded as 'unpleasant'. She stopped just before reaching the stallion, apprehensive to go any closer than she was right now in response to his previous actions.

Without sounding too fearful, the blonde-maned pegasus leaned slightly toward Cantor in an effort to see his face as he stared intently off in the opposite direction. "Cantor?... A- are you... okay?" She asked softly, not too keen on the idea of being incinerated herself.

Cantor's knees bowed out from under him and he stumbled into the wall to keep himself from falling over. After a moment of heavy breathing and laboured swallows, the tired out alicorn managed to bring himself to turn around, facing his friends with his tired orange eyes."...What... What happened?" He asked between breaths, eyeing Faith for an explanation.

The grey coated pony gulped loudly and helped Cantor to stand on his own before replying, an impressed grin upon her face. "I think you just cooked every ugly fucker chasing you." She stated before giving a curt laugh and turning to face Blue Bolt, who was absently eyeing Cantor with lust. "Hey, Blue?" She asked, post-traumatic stress surfacing as humour and excitement in her tone. "What was that you said about Cantor being more powerful than Celestia?"

"So what you're saying is... you're some kind of 'evil being'?" Asked Faith with reluctance, making a forceless point with her hoof in the direction of Cantor.

The alicorn shook his head. "No." He answered. "Every powerful unicorn and alicorn has a hidden dark side that they can't always control." He yelped as a sharp pain stung the back of his head as Cloud Nine applied disinfectant to a harsh cut behind his ear.

"Sorry." The cream mare apologised tenderly for the umpteenth time during the past twenty minutes, growing a little tiresome of the stallion's unchanging reaction as she treated his many cuts and scrapes over his body. But she didn't feel much like complaining: she had treated patients with far less severe injuries than this who had made more fuss. And besides, she was nearly done.

Cantor turned his eyes back to Faith, glancing at Red who was sat on his haunches beside her, still nearly twice as tall, despite. "Remember what I told you about Nightmare Moon?" He asked, shuffling uncomfortably upon his bandaged flank.

"Yes..." Faith replied slowly whilst nodding.

"How she wasn't strictly princess Luna, but an emanation of her envy and hatred?" The 'lecturer' enquired, raising a comprehensive eyebrow.

"Yes..." The grey mare repeated herself.

"Well that's kind of like me:" Cantor elaborated, scratching the back of his head. "But I don't have much of a reason for being like that. I just get angry and... well..." He sighed and turned to face the floor. "Well you've seen first hoof what happens when I... change."

Faith joined Cantor in assessing the floor, her face contorted in heavy focus. Meanwhile, everypony else seemed to be doing their own thing: Black Haze and his comrade, as always, were talking quietly with each other. Nopony had every really paid any attention to exactly what the contents of their conversations withheld - nopony really wanted to: the pair were entitled to their privacy as everyone else was, yet for some, it struck an odd chord that they barely seemed to socialise outside of their own little duo.

Red and Flitter were positioning their eyes two and from Cantor and Faith as if they were watching a tennis match: becoming enthralled by whoever happened to be speaking at the time whilst seeking opportunities to add their own input to the conversation.

As if there were ever any doubt, Cantor's stories of his darker side kept everyone hooked, yet he neglected to go into detail over the incident with Pinkie Pie a long time ago. Even after all these years, the teenage alicorn had never forgiven himself for turning on his best friend even when all of the Elements of Harmony, including Pinkie herself, had almost entirely forgotten about the whole thing. Cantor knew that the day he hurt Pinkie: how he had felt, would be a sensation he would take to the grave, regardless of anyone else's uplifting input.

Cloud Nine and her husband had been vaguely listening to Cantor's recollection as they fixed their teammates up with bandages and iodine, failing to raise any questions or statements like their other friends did. Cloud had a vague memory of the white alicorn injuring his forehead in the crash that triggered this hellish endeavour; that it had healed within hours of the event, yet now, all the lacerations, bruises and scrapes Cantor had suffered since then had not even begun to show any signs of getting better like the scar above his eye had. Maybe it had something to do with loosing his horn, as if his miraculous cell re-growth had something to do with his magic. She decided in the end that this wasn't a particularly vital topic to converse over, and merely returned her attention to wrapping bandages around the crew's battered bodies.

Blue Bolt kept giving Cantor edgy looks. The young stallion came to the conclusion that the limited lighting was to blame for the misinterpreted glances, yet that didn't stop the blue unicorn's burdensome smiles from unsettling him any less.

The room they were in, was dark. Dark and damp. Cantor had made the quick assumption that they were in some sort of goods transit line given the soggy cardboard boxes piled from floor to ceiling on nearly all the walls and the many unreadable signposts which were poised on every piece of wall not obscured by a sodden container. The air felt extremely wet, as if there were a light mist floating about the place, dampening everyone's fur and tickling their noses with humid moisture.

Above the entrance where the ponies had come from, there sat a single light that highlighted each individual speck of vapour in perfect clarity as the non-existent air currents chased them about the place. Whether the light was intended to be yellow or otherwise, it would have made little difference over the intense atmosphere the inhabitants of this room were locked in, though it did add an element of 'cosiness' to such an alternatively sinister load-out.

Faith gradually came to a decision on where she stood on such an issue, lifting her head slowly with meaningful eyes. "I honestly don't think it's a problem." She affirmed, arousing Cantor's attention from the floor. "Think about it." She continued using her light hearted tone. "All of us get angry and lose our temper sometimes... Sometimes even towards the ponies we care about. But that doesn't mean we can't be forgiven." A warm smile found a home on her face, and the alicorn sat opposite her couldn't help himself not to return the grin.

The grey pegasus chuckled and shot Cantor a friendly wink. "Besides, blowing your fuse saved your ass!" She laughed, and a few other ponies chuckled along. "Come on, Cantor..." The mare sighed, her humorous smile falling into a far more heartfelt one. "Ain't it clear that everypony forgives you? If you can't forgive yourself, then what's the point of saying sorry in the first place? Everyone makes mistakes, but self-loathing isn't going to make anything better, so face the world like a stallion and stop pitying your damn self."

The subject of Faith's motivational speech gave an impressed snort. "Wow, Faith..." He said joyfully. "I didn't know you were so philosophical."

The blonde pegasus' cheeks flushed a feint rose and she turned away. "...Yeah, well..." She spoke after a while of trying to find something to respond with. "When you have to hang around a sentimental pony like you all the time, something's bound to rub off." She jostled, sharing a private laugh with the alicorn before rising to her hooves, promptly followed by a somewhat rejuvenated Cantor.

"Welp-" Started Cantor, stretching his wings broadly, fond of the slightly warm bandages wrapped around much of his rump and back. "No time like the present." He finished, waiting for everypony else to stand up and familiarise themselves with their legs after their short break before setting off for the door placed out of the way at the back of the room, a small green LED blinking slowly in the top right-hoof corner.

"Oh, yes..." The enthusiastic as ever Faith commented with a sarcastic element as the group made their way into the next chapter of their journey. "I can't wait to get back into this shit..."

"I just don't understand how all this could have happened." Stated Black Haze from the rear of the group as they stepped out onto the expansive platform harbouring the many shells of spacecraft. Though some of the ships seemed in perfect condition compared to the other husks around them, closer inspection revealed that they had been torched inside, and all the dials in what may have been the cockpits were charred and melted.

There was a stiff chill in the air, as well as a strong smell of petroleum. Not that anypony other than Cantor could identify the odour as such. It reminded him of Earth; brought back memories of the wars fought over the unquenchable thirst for oil that had claimed so many good lives. But the present was far past the luxury of remembrance, and the beaten up alicorn found himself scanning the scenery in an effort to establish where to go next.

The floor appeared to have a copper tarnish-type colour to it. Whether this was due to the dusky lights that seemed to take dominance over the facility hanging some distance above, or if the floor was indeed this brown-yellow tinge of metal to begin with, Cantor didn't know, however he found himself strangely attracted to the hue, and found it rather quaint how the scaffold lights reflected off the shiny surface, highlighting the minute radial scratches across the surface where it had been polished with an imperfect buffing machine. It was somewhat slippery to walk on, but with half a mind's concentration, it wasn't that much of a big deal.

The group reached the centre of the hangar, or at least what could be regarded as such, given the scarcity of spaceship carcasses at this particular clearing, and stopped. Cantor took in a detailed eyeful of his setting. There were arrows and lines of various colours painted onto the tarnished yellow floor, signifying some kind of runway towards a darkened patch of the room. An enormous door with yellow and black hazard lines painted across the middle rose up at the shadowed end, massive white symbols painted across its surface neatly and clearly. One of the spotlights nearer the left of the gigantic entrance was malfunctioning, spluttering the powerful cone of light erratically onto the metal gate's surface.

Cantor intensified his stare upon the sporadic beam of light, intrigued by its imperfection. In one brief moment, the edgy alicorn could have sworn he'd seen the silhouette of an abnormally tall skeletal figure projected onto the wall whilst the spotlight strobed unpredictably. His amber eyes widened in trauma, yet before he could say or do anything, the tall black shadow disappeared, and the flickering light returned to its sporadic and uninterrupted flashing.

The now unsettled alicorn shook his head, once again trying to clear the sordid images from his mind before addressing the party, beginning his sentiment with a disgruntled sigh. "Well, it doesn't seem like any of these are going to fly..." He said without heart, gesturing to the useless piles of 'scrap metal'. "What now?"

Cloud was on the ball, and almost instantly piped up. "Maybe there's more: like... emergency escape pods, or... some sort of backup spacecraft or something." She suggested passionately, yet sunk after identifying the heavily thoughtful face Cantor was wearing.

The alicorn gently nodded. "Possibly." He affirmed. "It's a good idea; what do we have to lose?"

"Our lives." Flitter answered bleakly, turning away when Cantor's eyes met hers.

The scarred alicorn, now looking much cleaner as the bandages had covered much of the bloody wounds, slowly paced over to the adolescent mare and delicately turned her face to his. After a long while's tender silence, Flitter's bright green eyes held forlorn tears, yet the sight failed to stir the focused stallion anything more than a compassionate sigh. "You miss her, huh?" He asked gently, not realising how stupid such a question was until it was spoken aloud.

Seeing the lilac unicorn wipe her eyes all too casually, and noticing her blatant unease, Cantor slung a foreleg limply over the girl's withers and walked her away from the rest of the ponies, only looking back when he was assured they were out of earshot. Everypony was watching adamantly, but turned quickly away upon discovery of the captain's glance.

"She was all I had..." The still emotional mare explained with a melancholy exhale. "We were hardly ever apart from each other... I just can't believe she's actually gone..."

"Look, Flit..." Cantor whispered, rubbing the purple-maned pony's shoulders in an effort to comfort her. "I know what it's like to lose someone special..." He was staring off into the overshadowed distance, but felt Flitter's emerald eyes watching him from the side. "I was lucky enough to be able to fix it, but only under the extreme circumstances I was faced with... Still, that didn't make it any less painful..." He sighed for his own sake, sinking to the floor, unintentionally dragging Flitter with him.

Cantor's face started to bear a slight smile as he remembered home. Not his place of origin, but the world in which his love resides. "Back home, in a small, self-supported town named Ponyville, there's an enormous hollowed out tree that is filled from floor to ceiling with books, and serves as the town's library. Somepony very special to me lives there; somepony who I would gladly give my life for, then come back so I could do it again." He took a deep breath and slid his foreleg around Flitter's neck, pulling her closer so he could feel her heart beating in her warm chest next to his. "I have no family: no mother, no father... No brothers or sisters - nothing. So you know what I've done?..."

Flitter was surprised to see such a mystic stare personified by a single pony as Cantor met her gaze with an enchanted inner smile. "I've made my own." Cantor simply said, the warm grin never shifting position from his bruised and scratched face. He gave a demure chuckle before continuing. "People always used to say to me: "You'll understand when you've got your own kids."... I- I never thought I'd ever have children - especially not with somepony as special as Twilight, but... quite some time ago, that changed... and now, I feel as though I don't just live for myself, but for two other lives that depend on me..." Regrettable tears brimmed in his eyes, but the sentimental stallion quickly got shot of them. "Flitter... I know you've lost your sister, but... please, I don't want the only memories my foal has of me to come from pictures... I understand your loss, but be in the mindset that with Titter’s spirit in your mind, you'll never truly be apart."

Flitter felt a strong pressure around her hoof as Cantor picked it up and grasped it tightly with meaning. "Whatever your reason for getting home, it's far better than expecting to die out here, so without wanting to sound cold and heartless, put the past behind you and make your future one to remember."

As soon as he had finished speaking, Cantor noticed that not only had Flitter ceased crying, but that she also wore a meek smile of fortitude. "Wow, Cantor..." She spoke with wonder. "I never knew you were so..." Her speech dissolved as she pondered to find the words to reply without sounding too harsh.

"Soppy? Sentimental?" Cantor interjected, bringing about a tender laugh from Flitter. "How about... 'poetic'?"

Flitter giggled once more. "I think that might be pushing it..." She joked without looking at the stallion, who promptly let out a discreet chortle of his own. "...Thank you." She added after an elaborated pause. "I guess, in a way, you're completely right: even our special talent was shared. We were inseparable when Tit was alive, so why should that have to change now she's gone?" She broke away from Cantor's embrace and rose to her hooves, waiting for the alicorn to join her before she continued. "I think I'm ready to let go; say goodbye." She explained with a serene, dependable grin. "I was scared that in doing so, I'd have to forget. But I can see now that that's not the case."

Cantor bowed for a moment before lifting his head back up. "I'm just here to help." He said peacefully.

Flitter cocked her head playfully to one side. "I thought you were supposed to by flying our ship..." She stated wryly, drawing an agreeable giggle from the white stallion.

"Yeah," He jested, rolling his eyes. "That too…"

Rejoining his group, Cantor had deemed it best to act like nothing had happened, and addressed his fellow equine survivors: 'business as usual'. "Right," He started with prepared huff. "I don't think it's a good idea to split up again, so we should remain in this group as we continue." Cantor took a break for a moment, scanning the room for the next leg of their journey.

As the alicorn was peering around, Red proposed an intriguing thought. "Hey, uh... Cantor?" He asked, drawing the white pony's attention. "When we find some kind a' way outta' here, how d'you reckon we actually git back to Equestria?"

The question caught Cantor off guard, yet failed to instil him with hopelessness. Rather, the sentiment made him ponder towards the floor for a reliable solution.

"Again," Said Cantor, shaking his head. "That's just something we're just gonna have to work out when we get to it; crossing bridges and all that..." He glanced to the wall on his left, running his hot eyes along the many comet-shaped beams of light coming from sturdy metal lamps poised a few metres up. He stopped when he spied an out of place piece of rust-bitten metalwork, a small, faded green symbol beside it and one of the three-buttoned control panels to its right, camouflaged to look identical to the wall it was bolted to.

The captain turned and slowly began to pace towards it, subliminally ushering his team to follow him as he did so. "Well the guys who built this place sure knew how to make a door invisible." He joked, deciding not to look behind him when nopony even uttered a snicker. "Anyways," He hurriedly added, his cheeks noticeably warm all of a sudden. "This is our next lead. We don't want to stray too far from this room: if there's going to be some kind of escape pod, it'll be close." The rusty-maned stallion began to explain. However, once he had taken a breath to further elaborate, and in a sense to create mild conversation, his ears picked up on a hauntingly familiar grumbling.

He halted in his path, ears stretched toward where the origin of the sound seemed to come from.

Faith was walking behind Cantor, and wasn't all too happy about the fact she had almost experienced a collision with his rump due to the abrupt halt. "Do you mind... not just keep stopping dead in the middle of walking with no warning?" She asked sarcastically, but was quickly 'shushed' by the alicorn.

Cantor kept every aspect of his being still apart from his ears, which were slowly scanning the area like radar dishes for an indication towards that sound again. "Did you hear that?" He whispered nervously.

"Bollocks." Faith replied with an agitated tone. "Remember what happened last time you said that?"

After the grey pegasus' sentiment, the cold, dark, foreboding room fell silent again, and remained that way for some time. Ideally, Cantor wanted to blame his mind for playing tricks on him again, but that eerie noise sounded far too real, much more believable than skeletal bodies lurking in the shadows. And what's more, he recalled hearing it before.

A distant, rapid drumming, like the savage beating of a drum rose up from the darkest end of the room. It sounded like something enormous was running full speed toward the ponies as they stood there in the wake of this chilling new sound, loosing their balance as the floor beneath them shuddered with each cataclysmic footstep.

"What the hell's going on!?" Faith cried out, but before anyone could reply, whatever it was that was running hit the back wall hard, sending the eight ponies falling to the ground as well as several of the torched spacecraft.

They rose to their hooves again, this time managing to remain standing when the second gargantuan collision occurred.

Another short moment of fearsome silence embodied with terrified breathing passed before an almighty roar rattled everypony’s bones and a third, final crash was heard. This time, the sound of metal tearing and iron framework being crushed dominated the air. Low frequency grumbles were heard emanating from the darkness for a number of breathless seconds before their source stepped forward into the light.

Whatever foul creature hell had rejected stood a large, but still uncomfortable distance away from the ponies. It stood over sixty feet tall and appeared to be some kind of horrifically mutated gorilla. A dark, bald, muscular chest broke free from the morbid blue fur which consumed the rest of its body, and a heavily girthed crest rose up from the back of its enormous head. Bloodied teeth, several feet long themselves were seen creeping out from below the giant's upper lip, bearing their ferocity and power without even being asked. A heavy, broad frown was fixed above the beast's beady black eyes, its face, too being void of hair except for a scratchy beard that started on its chin.

It stood poised, leaning slightly to one side with its long muscular arms drooping down to its knees. Its fingers were cautiously twitching, similar to a cowboy's who was waiting to draw, but much, much more deadly - especially with the talon-like claws protruding from the end of each, glistening slightly in the spotlight it chose to exist under. It almost came across inquisitive in the way it held itself, but everyone knew it was merely sizing up what it fancied for its next meal. What may have been the most haunting aspect of all, however, was the fact that it was completely and utterly silent, as if it were actually trying to paralyse its food with fear before he made his move. The only movement it made was the gentle bobbing of its body as it took in air through two huge train tunnels of nostrils set in the middle of its tormented face.

"Faith?" Cantor breathed calmly, not moving a muscle. "Take everyone... and go through that door at three o' clock." He instructed, pulling off a mediocre ventriloquism act.

"I'm not leaving you again." The pegasus hissed in reply, her eyes, too, were locked onto the terrible beast. "Not with that thing."

Cantor's voice portrayed his frustration, but he held his body motionless. "I can buy you some time while you escape. If he blocks off that door, you're fucked."

"Now's not the time to play the hero, Cantor." Faith growled, furious towards the alicorn's plan.

"It's always time to play the hero." The white pony answered back quickly. He turned to Faith with profound eyes, and the mare returned his gaze with an expression of helplessness.

The two ponies' spiritual compromise was interrupted rapidly by a thunderous roar that made their teeth vibrate in their skulls. Faith an everypony else except Cantor bolted towards the door, not looking back even once until they were guaranteed some slither of safety. The seven ponies had barely made it through the exit and into the pitch black corridor beyond when the quaking footsteps began again. Faith managed to make eye contact with Cantor one last time before the body of one of the many spacecrafts in the beast's wake slammed into the wall in front of her, cutting off any source of light and leaving her and her other shipmates consumed by total darkness.

For a moment, the grey pegasus, who was informally in charge for now, contemplated staying here until Cantor could make his escape, but when ceiling panels began to crash down onto her head due to the earthquake outside, she, along with Flitter, who was now the only pony carrying a flashlight contrary to her sister's death, lead the way further into the darkness with not a single lead as to where to go. All Faith could hope to do now, was get to safety, and pray to whatever god there may be that Cantor would promptly meet her there.

The white alicorn flared his wings and skipped up into the air, reaching the ceiling in record time, but he was far from safe up here. The enormous creature leapt from his thunderous gallop and swiped at the alicorn with his gigantic claws, leaving broad scratches in the solid metal ceiling just a few feet from where Cantor was hovering.

Predictably stunned from the close encounter, Cantor froze into freefall for a second before recalling his surroundings and soaring back off into the air. He halted mid-flight and turned around to see the great beast setting itself up for another charge. The alicorn swallowed nervously and scoured his surroundings for a place to escape. He spied a large cooling duct a fair distance above the door everyone had left through. Black smoke was billowing from the top of the smashed grate protecting it, and at often intervals, white hot sparks were seen bursting from the gaping hole.

Cantor didn't have time to devise a plan, though; as soon as he noticed a possible means of escape, his focus was alerted to the giant foe's immense footsteps. He had just enough time to corkscrew out of the monster's path before it swatted him from the air like a fly. The airborne stallion quietly thanked Rainbow Dash for teaching him how to perfect such a move.

With his eyes darting all around for anything to help himself with, a failsafe plan emerged from the depths of Cantor's brain. His frightened amber eyes relaxed a little as he began to formulate his next series of moves in his head.

"Right..." He whispered, the sound of his own voice instilling his heart with adrenaline. "Come on, big boy..."

The apelike leviathan turned about from his last failed siege and began stamping its huge, leathery feet in frustration, emitting feral growls and grunts of fury all the while. It ducked low, then bolted towards Cantor with alarming speed, roaring its ungodly war cry.

Cantor fell from the air a lot sooner than he had planned to, swooping down between the brutal creature's legs and darting off toward his hiding place behind a pair of burned spacecraft it had kicked over during its first charge.

With any luck, the towering animal would not be able to find Cantor amongst this rubble, promptly give up and wander off in search of more food, thus eliminating the chances of it trying to follow Cantor through his pipe. The last thing he wanted was to lead that thing to his friends, where they would have no chance of escaping in a more enclosed environment.

Cantor tilted his head up, making himself aware of the distance between himself and freedom. He heard his pursuer’s confused grunt, but was disallowed the comfort of seeing it past the wrecked spacecraft. He held his breath and pressed himself up against his cover, silently begging fate to spare him his life, or at least a less gruesome death.

The alicorn controlled his exhales, trying to let air leak out of his lungs to minimise noise. He listened intently to where the monster may be and tried to determine what it was doing. Cantor could hear its deep, below sinister pants for breath accompanied by dumbfounded clips of voice. He felt the ground shake as the creature searched, and counted his throbbing heartbeats between each step it took.

Then all of a sudden, the bone-shaking footsteps ceased, and the only recurring sound was the distraught thumps of Cantor's petrified heart, like a rapid tempo bass drum exploding in his chest.

The charred spaceship was violently dragged away with the sound of agonised metal. And as his hiding place was ferociously decimated, Cantor found himself crying out in terror as he peered up into those demonic, merciless black eyes. It was now or never, so taking the only chance he was going to get, the white alicorn blasted into the air with a muscle-melting lash of his gargantuan wings.

Cantor was barely six feet into the air before a crushing grip was felt near the base of his left wing. It took a fraction of a neurone impulse to let him know part of is body was inside the beast's treacherous maw. With a panicked bleat of terror, the stallion tried to pry his wing from the creature's blunt teeth. However, the starved monster's jaws were like a vice upon Cantor's wing, grinding his bones and mincing his flesh as he was hoisted into the air. He saw his would-be escape route pass him on the way to the gruesome animal's full height. To have life and freedom pass so closely by him with the knowledge that he could never achieve it broad in his mind was nearly as grievous as the pain swelling through the entirety of his left limb of aviation.

Then... In a morbid 'eureka moment'... A dark, evil, tormented idea passed Cantor's mind, yet his eyes widened in the realisation that through all these hardships, it was a good one. Time seemed to slow itself as his eyes drifted downward to his savage, atrociously powerful shotgun. He then turned his deadly attention to the few inches of wing poking out between his killer's decaying teeth.

"Go on..." A calm, soothing voice spurred sweetly within Cantor's mind, and without a second thought, the clueless alicorn found himself pressing the muzzle of his weapon into the middle of the bloody appendage, which began to stream fresh life fluid all down his trembling foreleg.

Cantor allowed himself a steadying breath, turned away from what he was about to do and focused solely on the large ventilation tunnel.

"This is gonna hurt." He stated privately before tensing up his leg, hearing the deafening explosion beat his eardrums before any sort of pain could set in. The next thing he knew, he was falling, and as if by instinct, he reached out and grabbed hold of the lip of the vent. His back hooves scrambled at the wall as he hoisted himself up into the opaquely dark tunnel, subliminally thanking all those hours of upper body training he despised so much.

He could hear the bones in his lost wing breaking as the deadly animal crunched what it thought was the body of an extra-terrestrial life force, only to be sadly mistaken in the form of a mouthful of feathers.

The stallion made it into the ventilation shaft with minimal ease, yet failed to even take one step before a second searing pain shot through his body centred at the back of his left leg. Cantor wailed in agony as he turned over to see what had happened. One of the vile beast's fingers was poking into the tunnel, and the oversized digit's malicious talon had skewered straight through the alicorn's left canon. In one side, out the other.

Cantor reached out with his left foreleg and managed to tangle himself up in some stray electrical cables that had burst from the wall. The back end of his body began to feel the strain as the relentlessly hungry creature's claw tried to pull him back out of 'safety'. The alicorn's screams continued until a stomach - churning 'pop' was heard echoing around the cylindrical walls of his escape route.

With disregards to anything other than survival, Cantor fired three shots randomly towards his attacker in rapid succession, the third and final shot miraculously hitting something critical. The tension on the tortured stallion's left leg slackened instantly, and he wasted no time in scuttling as far away from the obvious danger as possible, tears of agony, fright and panic drenching his checks as he whimpered further into the darkness, every shivering lungful of air he took consisting of nothing but toxic black fumes.

Treacherous wails of pain were heard reverberating through the vent as the terrible beast outside staggered around in light of his prey's lucky shot.

Cantor didn't stop crawling until he physically couldn’t. The grieving alicorn was a fair way into what could be labelled as 'safe' before his muscles gave out and he collapsed from exhaustion. As he lay there in his semi-unconscious state, he could hear a vicious scratching somewhere behind him, but was far too weak to look or even to care.

After a feeble number of seconds, the scarred monster outside furiously accepted his defeat in the form of a barbaric scream of ruin. His conquered footsteps were the second stage heard in his forced retreat, the cumbersome thumping sound gradually fading away until it dissolved in with the depleted stallion's steadying heart rate.

A great amount of time passed before Cantor could achieve conscious thought again, the only times he had come close during the last ten minutes was when he felt as though he were going to throw his entire stomach up, which didn't fair well in his overall self-healing.

With a sickening turn, the barely alive stallion rolled off of his belly and propped himself up against the curved wall so he was sitting on his bruised rump. In response to this new compression, Cantor felt a unique swelling deep in his stomach, forcing him to face the side and empty the organ's minimal contents onto the floor beside him. During throwing up, and the sour coughing fit that followed, Cantor was painfully reminded of his strong headache.

Fumbling around with the button fastened up on his right saddlebag, Cantor withdrew a small syringe containing a scarce amount of clear liquid from one of the key pouches, pulled its sanitary cap off and discarded it carelessly onto the floor. He gave the plunger a quick squeeze, and assured by the knowledge that morphine was the only drug he was carrying, slipped the impossibly sharp point into his leg just above the wound. Cantor placed the used needle back into his bag and gave the applied area a quick rub. Mercifully, the sickening pain started to decline, as did his tormenting headache, giving Cantor the time to accustom himself to being a half-horned, one-winged 'alicorn'.

The fur beneath his eyes had long since dried out from before, but now, fresh tears slicked Cantor's cheeks once again as the calamity of his situation sunk in.

After a while of self-pitying, and once the morphine had had enough time to properly distribute itself around the main injuries, Cantor felt as though he needed an odd definition of comfort, just so he could affirm how close he was to meeting his maker. Weakly, he raised his right foreleg, the weight of the chunky weapon unaiding his efforts. He tensed his leg up, waiting for the satisfying crack of his own personal death dealer.

...'Click'...

"On a scale of one to ten, how fucked is Cantor?" Deathwing asked with a humoured tone, nudging his companion on the shoulder, making the black unicorn giggle darkly in response.

"Hey!" Faith snapped, turning around from leading the heard and facing the two black mercs with a disapproving scowl. "Don't say things like that. I know for a fact that he's gonna be just fine." She replied with confidence.

The red-eyed pegasus cocked a brow. "You're sure of that?" He asked provocatively.

Faith nodded her head. "Positive." She answered.

"Then how come he hasn't contacted you yet?" Deathwing queried with an evil grin.

The grey mare's eyes faltered a little for an explanation, seeing as though the obvious factors pointed to the worst, but she rapidly became aware of a possibility. "W- well maybe he's still fighting that thing." She said with forced enthusiasm.

"Really?" The black-maned pegasus enquired again, the newfound light from the fluorescent beams running above revealing the swollen blood vessels in his eyes. "After twenty minutes?" Faith tried to find the initiative to protest, but even through her trust in the alicorn, even she couldn't hide away from the fact that something might have... 'happened'...

Black Haze stepped forward to re-enforce his partner's accusations. "Face it, girl:" He said coldly, his grim way of speaking hadn't changed at all since the day he walked into this group. "Your friend's dead. You could say it any other way; gone, passed, deceased... But in the end, it all boils down to one thing: dead."

Faith's head fell to the floor in defeat, her unkempt blonde hair covering her bloodstained headband and casting her eyes into shadow. The black unicorn stallion took to walking through the seven-pony team, everyone who was in his path quickly dispersed, keeping a dampened tone of abandon inside their minds.

Haze paused momentarily when he passed Faith, his vision of her blocked by a wall of straw hair. Too bad one of the few times he had reflected compassion in his eyes went unseen by the heartbroken mare. "Faith..." He began gently, whatever remained of his empathetic side surfacing then and there. "I'm sure... you two were... close..." To speak kindly sounded like a struggle to him; he had grown far too used to having a heart as black as his artificially enhanced coat. "But it looks like you're in charge now. Forget about that stallion. It's time you took leadership to hoof."

The dark unicorn quickly, yet silently paced past Faith, walking on his lonesome down the corridor, seeming to disappear into the shadows hiding between each ceiling light.

"No." The dented mare grumbled, still keeping her head hung low. The clopping of Black Haze's hooves upon the gritty metal floor came to a halt, and he, like every other pony, turned to face Faith expectantly.

Frowning out of confusion, the black unicorn turned his whole body about to face the others. "What?" He asked in mild disbelief.

Faith shook her head slowly. "No, I... I won't accept Cantor's dead." She weakly said, trying to mask the pain in her voice.

Haze began to rapidly trot back over to the rest of the group, an ill frown hanging over his eyes. "The evidence is clear, Faith." He argued. "There's no way-"

"There's no way I can carry on this mission without him!" The stone-coated mare snapped back, glaring at the unicorn with her bloodshot golden eyes, making him recoil slightly in shock. "You tell me he's dead; I think that's a load of crap, so during Cantor's temporary absence, I'll lead the group, and during my brief stint as leader, you, and your jumped up little shit of a mate can shut the fuck up until further notice." She ordered harshly, wanting to grin wildly at her own dictatorly tone, but refusing to spoil this austere expression. "Do I make myself clear?"

Haze looked as if he were forcing back a yawn, and to see this particular stallion so secretly exasperated made Faith's heart glow with amusement. "...Yes." The unicorn finally growled through clenched teeth.

"Yes, what?" Asked the grey pegasus, this time, a little of her irk grin forced its way from her mind.

Black Haze's dangerous glare intensified, and his teeth remained barred as he answered. "Yes. Ma'am." He grumbled.

"What about you?" The temporary captain pushed, glancing over her shoulder at the nefarious pegasus, who all of a sudden wore a commendably similar expression to his counterpart.

With agitated red eyes, the dark-coated pegasus replied with a less than devoted "Yes, Ma'am."

Smiling out of a self-inflicted state of pride, Faith stepped past Haze with not a single glance towards the black unicorn. Wanting to avoid any unnecessary violence or negativity on their behalf, everypony else promptly followed on after Faith, leaving the two black coated equines at the rear of the group once again.

With a fraction of his recent hate left inside of him, Deathwing turned to his unicorn friend with quizzical eyes. "You really think he's dead?" The pegasus enquired, a note of agnosticism in his voice.

Haze gave a disgruntled sigh. "Not really." He answered bleakly, making a start on catching up with the rest of the crew with his teammate stumbling along beside him. "I was hoping to break her, but it seems she trusts that pony more than I gave credit for."

"So what do we do now?" The pegasus stallion asked, looking to his partner expectantly.

Black Haze took a breath before rounding the corner. "We wait for him, to come to us." He answered just when a panic-stricken Faith tore round the corner with everypony else tightly behind.

"Running, would be a good idea!" She noted before dashing off past the two black mercs.

The couple of red-eyed ponies peered around the corner, finding the next passage to be teeming with the black creatures. Like a writhing army, most of them darted and slithered along the floor, yet some clung to the walls like enormous four-legged spiders.

Even at a glance, it was blatant that there were too many to take care of, but the duo of mercenaries reached their forelegs around the smooth metal edge and blind-fired for a little over a second before nerves got the better of them and they turned and bolted from the scene, heinous snaps and snarls dangerously audible at the tips of their tails as they galloped once more.

Faith burst through the entrance to a dead-end room, followed closely by Red, who took a less than satisfactory amount of care when passing through, clipping his broad shoulders as he did so, carving two intense gouges on each bulging muscle. Regardless, the doorframe came off worse. Flitter followed suit and dove behind Faith, entrusting her with her safety, despite the reassurance of her weapon she had seldom fired. A short moment later, Deathwing and Black Haze darted through the door, spinning off to either side and aiming down the corridor, seeing as though they were completely blocked in.

They waited for no more than ten seconds before Haze skipped forward and shut the opening, a laboured clunking sound heard as the door past Red's handiwork when it closed.

The metal barrier struck the ground with a little hiss of decompression, and everypony let out the breath they had been unknowingly holding.

"Shit!" Faith spat, snapping her head to the right wall and glaring at the shelves lined with cardboard boxes that spanned its surface. "We lost Cloud and Blue Bolt." She affirmed, sending everypony into a penitent hush.

Flitter slowly stepped around her meat-shield, feeling a little better about having a couple inches of steel keeping the monsters at bay. "M- maybe they're alright." She suggested. "After all, they only took a wrong turn." She added with hopeful eyes.

The grey mare in charge nodded prudently. "You're right." She agreed, though did not make eye contact with the lilac filly. "If we give it about half an hour for the heat to die down, then we can go out and search for them. For now, lets just sit tight, and hope for the best."

"So that's your brilliant plan?" The cynical black unicorn encroached, earning him a piercing glare from Faith.

"What did I say about not talking?" She asked venomously.

Haze sighed heavily with an air of aggravation, rolling his eyes in an exaggerated manner. "Look: all I'm saying is that those things know we're here, and it's only a matter of time before they work out a way to get in."

The blonde pegasus planted her flank and spared a bemused smile. "So you're telling me they know how to work the doors?"

"Maybe." The unicorn replied arrantly. He shrugged his shoulders and glanced to the metal door behind him. "We didn't know how to open them at first."

Faith groaned and shook her head, pushing her bi-colour headband further up, keeping the long bangs of pale yellow hair out of her face. "So what if they can open doors? We'll just mow 'em down before they even get through. Besides... Red'll just knock 'em back through if they even get close, right?" She shot a trustworthy wink in the direction of the behemoth stallion stood next to Flitter in the corner, earning a protective smile back from the crimson pony.

Through the hush, a dull banging emanating from above interrupted the moment. Everypony craned their necks skyward, eyeing the heavily shadowed ceiling cautiously. The din persisted, and it sounded as if it were moving along within the roof itself.

"Shit!" Exclaimed Deathwing, becoming vigilant to every grate which lay on the walls. "They're using the vents!" He stated with panic, noticing how there were at least five potential entrance points for the aliens to come through, rendering the ponies virtually surrounded.

Faith sprang upwards, turning her attention to the source of the clatter, eyeing the only ventilation shaft in the ceiling. "It's going for that vent." She affirmed, raising her rifle towards the tight square of cross-hatched metal above. Her single laser sight was quickly joined by four more, yet one seemed to be quaking uncontrollably.

Taking a second glance towards the danger, Faith turned to Flitter and called her over. "You ever kill one of these things, girl?" She asked in a rushed tone.

"Mmh mhm." Replied the mare, shaking her head fretfully.

The grey pegasus nodded in understanding, patting the lilac unicorn with a fostering hoof. "Well now's your chance to pay them back for hurting your sister." She announced forcibly, peering at Flitter's scared emerald eyes, yet the pale coated unicorn's gaze was fixated upon the metal grate.

Suddenly, there was a clang, and the thin metal mesh dropped to the floor, rattling metallically before coming to rest. Faith and Flitter both returned their weapons to the black square in the roof, Flitter's red dot still trembling with her as she stared into the morbid darkness beyond the hole.

A scuffed, bloody, but relievingly familiar face popped out, as well as tangled and knotted tufts of scraggly brown hair. "You guys expecting someone else?" Cantor asked, staring down the barrels of five separate guns, his unscathed amber eyes darting from pony to pony.

All the ponies gave a post-tension, exasperated sigh of relief and rushed over to help the battle-sodden alicorn down. Cantor disappeared back up into the rafters, but quickly replaced his head with his hind legs. Faith was hovering nearby should her friend be too weak to fly, waiting to carry him down to the floor. However, as the white stallion started to lower himself, she, as well as everypony else, gasped at the four foot talon that had impaled Cantor through his left cannon. Obviously, thought Faith, the 'fight' between the two titans hadn't gone as smoothly as she had expected, but thinking this, she found she had to ask herself: "Was 'smoothly' actually an expectation?" Regardless, she was enthralled that Cantor was alive, and fluttered closer to grasp him around the chest.

But, as Faith reached her forelegs around the stallion's bloodied body, she felt something sharp jab her in the stomach. Looking down out of curiosity, and maybe just a little bit of annoyance, she noticed that two gruesomely snapped bones were protruding from the stump of what used to be Cantor's left wing and into her.

The stone-grey pegasus took a moment to process what she was seeing before screaming and involuntarily dropping Cantor, who was scooped up by Red moments before hitting the ground.

Red unfurled his foreleg and set Cantor down on all... four hooves? The alicorn, who could now barely be classed as such, had his four hooves in contact with the ground, but his left hind leg: the one with the two-inch hole running all the way through was turned outward, almost as if he had no real control over the limb and it was just hanging there as dead weight.

The next thing Cantor knew was Faith's bear-like grip around his neck. In a state of shock, and unaided by the europhoric sensation of being back with his friends, Cantor failed to return the hug, but by the time he had registered the mare's presence, she had already let go, and now seemed to be tracing the side of his body.

Ravaged strips of skin and sinew hung untidily from the brutal - looking amputation, and it appeared as though someone had decided to compress a sponge saturated with blood over the missing wing's stump, coating a large proportion of Cantor's left side with a rich crimson lather.

"Oh, Cantor..." Faith muttered, staring at his poorly severed wing, in a similar tone to a mother who had just witnessed her son's daring stunt go horribly wrong; an empathetic value in her voice, oddly containing hints of annoyance at the same time. "Didn't I tell you being the hero never plays out?"

"No." The 'alicorn' answered back. "You told me it wasn't the time to be the hero..." He remarked, earning himself a friendly roll of the eyes from Faith. "H-hey?" He began, nosing around the area with fearful eyes. "Where's Blue Bolt and Cloud?" He asked.

Faith exhaled sharply, as if waking herself up. "We got separated; we ran across some trouble, and when we were being chased, those two went down a different corridor to us." The pegasus explained, finding it a little odd that a stallion who had lost his horn, his wing, his voice, probably the larger part of his sanity and Celestia knows what else in the span of an evening would still be so concerned about his friends. Well, friendship was something she had never really invested in until a few weeks ago, so she could hardly comment.

Cantor cast his eyes sideward for a spell, thinking before he turned back to Faith. "Can you remember which passage they went down?" He asked.

"W- I... y-yeah... I'm pretty sure I can, but we should stay- I mean, I think we should stay here until those creatures lose interest in us and go away." Faith replied, becoming uneasy on her hooves after that unexpected and seemingly instinctual bout of submissive loyalty she gave to the pony who was silently declared as leader once again.

The captain nodded. Although a troublesome headache was at the forefront of his mind, he was still able to identify good reason. "Okay." He said with definition. "Let's give it twenty minutes and then go retrieve Cloud and Blue. With sense I'm sure they have, they'll find somewhere to hide and wait for us to come and get them.

"Sure.” Faith replied with a restful nod, following it up with a self-inflicted giggle. "I think we're safe in here." She affirmed, and as if by cue, every vent, grille and duct burst open with a cough of smoke and dust, shards of metal peppering the floor as they exploded.

In less than a second, a barrage of relentless monsters had widely dispersed into the room, covering the walls and floor with their menace.

Everypony reacted instantly, having become somewhat desensitised from all the nasty surprises this heinous place had in store for them. They pressed their rumps together in a tight circle, raised their weapons, and took aim.

The creatures were on the ponies in an instant, like coiled springs pouncing on the equines from all angles. Claws sliced and teeth scratched, but any serious damage was thoroughly sustained during the initial onslaught. Their sturdy structure was swiftly broken apart as the monstrous beings stormed their circle, nipping at the survivor's necks with their needlepoint teeth.

Everypony was fearful of using their weapons at all, given the fact that their 'safe room' was so small: any attempt to fight off the horde with bullets would be far beyond risky, and it was assumed that no one wanted to be responsible for the death of a teammate.

The fight consisted of bucks, punches and the occasional bite from the ponies' flat, yet powerful teeth.

Predictably, Red was making remarkable headway with his foes, casting multiple bodies across the enclosed room with one swift swipe, and even going as far as pinning a few to the ceiling to 'deal with them' more accurately - which consisted mainly of insuring his forelegs and face became covered in extra-terrestrial brain-matter.

Cantor was plunged straight into hot water thanks to his leg. Not having had the time to remove the giant claw slammed through it, and forgetting that formidable beast had done some serious damage internally, as soon as the alicorn placed the slightest dab of pressure on his left hind leg, the limb collapsed and buckled under his body with a tremendous gnawing pain.

Faith seemed to be dealing with things rather well on the other hoof. She was making precise shots with her quick eyes, planting bullets in the bodies of creatures out of the firing line of her companions. She ducked in the nick of time as one of the spindly attackers launched itself at her, sparing herself just enough time to see it become another victim to Red's unstoppable rampage. She bore a stunted smirk before scurrying off to where Cantor was lying on his back, managing to dodge a few more of the demons as she did so.

"What's up!?" She asked in a raised voice, having to bring her tone up several decibels to compete with the calamity all around.

"It's my-" Cantor rasped, being cut off before he could finish when one of the black animals sunk its teeth into his shoulder. Rather than ceasing up, the alicorn merely reached up and swiftly snapped the monster's neck with a sharp shoulder twitch and a jerk of his hooves. To say the least, the stallion's too - in a word: 'professional' kill rattled Faith, but she deprived herself the luxury of judgement.

"It's my leg." The white alicorn repeated, clutching the sore limb firmly. "I think it's broken."

Faith swallowed nervously, oblivious to a barrage of shots coming from the two dark-haired mercenaries in one of the corners. As much as she didn't want to feel like she was agreeing with either of the couple of black stallions, she had to admit: they had the right idea about positioning themselves.

She sprung behind Cantor and dragged him across the room on her hind legs, one foreleg cupped under the tired alicorn's shoulder, the other outstretched, brandishing her sizeable piece to whom, or whatever may be unfortunate enough to pass the firing line. Faith knew the corner was the safest place, if not for the ensured protection of the solid metal walls behind, then for the comfort of only needing to shoot in one direction.

The pegasus mare propped the bloodied stallion up against the wall and took up a guard beside him, using physical attacks as much as she could without endangering her or her friend's life. But that wasn't to imply Cantor was effectively useless - far the opposite: the first thing the oncoming threats had to deal with were the forceful rear legs of a nearly fully grown stallion. Granted one of his biological melee weapons was out of service; that didn't stop him from packing one hell of a punch with his right leg. And, if the need arose, he had one of the most powerful guns there for last-second protection.

The scene was just a slurred lapse of fighting. The walls flashed white hot with muzzle flare, the very air was ablaze with the sounds of hissing and pained or otherwise terrified screams of peril, and above all, the stench of blood was quickly becoming a more proud factor. Faith knew that Cantor wouldn't last long. Even if he did survive this onslaught, there was no way he could make it out if another need for galloping were to occur. Without him, Faith found herself inconveniently pondering, more than a life would be lost.

Her sentiment was interrupted by an eyeful of miniature white daggers set in pale pink gums lunging towards her. She soon sent the beast tumbling to her hooves, what remained of its head blasting through the air until it struck the wall on the other side of the room. With a newfound sense of surveillance, Faith noticed that the number of feral monsters was thinning out. There was a carpet of corpses dominating the ground, but in relation to the arena before this homicide, diminished movement was an incredibly broad identification. And even though the great red tank of a pony had several of the creatures clinging to his being, he seemed to be doing more than his fair share of killing - as always...

In the past, Faith had never undermined her accuracy, and managed to place a bullet in the head of an alien gnawing at Red's withers, and another through the neck of a second monster clawing the stallion's flank. All she could do then, was wait and hope to clear out the rest of the room of any stragglers before they got their chance with one of her only true friends, seeing as though there was no possible way to shoot Red's attackers without shooting Red as well.

Cantor took every chance he got to obliterate his foes. Seeing a clear spot where no pony stood, he sent a shelling of pellets into the realms of feral flesh, and any depraved life he managed to put to an end was simply regarded as a bonus. He was soon met with the cringe-worthy 'click' of an empty chamber, and began to fumble around in his saddlebag for some more ammunition.

He counted silently as he went. One, two, three... But as he slid the third bright red casing into his weapon and returned his hoof to the ammunition sack under his right wing, all he grasped was a hooffull of fabric. With a sudden weight consisting of panic dropped onto his shoulders, Cantor frantically unfastened the buckle on his other saddlebag, taking no pleasure in the thought that doing so was far easier without the burden of a wing obscuring his grip. Finding only spare morphine shots and bandages in his left satchel, the alicorn regrettably drew back the bolt on the side of his shotgun and took aim, refreshing the fact that he had to make these last three shots count if he were to be of any kind of help regularly in his mind.

A creature sprang up from the floor and made a beeline for Red with its claws outstretched like a cat, only revealing itself from the sea of fallen kin as it did so. Two shots were heard being fired simultaneously as the black monster's side ruptured and it fell to the stockpile of lifeless bodies below. Cantor turned to Faith with questioning eyes, and without returning the glance, the grey mare replied with: "Yep. That's mine."

Cantor smiled and shook his head, crossing Faith's chest with his foreleg and dropping another creature he had spotted crawling along the wall behind the pegasus.

Faith turned around just in time to see the dark animal fall to the ground, darting her eyes back to catch the questionable alicorn's cocky smirk.

"Okay." The blonde mare humoured. “Now we're even."

The white stallion turned away and discarded a thick band of sweat from his brow with the cool steel of his gun. "One more shot..." He whispered to himself. "Make it count."

"Indeed." That trouble-invoking voice parlayed inside Cantor's head once again. "Put that last slug somewhere special."

Not feeling the need, nor the persistence to argue with himself, Cantor merely ignored the sinister vocals and looked around for another target, yet all the possibilities he saw were promptly snapped up by Faith, who, needless to say, informed Cantor on every single one of them. It was unknown at the time, but Cantor felt as though the reason for Faith's good fortune was a factor of his own withdrawal: either he didn't want to waste his last shot on something Faith had spotted way before he could even take aim, or something within his mentality was forcibly making him to spare that last shell for something... 'special'...

After several more seconds occupied with the occasional bark from somepony's gun later, the oddly acclimatising sound of vicious hissing halted abruptly, and the only sound which remained was the clanging of bullet casings and the dull rumbling of pipes as the creatures who realised taking on five ponies with long-ranged death strapped to their arms was less of a 'bad idea', and really more of a suicidal one fled the scene with their long spiny tails between their legs.

"Hold up!" Faith called out, taking a good long look over the room, surveying the floor for any and all movement non-pony related. "I think we got 'em all..." She relayed, the statement giving rise to a collective sigh of exhausted relief.

"Y-yeah!" Red weakly cried out from the middle of the destroyed room, staring at no one in particular with strangely worried brown eyes. "Whew!" He called out a little more forcefully like usual. "Ah didn't think we'd make it out a' that one!" He added, his legs quivering briefly before he collapsed onto his back knees with a deeply pained and exhausted grunt.

"Red!" Cried Faith as she galloped the short distance across the room to her fallen comrade. By some miracle failing to trip over the carcasses strewn all over the place. Cantor hauled himself to three legs and hopped in suit of the grey mare, but took far more consideration as to where he placed his hooves.

Faith closed in on the great red brute just as his forelegs buckled and he slumped onto the grey pegasus' lap. She caught the crimson pony's burdensome head in her arms, feeling his sweat - saturated mane rub against her chest as she familiarised herself with the large weight.

As Red screwed his dark brown eyes shut in anguish, his equine cushion scanned his body with frightful eyes. She finally noticed the heart-stopping wound in the minimal but direct light filtering through the dust-ridden air. It took the form of several deep gashes over Red's left flank: four or five inches deep at least. Judging by the size of the monstrous incision, and taking into consideration the fact that there were four of them scoring the earth pony's flesh like a baked potato, it was impossible to deny that the stallion's femoral artery had been sliced dead in half - especially with the voluminous quantities of blood spurting out some distance from the gashes; perhaps five or six feet before they splashed onto the floor.

Red groaned wearily and stirred with a fraction of his common strength in Faith's forelegs, alerting the pegasus to her best friend's presence.

"Red?..." She softly asked, to which the stallion in question opened those brown puppy dog eyes of his. Faith nearly burst into tears then and there when she saw how lifelessly he was staring up at her. Not that she made a habit of staring into ponies' eyes at all, but... there was so little energy reflected back up at her from the goliath pony below, that it was almost as if he was dead.

"F... Faith..." The burdensome stallion whispered with the strength comparable to that of a crushed beetle, reaching his hoof up to the female pegasus' cheek, never breaking eye contact for a second. He made contact just below Faith's right eye, but his great hoof of exposed black cartilage covered the whole side of her depleted face. "A'm... so... cold..." He added with withheld breath.

After only knowing him for a few months, Faith knew that without a shadow of a doubt, this would not be the first, only and... last time she broke down in front of this pony.

Cantor and Flitter had also converged on the scene, the former of the two only noticing what had happened after standing for a while, yet the young unicorn mare had spotted Red's fatal injury almost instantly.

Sucking in a lungful of air, and forcing her tears into standby, Faith took one of her hooves away from under the bloodied stallion's head and clasped it over the hoof gently pressing against her cheek, glaring down at the red pony's eyes with enchanting golden orbs of her own. "Red?" She started forcefully, captivating the earth pony's attention with that one syllable. "You have a wife, right?" She asked. Red nodded, weaker than ever. "And a daughter?" Red bowed his head slowly a second time. "Can you tell me their names?"

"Ughh... uhhh..." Redgrave groaned, as if he were trying to force the memory out through the blockades of pain in his mind. "Mah... mah wife's name, she... she's Cherry Bud..." He closed his eyes and swallowed. "Our little daughter's name's... Sh... Shimmer..." Red's laboured frown transformed into a pleasant smile. "She had the brightest blue eyes Ah ever did see!" He added, sounding genuinely pleased with himself.

Faith couldn’t help herself but smile along in agreement, yet persisted to go even deeper. "What kinda house you got back home?" She asked, miraculously managing to keep her voice under control in light of the tears pooling at the bottoms of her straw-coloured eyes.

"Nothin' fancy..." Red muttered, still smiling up at the pegasus, merely absorbing her warming smile while his body became cold. "Jus' a little place in a honest ol' workin' town 'round Falabellia county..."

Faith bit her trembling bottom lip. "...Close your eyes." She ordered delicately. Red obeyed. "Imagine a usual day at home-" She sniffled discreetly and allowed a petite tear to trickle from each sorrowful eye. "What does your family normally do while you're at work?" She let go of the breath she hadn't realised she was holding in the form of a quivering exhale, dropping Red's weighty hoof to his chest and cradling the stallion's head in both her forelegs as another pair of tears fell from her loosely closed eyes. "What... What do you suppose they're doing now?" Faith managed to ask that one final question before she chocked on her words.

Red swallowed once again as the spurts of blood thundering from his wounds continued to weaken, yet that smile remained undying upon his face. "Ah guess Shim'd be helpin' her ma bake those cranberry muffins a' hers..." Red's head fell limply into Faith's accommodating forelegs as he drew in a single deep breath. "...Mmmm..." He mused privately. "...Ah always did love the smell a' Cherry's cookin'......" The last of his breath escaped his lungs in one long, slow exhale, and his body seemed to gain even more weight as he sunk into Faith's form, where he laid, perfectly still, not breathing...

...Yet that smile remained: undying upon his face.

All Faith could manage to do, was shut her eyes, and touch her forehead to Red's as she listened to the dregs of oxygen escape his giant lungs like a slowly deflating balloon.

"Ha, ha, ha, ha..." Chuckled Black haze despicably, his face depicting an expression of extremely elated excitement. He and his winged partner walked around in front of the three other ponies left alive, keeping with the steady and predatory pace their personalities ensued.

Everypony who could raised their heads to stare in shock at the two dark stallions as they took their positions beside each other, maniacal grins dominating their faces.

Haze's eyes were locked on one pony's in particular out of the trio, trying to break through his passionate orange spectacles. However, in the midst of all the death, all the pain and all the suffering, a single wry glare couldn't even scratch the surface of Cantor's protective psyche.

"I must say I'm disappointed..." The black unicorn muttered with a blatantly fictitious sorrow; pouting his bottom lip out comically. "I really expected more from a pony of his stature."

"You shut up!" Faith barked, embracing her deceased friend’s head like an oversized plush, leering towards the unicorn's blood-red eyes with tear-bitten ones of her own.

Black Haze appeared taken back in astonishment towards the outburst, yet his action was easily distinguished as yet another exaggeration. "I beg your pardon, miss," He gasped, covering his chest with a hoof like he had been deeply offended. "But as you quite rightly stated a number of minutes ago, you're not the one in charge any more, so why don't you climb off your high horse and-"

"Shut the fuck up." Cantor finished Haze's sentence for him, directing the sting straight back at him with incredible malice. Before the black pony could react past a stunted gasp, Cantor was right back with the roast. "I've never liked you. Either of you." He began, the devil's glare burning within his fiery amber eyes. "From the moment I stepped hoof in that room back in Canterlot, I knew something was up. Your story, your blatant disregard for Faith's feelings despite her being the adopted child of the ruler of the world, and the fact that you were always seen sucking each other off in the shadows struck a wrong chord - especially that last one."

Deathwing let out a foreboding grumble, yet Cantor was far from done. "You're both cynical to everyone but yourselves, you don't have families and you were adopted and raised... by ponies in lab coats..." The alicorn shook his head. "And you just happen to be involved in this expedition...? Something doesn't add up..."

Faith's attention was divided between Cantor and his targets, her head, weary with sorrow and stress darted back and forth between the two parties, though she felt considerably better when focusing on the frail white alicorn as opposed to staring at the duo of black mercenaries. Whereas Flitter had merely sunk to the floor and was trying to block out the negative vibes thwarting the very air she breathed.

"On the ship, I nearly had to think twice about you, Haze." Cantor elaborated, a somewhat more cheery tone gracing his lips before he returned to the punishing venom. "You said you were comforting Deathwing as your friend; a commendable virtue, I must admit: kindness... However, I now realise that was a ploy to throw me off your case. Not any more..." The white stallion adorned with thick lashings of blood stepped out around Red's corpse, bringing himself to stand directly in-between the pair of dark equines like some kind of bias western shootout. "You two aren't who you say you are, are you?" He asked, brow furrowed intensely.

Black Haze began to slowly and rhytmatically stomp his left hoof on the fluid-moistened ground as if he were applauding a pseudo-amusing performance. "Very good..." He replied, stopping the false round of praise. "You certainly have a talent for locating personality traits in ponies... Too bad it's never going to see any use." Haze raised his weapon towards Cantor, aiming the little red dot precisely between the stallion's eyes.

"Aah! What the fuck!?” Faith cried out as she noticed the gun pointed at her friend. She sprang to her hooves but froze in time as she spotted the sinister pegasus' own firearm poised at her.

Cantor carefully pivoted his head and made a meek spiritual connection with Faith before he returned to the mutinous black unicorn. "Who the hell are you?" He asked cautiously.

Haze merely intensified his grin and replied. "We are the best private execution team money can buy... 'Hitponies' as a word you'd understand..." He began to circle Cantor slowly in unison with his partner. "I'll have you know somepony's put quite a price on your head - not that they'll get to see it..."

The alicorn appeared dumbfounded. "But... who would... why?... How much?"

"Twenty." The dark-hued unicorn replied before a pause. "Million. Between us."

Cantor felt his breath tear from his body as those words occurred. "Tw... twenty million?" He asked in a shamefully proud manner, before the more pressing questions crossed his mind. "But..." He started, his confused frown returning promptly. "...Who in Equestria would want me dead!? I've done nothing to upset anyone!"

"Well apparently you have." Black Haze retaliated blandly. "Besides, it doesn't matter to us; all we're interested in is the money..." He was soon smiling warmly in light of his own evil deliverance. "Twenty mil' is the most we've ever been offered; nearly twice our previous 'record'..."

"But if you kill me, you'll have even less of a chance of getting that money!" Cantor argued back frantically. "And anyway, Celestia'll find out, then you'll be in trouble."

"Not likely." The unicorn retaliated casually. "That much money is enough for us to disappear: get new names, move far away-"

"But as I said: if you kill me, you're not even going to get the chance to get paid!" Pleaded the alicorn. "You'll die here too!"

Black Haze relaxed his shoulders, and his menacing grin melted into a mellow smile of self-amused bane. "Oh, Cantor... We're all dead; we're just waiting to die. As for payment, snuffing out your life is credit enough in that I could die with the joy of knowing there'll be two daddies not coming home for Hearth's Warming..."

Cantor's muzzle wrinkled in the pinnacle of disgust. "You evil, despicable bastard..." Seethed the alicorn. "I'll fucking end you."

"Of course." Haze responded agreeably. "Killing me is going to solve all this trouble..."

The scourned white stallion shook his head in disapproval. "Oh no, killing you won't solve all my problems..." He said with an imposingly rational air about him. "...But it's a fucking good place to start."

Cantor drew his foreleg up like a western gunslinger, catching the trigger on the ascent and carving a trench through Black Haze's cranium with his last remaining shell, forcefully expelling shards of bone and brain matter all over the wall behind him. The black unicorn's body was cast backwards some distance before it collided with the floor like a sack of potatoes and laid there completely motionless.

Cantor's next instinct was Haze's winged accomplice, but as the alicorn threw himself into the air in the general direction of the pegasus, Deathwing snapped his aim from Faith to the centre of Cantor's chest.

He pulled the trigger, firing several shots in quick succession into the airborne stallion's body.

Bullets tore through Cantor's flesh and burst through his back. His eyes widened as his breath escaped him and he lost momentum and slumped to the ground, where he lay gasping whilst he watched Faith tackle the black pegasus off his hooves.

The grey mare landed atop Deathwing's chest as she knocked him over. The two were nose-to-nose: their eyes locked in a ferocious embrace.

The barrage of gunfire had stopped ever since Faith had collided with the male pegasus, and now, that very stallion was merely staring wild-eyed up at the her as she sat on top of him.

"What the fuck is wrong with you!?" She screamed, grabbing two mighty hooffulls of Deathwing's chest-hair and thrashing his torso into the floor.

The black stallion simply laughed in response. Clearly, he had lost his mind - not that he had much of one to begin with. "You're all dead!" He cried maniacally between fits of demonic giggles. "You'll be eaten! Torn apart!" He insisted excitedly, his blood-red eyes elated with madness. "But not me! Not me! I'm not gonna be like you! Not now! Not ever!" He positioned his gun under his chin and became trigger-locked as he fired, blasting bullets through the roof of his mouth and out the top of his head, creating a cascade of blood as his form spasmed violently under Faith's.

The pegasus mare leapt from the grotesque sight, and with sympathy for the murderous pegasus failing to reach a number above zero, she darted to Cantor's side, where Flitter already was, clutching the incapacitated stallion's hoof as firmly as she could to keep him awake.

"Cantor!" Faith cried out, dropping to her knees beside the alicorn's head.

It was clear he was in pain: though squirming on the floor eliciting short, breathless squeals of pain, pawing his free hoof in the air for something else to cling to.

"F- Faith... O- ow..." He whimpered, the shock beginning to wear off as he started to loose feeling and eventually control in his limbs. "You know this r- really... f- fucking hurts..." He added weakly, spitting a mouthful of blood onto the floor.

Faith stayed by Cantor's side as he drifted in and out of consciousness. "You stupid bastard..." She said with a laugh, above all else trying to keep the stallion awake. "Do you ever think things through before jumping in?" There were tears in her eyes. despite the smile, she couldn't pretend she didn't know that this time, Cantor's grave injuries were far too much.

"Flitter?" Cantor called out, voice drowsy and drunk with nausea. "Is sh... she... 'kay?"

"I'm okay." The unicorn said tonelessly, apparently in some kind of shock.

"Ohhh..." Cantor's relieved sigh mutated into a terrible yell of pain as he pushed his punctured chest up weakly, rolling slightly on the floor. "If... If you two ever some- somehow make it out of... here." He said with a raspy throat, his pace of speech following no consistency other than a losing battle. "Would you k- kindly... tell... my Twi that..." He gasped and closed his eyes, feeling tired beyond measure - it actually felt kind of pleasant. "Tell Twi that I... that I love her very much..."

"Oh, Cantor, don't say that," Faith started with an animated sense of protest. "Well find Blue, a- and Cloud: they're doctors, they can fix this, just... just hang on..." She pleaded, voice cracking under what she didn't want to even acknowledge.

"Faith," Cantor said loudly, re-affirming his status as captain for one last time. "Promise me," He said, fighting desperately for breath. He knew something important had been hit in the shooting - not that it mattered now. "Promise me you'll try... You'll... try to meet up with the others and find ash... a ship. Go home."

He let out another breath filled with sobs, tears falling from his eyes. With sorrow, he quietly said, "I just wanted to hold our baby..." before his head rolled limply to the side and his breath escaped in a sick gargle.

"Don't go, Cantor!" The grey mare pleaded, as if her wishes were to help at all. "I can't do this without you!"

A wise grin cracked over Cantor's face and he closed his eyes to try and bypass the pain. "You'll be fine! I'm sure-... sure of it!" He laughed, dribbling more crimson life fluid from the corner of his mouth. "Sorry, Faith... But I... don't think this is... one in- injury I'm gonna... walk... walk away from!" He tried to make the comment into a joke, but before he could attempt to laugh, his body ceased up and he screwed his eyes tight as his heart beat for the last time, leaving 'the most powerful pony to have ever lived' nothing more than another piece of dead meat in this hellish facility.

Faith shook her head. "No..." She mumbled. "Not you too!" She exclaimed, rocking Cantor's body back and forth like she was trying to wake him. "Please! I can't loose both of my best friends in the same day!"

She begged and pleaded for this all to not be happening, but this was one nightmare she couldn't wake up from. "Cantor!" She called, but the alicorn just lay there unmoving, staring behind closed eyes, open-mouthed up at the shadowed ceiling. "You can't do this to me!" Faith continued, shaking Cantor's limp foreleg for any sign of life, but when the same result continued to greet her, all she could seem fit to do was give up. "You utter bastard..." She sobbed, letting the deceased stallion's limb fall into her lap.

Flitter wasn't crying: she was too confused to even start. Here was a pony, who promised her salvation, lying dead on the floor. She couldn't confide with herself in her mind, but there was one thing she knew of to be true that was staring her in the face: she, as well as every single pony on this planet was already dead. To persevere in the face of doom was more brainless than stupid. She thought to herself that she would be with her sister soon, but instead of feeling a little more at peace with this affirmation, all the poor young mare could think about was pain and suffering - as if her whole life leading up to this moment had suddenly deteriorated into a ferocious nightmare.

...But this was one nightmare she wouldn't wake up from...

Author's Notes:

:( < mfw

Awh, no! I didn't think Cantor would die! :c This isn't turning out to be a very fun story at all!

Poor Faith, poor Red... Those two really hit it off... Tell uncle Still Breeze what you think of all this senseless killing in the comments below... :(

*****

On an inconceivably unrelated topic, I'm diggin' this new layout - especially this 'Author's Notes' section. *Thanks, Knightly!*

Sooo, how was everypony's Chrismas? I got some pretty cool pony gear, including a duvet cover I'm using right now! c: Did Santa Clause (wow, I've only just realised I have no idea how to spell Santa's second name... let's just call him Mr. S.) bring you anything nice?

*****

Just realised I made these notes at Christmas... Wow... It seems long ago...

Oh, well, I'm leaving them in there :P