'Okay, where am I?' wonders Fluttershy sourly.

She is sitting in the hallway... somewhere... helmet retracted so she can rub her head while she looks at a map of the section with a nice star saying “You Are Here”. During her walk all of the halls looked the same, and after snaking her way through the halls for an unknown amount of time, passing many dead Necromorphs and killing a few more that have stumbled across her, she has found herself in front of the map. Now she is scanning the map intently, searching for anything to give her directions. Which would be easier to do if the map wasn't flickering on its cracked computer screen, because apparently everything has to be digital. Even a map on a wall.

As Fluttershy studies the map, she finds dorms, the location of the Supervisor's office, a small cafeteria, more halls, and...

Fluttershy's hoof taps the map, right under the “Medical Center”, and she back-traces until she finds her little star.

All she has to do is go straight to the end of the hall then take a left, then a right, then a left, then another left, then right, then right, then right, then up two flights of stairs, take a left and go straight.

With that path quickly memorized, Fluttershy activates her helmet and goes straight down the hall for a couple of minutes before coming across the main door. There is also a smaller door to the side that has been ripped open, and when Fluttershy peeks inside she immediately gags and steps out. Then after a few seconds she takes a deep breath and goes into the room.

The wall has a double helix painted on it in blood, and near it is a goat laying in a pool of semi-dried blood. Her head has been popped open, leaving her skull and gray brain bits all over the floor and wall, and bones poke out of her bent legs and crushed ribs. Next to her is another goat, a male in a white lab coat whose hoofs are also covered in blood, and his eyes are wide open and his throat and chest have been melted open, leaving a mix of dark red and green fluid on the floor and his cracked and shriveled ribs and chest organs exposed.

Fluttershy shivers and after inspecting the office, finding an audio log near the bodies. She puts it in and aims her energy cutter at the door as the file plays.

Alarms are blaring in her ear, and screams and the thunder of a stampede plus gunfire sends shivers down her spine.

“Is that enough for you?” says a male. “I made the pictures! I helped you with the bodies! I gathered lots of bodies!”

The male giggles and bangs on the door, then stops and huffs, and as this happens Fluttershy can barely hear weak feminine wheezes over the chaos.

“Of course. Of course you need more,” says the male. “More. More. More. Always more. You'll only be whole with more... And why are you still breathing!? Stop breathing!”

The audio cuts out, and Fluttershy shakily removes the audio log and goes through the hallway door, and the first thing she sees is a message that reads:

TURN BACK!

NOT SAFE!

Fluttershy looks to the right, and sees a line of broken doors and blood, as well as a tipped over wheelchair, and then she looks left and sees a hallway full of windows and doors, all with red lights on them. She takes a deep breath and goes left, walking awkwardly with her three limbs while the other holds her cutter. As she goes she looks through a window that has a goat whose been impaled into the by a trio of bloody spikes, and she sees rows of empty cribs; some have blood, some have been tipped over, and others have been destroyed. It leaves a lump in her throat and she blinks tears out of her eye, but she keeps walking. Then she sees a shadow spread on the wall of the next room and she ducks down, keeping her cutter aimed at the door, which has been forced open.

Footsteps and scrapping furniture echo from the room, and a moment later a bald Necromorph stumbles out, jerking and twitching, and wearing tattered and bloody remains of a hospital gown with IVs hanging from its warped flesh. Its mouth is also hanging open as it gurgles, and its ribs have popped out of its chest and been restructured to be scrawny arms with sharp hands, and green bags pulse in its chest.

It looks at her with dark eyes and silently charges her with its clawed hands outstretched, not even screaming even though its mouth is wide open.

Pat-Pat-Pat-Pat

Fluttershy backs up and shoots it in the head, decapitating it in one shot, and the rust colored blood plus a green substance splashes on the floor and wall, making a sizzling sound and causing smoke to rise as the green liquid eats the metal. The Necromorph's headless body races in circles, bounces off of the wall and thrashes on the floor as its acid melts the metal away, and Fluttershy shoots it a few more times, leaving it as a hunk of flesh on the ground with steam and the stench of melting metal to linger. Once it stops moving Fluttershy carefully approaches the body, and then she uses her ATM to levitate it off of the floor and shoot it into the room where it came from. The body crashes into the wall and flops to the floor, next to a broken crib.

She peeks inside the room and sees more blood, more broken and bloody cribs, and a griffin in destroyed armor is laying nearby with his throat and chest melted open and a pool of semi-dried blood around him. Next to him is a bulky rifle with three barrels and a cylindrical body, just like Rarity's, and around him are half a dozen dead Slashers, a mutilated Griffon Necromorph, as well as another dead bald Necromorph.

Fluttershy scans the room for a few more seconds before approaching the griffin, and she lightly taps the body with her hoof. It remains still, so she picks up the rifle, checks it, and sees that is has a “Standard Mode” and a “180 Mode” on its screen, with the previous highlighted, as well as a count showing it at 25/50 rounds. After seeing this she ejects the magazine for inspection, then checks the chamber, and after that she slips the magazine back in and aims the rifle down the room. With the sights appearing okay she clips it to her saddle and carefully searches the body. She finds a couple more magazines, both full, a medical kit with some medical foam, adrenaline, and a stitch kit. She takes all of it and explores the rest of the room, finding three more cans of medical foam.

Fluttershy takes all of the cans and goes down the hallway, taking the first right.

The area she enters is littered with dead Necromorphs, including a Griffin Necromorph shot to pieces, and Fluttershy keeps her eye and ears peeled for any unusual noise as she goes through.

CLA-CLA-CLA-CLA-CLA

Fluttershy jumps and turns to the noise, cutter raised and heart racing.

CLA-CLA-CLA-CLA-CLA

The noise is coming from a board flipping through different images of peaceful hills, to soothing night skies, and a boat on still waters.

Fluttershy sighs and walks on, collecting a spare magazine and raiding one of the cabinets for supplies. She finds adrenaline, more medical foam, and stitching wire as well as a pain killer. She takes it all, and once everything is secured she resumes walking, taking the first left like the map said.

The hallway Fluttershy now finds herself in is bare with the occasional splash of blood, but there are no rooms, only lights and solid walls decorated with informative posters about health and safety.

Fluttershy is about halfway down the hallway when a rumble shakes everything as well as her, and the lights flicker off, save for the back light above a door where a dark, featureless silhouette of a pony stands.

Fluttershy stares at it, chest tight and lungs frozen, and the featureless silhouette cocks their head and then giggles as it strolls towards her, horn glowing and a saw floating up next to it.

“Twinkle, twinkle, little star~ How I wonder what you are~” sings Honey Creme, her voice flowing into Fluttershy's ears while the saw revs up.

Fluttershy's eye widen and she steps back with her cutter raised, trembling and tears welling up in her eye.

“Up above the world so high~ Like a diamond in the sky~”

The lights flicker, and with each flash from light to dark to light to dark Honey Creme snaps closer and closer, her saw whirring at full speed.
“Twinkle, twinkle, little star~”

Fluttershy stumbles backwards and her cutter shakes, and then Honey Creme gallops towards her, her saw buzzing at full speed with wide eyes wide and a large grin.
“How I wonder what you are!”

Fluttershy shrieks and shoots a barrage of energy beams at her, and the lights flash on, showing an empty hallway with glowing lines burnt into a hallway door that is halfway open and has it holographic display flickering in and out and from red to green.

Fluttershy snaps around, seeing nothing from where she came from, and she looks up at a vent, not seeing or hearing anything there either, and she looks back at the door. She swallows dryly and cautiously approaches it.

The opening is too small to go through, and Fluttershy cannot see much, but what she can see looks about as safe as the ship can get.

With no signs of Necromorphs, Fluttershy braces herself and pushes against the door with all her strength, grunting as the door scrapes against its railing, filling the hall with a scratchy screech. It doesn't move much, though, and Fluttershy takes a moment to catch her breath before she repeats it. The door scrapes a little further which gives her just enough room to wiggle through, and after getting past the door she stumbles into the middle of the hallway, panting and fumbling with her energy cutter. Once activated she sweeps it side to side and up along the ceiling, finding nothing but a pool of blood by the wall. She then proceeds left.

After a short walk, Fluttershy enters a hallway with a line of windows, and she peeks through the first one, finding an x-ray picture of a mechanical hoof connected to a stubby limb, and two pods, with one that has been torn apart with shredded organs and bones thrown everywhere. The next window has a machine going back and forth between a bed and a tipped over cart with medical tools spilled on the floor.

Then the radio crackles to life in her ear.

“Fluttershy, do you remember when we were kids? I was the slacker and you were the responsible one?” asks Zephyr. “I don't think that has changed.”

“Zephyr?” Fluttershy presses her hoof against her radio. “Tell me where you are! I'll come get you!”

“I wanted the easiest path, and that path was always running.” Zephyr strains a laugh. “Without the obstacles I got so far, yet I was always... empty. I never felt whole. I want to be whole. Can you make me whole?”

The radio signal fuzzes out and Fluttershy brings up her holographic radio display, finding nothing but errors and Rainbow Dash's signal. When she lowers her holographic display, a Puker is quietly running towards her, arms outstretched and mouth open.

Fluttershy gasps and shoots it in the chest and head, popping its sacks which lead to the wall and windows getting splashed with acid. The windows shatter and shrieks echo in the hallway.

Shadows of flailing limbs snap across the wall down the hallway, and Fluttershy backs up with her cutter raised. Around the corner a pair of Slashers and a Puker run out, and she kills them quickly, but as she reloads, a deep roar comes from one of the rooms, and its window explodes from a gurney being thrown through it, then a mechanical limb comes out of the room, looking bulky like a hoof, but has talon-like fingers on its edges, and it is wrapped in strings of red flesh. Next comes a long limb with a scrawny hand made of talons and bent bones that stretches out and grabs the top of the window, not caring that it is grabbing jagged glass, and climbing out of the window a moment later is a Necromorph with four dark eyes, a muzzle made of fused jaw bones, large chest and legs of multiple body parts, and wings that have fused to make skinny slasher weapons on its shoulders while its back has been twisted so it is standing upright. Pulsing yellow sacks are on its shoulders and hips, too, and when it marches towards Fluttershy its mechanical hand flexes and its steps shake the hall.

Fluttershy continues backing up and aims her cutter at it, and when it runs towards her, she fires. The cutter's beams streak across the hallway, burning off pieces of the beast, but it does not stop, and in seconds it reaches her swoops its mechanical hand underneath her and slams her into the ceiling. Pipes and lights break, showering her with sparks and gas, and the Necromorph keeps its grip on Fluttershy's barrel and slams her into the wall.

Her eye rolls and she feels warm blood trickle down the back of her skull and neck, and when it begins squeezing her she cries out painfully and coils her body. Her armor groans and cracks, and her lungs fight for air while her heart beats against her ribs.

The Necromorph then grabs Fluttershy's head with its other hand and begins squeezing. Fluttershy's vision quickly becomes covered in tears, but despite the pain of her chest and head being squished, she manages to activate her stasis module.

The Necromorph's motions freeze, and using all of her hoofs, Fluttershy kicks and bangs against its chest and arm until the hand holding her head snaps off and pieces of its ribs pop out of its chest. When the blue aura fades the Necromorph reels back, blood spraying all over Fluttershy with the hand still on her head, and it uses its robotic hand to throw her away. She flies across the hall, through an observation window, and with glass raining around her she hits a bloody gurney with a torn mattress and falls on the floor, wheezing and coughing with the taste of iron on her tongue and her stomach aching. She pushes herself up using the gurney for help and pulling off the hand covering her face right as the Necromorph climbs into the room

It tries stabbing Fluttershy with its scythe limbs, but she is able to dive out of the way, and the bony blades break the bed, leaving jagged pieces on the floor, and it throws what is left to the side, breaking cabinets that spill medical supplies everywhere.

It swipes at Fluttershy again using its mechanical arm, and she leaps out of the way, but the small space does not give her enough room to dodge. A hot slash tears through her flank and she twirls into the air, crashing to the floor next to a broken piece of the gurney with blood trickling out of her suit.

The Necromorph raises its robotic hand and its scythes, and right as it brings them down Fluttershy activates her ATM and launches one of the broken bed pieces into the sack on its shoulder. The jagged metal rips clean through it, tearing the arm off and becoming impaled into the ceiling. Rust colored blood plus yellow puss gush out, and the Necromorph howls and swipes its scythes at Fluttershy. The bony blades slice through her armor, throwing her down to the floor where she cries in pain as blood pumps through the slashes in her suit.

She very quickly becomes slick with blood, and the Necromorph lifts both of its scythes above its head, but before it can tear her into pieces she freezes it with her stasis module, then grabs the largest gurney piece with her ATM and shoots the Necromorph in the chest with it.

The jagged bed piece carries the Necromorph into the ceiling, and when it hits the metal ceiling bends and the beast is snapped in half and showers the room with sparks and blood. With the gurney still in the ceiling, the Necromorph falls to the floor with blood, puss and torn organs spilling everywhere, and it twitches a couple more times before it stops moving.

Fluttershy keeps her eye trained on it for a few seconds before she clumsily opens a can of medical foam to spray as much as she can over her wounds. Once the foam is applied, she slumps against the wall and stares at the corpse with her eye dim and mouth hanging open in an attempt to swallow air.

Cold sweat trickles down her hot face, and her throat feels full from bile.

As Fluttershy lays slumped against the wall, covered in crimson and pink and her bloodied face partially covered by her damaged mane, her eyelid drifts down, with her vision focusing on the black eyes of the dead Necromorph. Then darkness comes in.

“It wasn't supposed to be like this,” says Zephyr. “I was going to go to Onyx, work a little, save up enough money and go somewhere greener. Somewhere brighter. Somewhere where I can be whole. Do you want to be whole, Fluttershy?”

Fluttershy's eye drifts open, and the holographic radio display floats in front of her face with the same dead creature and the same dim and wrecked room in front of her.

Fluttershy sniffles, wipes her face and gets up on shaky hoofs. After collecting what she can for medical supplies (and swallowing a good amount of pain pills), she goes into the hallway, retrieves her energy cutter and proceeds straight until she comes across the first right.

The hallway gives her nowhere else to turn but right, anyway, since to the left is an elevator door that has been ripped open and its cords sliced. So she keeps going right, passing streaks and pools of blood without bodies, and hieroglyphs written on the wall.

There is also music playing faintly through some speakers. It is calming, like a lullaby, and Fluttershy takes a moment to inject herself with some adrenaline before going forward.

The farther down the hall she goes, the louder the music gets, and when she reaches a bright pink and blue door with NURSERY above it in a dim sign, she stops. A lump forms in her throat, and she takes a deep breath and blinks a fresh wave of tears away as dread moves in like a toxic gas.

She checks her energy cutter, finds it full. Checks her shotgun, also full. SAD rifle, full. Armor, not getting any better.

With everything as good as it gets, Fluttershy opens the door to the nursery and finds little chairs and tables, toys, pictures, and snack plates scattered. Some of the tables and chairs are broken, blood has soaked the colorful carpet, tiny bones and organs are on the floor, and in different areas are broken vents. In the back of the room is a projector displaying a cartoon roadrunner zooming over a desert, and the wall it is on is stained with blood.

Fluttershy stops and stares at the scene of the massacre, jaw hanging open and tears pouring down her face. Her legs tremble, and she falls to the floor, covering her mouth with her hoof as her shoulders buckle.

A cooing noise suddenly echoes in the room, and Fluttersh's ears perk inside her helmet. The sniffling turns to incoherent blabbling and a shiny red toy rocket is pushed across the floor, and Fluttershy gets up and trots towards it, head tilted and hope rising in her.

“H-Hello?” calls Fluttershy.

A shadow spreads across the floor, and at first Fluttershy smiles, but when she sees what the shadow is connected to, her smile and her hope dies.

Whatever it is, it is the size of a toddler, but its fur has fallen off, leaving green skin with red veins pulsing, and its jaw has been stretched and its mouth has been filled with sharp teeth, and its tongue has been split into thin tentacles. Its little hoofs have also split apart, making sharp claw, and beneath its stomach are more tentacles that leave a sticky trail. Then there is the back, which has opened up to let out three fat tendrils with pointed ends made from its insides.

The Necromorph pushes the toy again, giggling and babbling, and then it stops and looks at Fluttershy with its dim eyes.

Fluttershy steps back, and the Necromorph turns its tendrils to her, screams and shoots a barb from the tentacle. Fluttershy jumps out of the way, and the barb breaks against the wall. Another barb is launched, and Fluttershy scrambles away from that one and dives behind a counter, landing next to a bowl of spilled chips and a juice box. She takes a deep breath, pokes her head up and ducks when yet another barb is launched at her, breaking into the cupboard.

The Necormoprh giggles like a toddler, and Fluttershy hears a thump, followed by quick wet smacks. She checks her energy cutter, and seeing that the battery is still full she keeps low and pokes her head around the corner. It does not take her long to see the Necromorph climbing on the wall with the tentacles and claws, and the barbed appendages sprouting from its back swish around eels.

The Necromoprh keeps climbing up the wall, and when it reaches the ceiling it hangs upside down with ease and turns its head all the way around so it has a right side up view of Fluttershy.

It shoots more barbs that force Fluttershy to retreat, and she cringes and flinches as the barbs break against the metal floor or impale the counter, but she keeps count. After hearing the third one break, Fluttershy leaps up with her energy cutter raised and shoots the Necromorph.

The energy beam slices off its barb tentacle, and it shrieks in pain, shooting the other two barbs in rapid secession while Fluttershy keeps shooting. The barbs break into the counter and graze by her, and the cutter's energy beam rips off chunks of the Necromorph until it falls off the ceiling, thrashing and screaming on the ground with blood pouring all over the floor.

Fluttershy approaches it with quick steps while looking around the area for signs of more, and when she sees nothing else, she stomps on its head, popping its skull open. The Necromorph stops moving after that, and Fluttershy sighs, blinks tears out of her eye and after reloading she goes out the back door.

Upon entering the hallway, shadows dart along the wall, and babbles, giggles and whines echo in the stale air. That encounter brings Fluttershy to a halt, and she aims her cutter down the hallway, swallowing nervously. A crash and clatter draws a gasp from her, and her muscles tense as a blob of shadows move along the wall, ever closer towards her corner.

Fluttershy steps back, and when a Puker rounds the corner she shoots it in the chest, head and leg in a quick barrage. Blood and acid splatter, and the Necromorph releases an airy scream as its mangled body is soaked in the gory fluids. The remaining shadows move forward, and Fluttershy walks towards them, keeping her cutter raised, and when a pair of Slashers round the corner she cuts them down very quickly and resumes walking. Rust colored blood stains Fluttershy's boots as she walks past their twitching corpses, and then she presses herself against the wall and peeks around the corner.

Nothing.

She moves down the hallway, keeping her steps brisk and her eye and ears on high alert. She does not get very far before she hears giggling and gibberish babbles, though. The voices come from the ceiling, and Fluttershy brings her cutter up, heart racing and throat tight as the odd voices move from above her head to down the hall. Several seconds later, a vent grate breaks off from the ceiling, and a little Necromorph crawls out with its barbed tipped tentacles swinging in the air and a mix of gooey tentacles and claws keeping it on the ceiling. It runs along the ceiling, cackling and Fluttershy backs up, shooting it, but she misses it since it leaps off of the ceiling, and it lands on the floor and shoots a barb at her.

The sharp projectile impales her hoof, and she yelps and buckles, and two more of the little Necromorphs crawl out of the vent, and shoot at her, as well.

Fluttershy stumbles back as the barbs sail past her or bounce off of her suit's metal plates, keeping her hold tight on her cutter as she shoots back, despite the throbbing pain from the bony barb in her hoof.

The little Necromorphs release a high pitched wail and leap around, filling the air with barbs while the energy cutter rounds streak across the air, leaving glowing red marks on the walls and floor. Soon Fluttershy is forced to stumble to cover behind the corner she just came from, and she hunkers down as the barrage of barbs break against the wall and floor.

While the Necromorphs shoot at her, she risks retracting her helmet, and bites on the barb in her hoof and pulls it out. Flesh is tugged with the bony projectile, and she breathes heavily as it is slowly pulled out. When she manages to pull it out of her hoof she quickly spits it on the floor, puts her helmet back in place and peeks around the corner.

The little Necromorphs are scurrying on the wall, the floor and the ceiling, and one of them shoots at her almost as soon as she peeks, causing the other two to shoot at her as well. She goes back in cover, flinching when the barbs bounce off the wall.

Her shot hoof also trembles as droplets of blood dribble to the floor, and she presses her back against the wall chest heaving and eye misting over as she sprays her wound with the medical foam, grimacing from the burning sensation of the foam's sanitation agent. Thankfully the foam is fast acting, so in a matter of seconds it has hardened, giving her the chance to fight back. So Fluttershy takes a deep breath, unslings her rifle and selects the “180 Mode”, which leads to a lever popping out.

High pitched wails and babbles make it hard for Fluttershy to remember how the 180 Mode works; she does not even remember using it. She only remembers a basic course on the Semi-Automatic Defense Rifle with paper targets and the bare minimum training, plus a power point presentation on its other features, which includes the 180 Mode among a few others.

“You won't need to use this weapon or its attachments, so we'll keep it to the basics,” is what her instructors told her when she was in training for the Medical Corps.

Oh how Fluttershy wishes she could go back in time and slap them all over the back of the heads.

Won't need to us it. What a crock!

Simmering anger aside, with the little steps and wet slaps getting closer Fluttershy knows its now or never, so she turns the rifle vertical and runs out of cover. More barbs slam into her, breaking against her armor plating or lodging themselves into the unprotected parts of her body, but even with the pain of getting stabbed again by high projectile bones she still manages to keep her grip tight on her SAD Rifle, plant it firmly to the floor and pull the lever.

The three barrels split in different directions and sway side to side as they unleash a screaming spate of bullets that rip apart the little monsters. Bullets ricochet off the walls and floors, and screams are sharply cut off as fleshy bits and blood flies everywhere. When the bullets stop, the barrels are smoking and the empty magazine falls out while the shredded Necromorphs lay in their bloody pools.

Fluttershy pushes the lever up and the barrels slide back into place, and after Fluttershy puts in a fresh magazine she begins the painful process of removing the barbs in her and finishes with using the next can of medical foam down to the fumes. By the time she is done, she is shaking and sweating, and covered in patches of pink with red cracks, and her legs feel like they are about to snap off. Really, the idea of crawling into a room and hunkering down is becoming an increasingly better idea for her, but Zephyr and Rainbow Dash and others need her, and the Necromorphs will probably kill her and everybody else if she stops moving, so with that unpleasant thought, she injects herself with some adrenaline and forces herself to go forward.

In a short amount of time after killing the creatures, Fluttershy comes across a doorway leading to a flight of stairs, which is dimly lit by red lights on the floor and swirling red emergency lights. She takes the first step and stops.

Listens.

Nothing.

She goes up a few more steps and stops short by a vent grate. She goes on her stomach and crawls underneath it and when she is past it she gives it one more look before resuming her climb.

The completion of the first set of stairs are marked by a door that has its center bent out with blood and strings of flesh dangling off of its jagged edges. Its lights are completely off, not even sparks pop from it, and its too bent to move anywhere. Lights from the room beyond flicker through the hole, though, flashing sharp shadows on the wall, and against her better judgment, Fluttershy peeks inside.

A double helix is painted on the wall, and a half circle of blood and a lot of scratches on the floor are in front of the painting. Near the gory scene is a line of broken observation windows, and medical equipment is thrown everywhere or broken. The lights flickering in the room briefly plunge the room into darkness for barely a second at a time, but with each flash Fluttershy can see the shadow of a body hanging from the ceiling.

Fluttershy shudders, backs away from the door and goes up the next set of stairs, coming to a stop at a blue light door. She checks her energy cutter, takes a deep breath, and then opens it.

“Attention! All medical personnel secure the patients! This is not a drill!” says an automated voice.

Fluttershy goes through the doorway and sweeps the hall, grimacing at the sight of broken observation windows, bloody walls and floors, and broken cots and wheelchairs.

“Attention! All medical personnel secure the patients! This is not a drill!”

Fluttershy goes down the hallway, glass crunching underneath her boots and her breathing echoing in her helmet.

“Attention! All medical personnel secure the patients! This is not a drill!”

She enters a spacious area with chairs and benches overturned and broken, and across from them is a receptionist desk with “SECTION E RECEPTION” marking it, covered in bullet holes and a splash of blood. Behind the desk a screen flickers, displaying an error message as well as a list of names of numbers.

“Attention! All medical personnel secure the patients! This is not a drill!”

Fluttershy shakes her head and resumes her path, but after taking a few steps a squeaking wheel catches her attention, and as soon as she turns around she gasps and yanks out her cutter. A Puker is rushing towards her, and she gets a couple of shots off, blowing off its legs and a piece of its face. She backs up and shoots it again, popping the acid bags in its chest, and it writhes on the ground as it soaks in blood and acid, yet not screaming like the others. As this happens, an observation window next to Fluttershy shatters and she is tackled into the wall by another Puker.

It opens it mouth wide, displaying its ripped flesh, pulsing throat and sharp tongue while its claws scrape against her armor, and it pukes on Fluttershy's helmet. Green liquid completely covers her visor and the helmet's interior flickers as the stench of burnt metal and wire clog her nose. The visor's slits crack and the light inside her helmet flickers, and with a yell Fluttershy blindly pushes the Necromorph to the floor. But it keeps its hold on her, forcing her to follow it as she pushes against it, and it pukes on her helmet again.

The acid leaks through the helmet, and with nothing to go with Fluttershy punches the Puker as hard as she can. She feels bones break and the creature loosen its grip on her, and she punches it again and again until she feels her hoof going through the skull and hitting the metal floor. Then she pulls away and hits the emergency eject on her helmet. The seals pop loose and she yanks the helmet off, holding it at hoof's length as its metal boils and warps with the visors shattering and the lights flickering off.

Fluttershy barely has a chance to marvel at the close call before a roar from down the hall catches her attention. She looks at the source and sees a group of Slashers running towards her, and she throws her useless helmet at the nearest one.

The helmet hits it right in the face, and as it stumbles from disorientation its pack mates shove it aside and run towards Fluttershy as she backs away from the dead monster. She shoots the first two in a barrage of cutter fire, slicing off their limbs and chunks of their bodies. The two fall in a heap, and Fluttershy uses her ATM to levitate a broken bench and launch it at the remainder of the group.

The bench crushes a couple more and bounces across the floor, knocking the Slasher that got hit with the helmet off of its feet, and it comes to a stop when it crashes into the wall. The Slasher that was knocked off of its feet is shot dead by Fluttershy before it can even get up, and she finishes off the other Slashers that crawl towards her. After the Slashers stop moving Fluttershy does a quick sweep of the area, panting and sweating with her ruined mane hanging over her eyes.

“Attention! All medical personnel secure the patients! This is not a drill!”

Fluttershy swallows dryly, ejects her battery to put a new one in, brushes her mane to the side and goes down the hallway, carefully stepping over the pool of acid around the dead Puker. Once she clears the wreckage of the bench she goes into a full gallop, and she keeps running until she hears a door slam shut near her position.

Fluttershy skids to a stop and listens.

Nothing.

She carefully moves up, passing locked door and soon comes across an open door with a bright light. She draws her energy cutter and pokes her head inside, seeing that it is an observation room with papers and broken computer pads scattered. A line of blood stains the wall, and the observation window has a crack on it, but even with the crack in it she is able to see the unused cot, which also has straps on it, and four cylindrical lasers hanging from separate arms on a circular device connected to a heavy stand that has a terminal on it. There also does not appear to be a way in except through a door on the other side.

But that is not what is catching her attention. What is has her interest is a blue griffin with green eyes, armed with a variety of weapons, from a shotgun to a rifle and pistol, and is wearing an armored security suit with a flashlight on his shoulder. He is going through the lab, tossing whatever he does not want aside, which is basically anything he cannot use for medicine. His saddle is stuffed with medical supplies, and he is covered in bandages and poorly applied stitches.

As he scavenges, Fluttershy takes a deep breathe and carefully approaches the window. When she is close enough she taps it, bringing the griffin to jump and aim his shotgun at her, and she jumps back with her hoof up.

The two look at each other in silence, and her eyes flick to the side to an intercom box, and slowly goes to it without taking her eyes off of him, and she pushes the button.

“Don't shoot. I'm not going to hurt you,” says Fluttershy.

He keeps his eyes on her as he goes to the intercom box on his side, and Fluttershy notices that his tag says Slingshot. Seeing that name brings her to remember him in Honey Creme's video and being mentioned in Azmuth Horizon's audio log.

“I'm a medic,” says Fluttershy. “I can help you and I can fix those stitches.”

“How do I know you're real?” asks Slingshot, aiming his shotgun at her with one hand while the other is on the intercom box.

“I promise I am real, and I have friends nearby. We are all trying to get off of this ship and we can work together. You're a security officer, too. Maybe you can help me find my brother. He's a mane stylist and-”

Slingshot shakes his head and walks backwards on his feline paws towards his door, sparing a second to look over his shoulder.

“You're not real,” says Slingshot, his voice muffled by the window. “He's not real.”

He hits the holographic display on the door and it slides open to a pitch black hallway. Slingshot then backs into it and Fluttershy shakes her head, putting her hoof on the observation window.

“No, please don't go! We can help each other!” says Fluttershy.

“You're not real,” repeats Slingshot.

Slingshot disappears into the dark, and then the door closes and the blue lock flashes red, and Fluttershy sighs and heads back towards where she came from, giving the door one last look before activating her radio.

“Rainbow Dash, are you there?” asks Fluttershy.

“I'm here,” says Rainbow Dash.

“I found a survivor. He's a security guard.”

“Neat. Is he going to help you save me?”

“No. He thought I was a hallucination and ran away.”

“That sucks.”

“But I think we should find him as soon as we can.”

“Not our mission.”

“But he's a survivor! And he's not homicidal. Maybe he can give us a first hoof account of what happened here. He might even be able to help me find Zephyr, and we can all get off of this ship alive! He has to know his way around here.”

“Shy, you said he thought you were a hallucination. So, as far as I'm concerned, he's useless. But you know who's not useless? Me! And I'm still waiting on you to help me out. These things are literally banging on my window, and if I don't get out of this damn room I'm going to lose my mind!”

Fluttershy cringes.

“You gotta hurry your flank up! You're the only one I trust right now, so don't leave me!” says Rainbow Dash.

“I won't. I'm coming. Just... please be careful,” says Fluttershy.

“A little late for that.”

Rainbow Dash then disconnects, leaving Fluttershy to stand in the room in total silence. She stays like this for a moment before exiting the room, and she goes as far as she can down the hallway before taking the first left and going straight down the hallway, being sure to keep herself pressed against the wall when going underneath a vent. Much to her surprise and relief, nothing happens during this part, and when she comes across a locked door she uses her band to unlock it.

The door flashes blue and pulls apart, and before Fluttershy can move she is yanked off of her hoofs and slammed into the wall, followed by being thrown into the floor and something landing on top of her and pressing down on her throat. Her ears ring, her eyes roll and she gasps for air as her throat is squished into the floor. She tries to push off whatever is choking her, and she grinds her teeth, putting as much strength as she can into her limps as she focuses on what is in front of her. Once the figure above her becomes clear her eyes widen and she screams and kicks frantically at the frail body, and try as she might, she cannot look away from the black pools staring into her eyes.

“Make us whole,” says the Frail Stallion.

Fluttershy's heart beats slower and her vision blackens, but before she is taken she uses the last of her strength to coil her hind legs and kick the Frail Stallion in the abdomen. Her hoofs shoot straight up into the air, hitting nothing, and her vision is no longer taken up by the sunken eyes and bone tight face. Now all she sees is a burnt ceiling with popped light bulbs and hanging wires with a crackling in her ears. She stays on her back, chest heaving, throat sore and breathing ragged; even swallowing feels like she sucked down broken glass, which is not helped by her hoof rubbing her neck. After a moment of trying to catch her breath, she tilts her head to the side, then immediately gasps and scampers into the other side of the hallway.

Next to her is a line of corpses, all twisted, shriveled and black like the floor, wall and ceiling. She gulps and shakily stands up, turns on her light and shines them on the burnt bodies. From what she can tell, the corpses are mainly goats with a few equines in the line, and most are wearing lab coats.

Fluttershy shines her light down the hall, expecting to see the Pyro coming towards her, but all she sees is a door that has been sealed shut with thick strips of metal, bolts and welding. Painted on it is a message that says: DO NOT OPEN!

She is content with obeying that order.

Fluttershy continues her walk, following the path without any distraction after that, and when she reaches a large locked door with a “Medical Center” sign barely on, she stops and stares at the door. It looks undamaged, even though the hallway is littered with spent bullet casings, pools of dried blood and bullet holes. And near the door is a picture of a group of doctors whose faces have been scratched off, all posing in a tight group with medical equipment. “Here to Serve” is what the caption originally said, but it had been covered with sloppy streaks of paint, and written above it the streaks is: “LIARS!”

A clanking in the vents snaps Fluttershy away from the picture, and she aims her cutter at the ceiling, and then down the hallway, but when nothing happens she reluctantly lowers her weapon and unlocks the door with her Master Key Band. The red lock flashes blue, and after a series of clicks the door slides open.

Fluttershy hesitantly steps inside, expecting to find a massacre or some other disturbing sight. What she sees instead is a fairly intact, large room with pillars displaying flashing “EVACUATION” messages, rows of desks with loose papers and writing utensils, and computers that are flashing blue screens or flickering on and off. Near the door is a Stasis Refill Station, a bit farther down is a set of stairs leading to a second floor, and lastly is a room with a thick pane of glass and door with a red circle on it.

Fluttershy takes a deep breath and enters the room, feeling an uncomfortable and painful shiver run through her spine as her steps echo in the empty room. The door closes behind her, and her ears swivel and her eye scans the area.

As she walks through the room, the messages on the pillars flicker into the double helix for a moment, and dozens of faint voices talk over each other. The voices sound like they are right in the room with Fluttershy, and she tenses and looks around, pacing in a circle as the double helix appears on the monitors and the voices get louder.

Fluttershy closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, and when she opens them, the voices and helixes are gone, and Rainbow Dash is looking at her from the room's window. Seeing her brings a smile to Fluttershy's face, and she gallops to the window, skidding to a stop and placing her hoof on the window.

“I'm glad you're okay! Let's get out of here before more of those things show up!” says Fluttershy.

Rainbow Dash narrows her eyes, and Fluttershy's ears droop.

“Rainbow Dash?” says Fluttershy.

Rainbow Dash steps towards the window. “Look at you. You're a little freak, aint'cha? A face for radio.”

“What?”

Rainbow Dash chuckles. “Well, if you want a piece of me, you're gonna have to work for it. I'm not like those other chumps! You're gonna have to work to take me out!”

“Rainbow Dash, please!” Fluttershy puts her hoof on the other window, her eye now becoming wet with tears and panic shaking her voice. “It's me! We have to go before it is too late.”

“Just try to get in here! I dare you!” snarls Rainbow Dash. She slams her hoof against the window. “Come on! I'm right here! Come and get me!”

“Rainbow, please, I-” Her ears perk with the sudden wailing of the alarm and the room is bathed in red swirling lights as the door flash red. “Oh, come on!”

“Warning. Quarantine in effect. Please remain calm,” says a computerized voice.

Roars and howls echo from the vents, and metal breaks and clatters to the floor as shadows stretch and snap against the red tinted walls. Fluttershy growls in aggravation and slips a new battery into her cutter, her eye trailing the shadows.

“I don't have time for this,” growls Fluttershy through her gritted teeth.

A Slasher roars and leaps over the railing on the second floor, and Fluttershy shoots its limbs, making it spiral out of control and land funky on the floor. Despite its neck bending and head breaking open, it still uses its scythes and what is left of its snapped hoofs to crawl towards Fluttershy. She runs away from it and shoots at another Slasher that has jumped down, and after slicing off a few of its parts with the energy cutter she whacks it in the face with her weapon. It stumbles away with its jaw hanging loose and she gallops away, using her ATM to throw a desk at a pair of Necromorphs. The two shriek and leave a trail of blood and body parts as the desk slams into them, and Fluttershy runs up the stairs with the Necromorph swarm giving chase.

One of the Slashers reaches the second floor right as she does and tackles her to the floor. It tries biting her, but she puts her metal padded hoof in the way and pushes against it, screaming as its blades slash at her suit. She rams it into the railing, snapping its spine, and bashes its head with her cutter until its head pops off. After that, she throws the body aside and unloads on the group of Slashers running towards her in a clump.

The energy cutter runs out of battery life very quickly, and as she ejects the battery and tries to slip in a new one, a Slasher jumps on her, screaming and wrapping its hoofs around her as its large claws stab at her back. Metal scrapes as the bony claws stab at her, and some pierce the suit, slicing her skin open and the Necromorph snaps at her face, but she pushes against its throat, keeping its sharp teeth from biting her maw off as she growls painfully.

The other Slashers circle around her, trying to get a piece of her, but she turns the clingy monster to them to give them an obstacle as strings of blood flick out of her suit from the claws continuous stabbing. With pockets of sharp pain popping all over her back, Fluttershy roars, pushes the Necromorph back and punches it in the head, only to get tackled by one of the Slashers that circled her. They both tumble over the edge, and Fluttershy lands on a desk, breaking it upon impact and her energy cutter bounces away from her.

She lays there, coughing and gagging with her good wing twitching and bad wing laying flat while the Slasher that went over the rail with her thrashes on the ground, kicking and slashing at the air. Screams fill the room, and the Necromorphs leap over the railing or run down the stairs, all aiming for Fluttershy.

She groans and shoots a stasis blob at the ones jumping over, trapping a few in its aura, but a couple more land close by as she rolls to her hoofs. They, along with the one that fell with Fluttershy, rush her and she unslings her SAD rifle and sprays the area, punching large holes into their rotting bodies, and when the empty magazine fall out, she shoots another stasis blob at the other group, reloads and shoots again.

Bits of flesh and sprays of blood fly just as slow as the Necromorph's movements as the bullets tear into them. Fluttershy turns to another group and guns them down, too, and as she puts in her last magazine she sees yet another group of Slashers climbing out of the vents and rushing towards her.

Fluttershy aims her stasis module at them and fires, but it sputters and spits out a thin blue haze that quickly dissipates and the module flashes red.

The Necromorphs roar and shriek, flailing their bladed limbs, and she bolts towards the Stasis Refill Station, heart racing, breathing tight and sweat shaking off of her trembling body. She slips module into the station, and it beeps with the stasis aura surrounding the band. Gradually the Stasis Module changes from red to blue, but it might as well be crawling with how fast the Necromorph swarm is approaching her.

“Come on come on come on come on come on,” mutters Fluttershy as the blue aura seeps into her stasis module.

One of the Necromorphs throws a table aside with its massive scythe and runs faster, jaw hanging loose as it roars and slashes at the air its sharp limbs with the others following close behind. When the module beeps and flashes a bright blue, the Necromorph leaps towards Fluttershy and she jumps back, barely pulling her hoof out of the sleeve in time as the sharp appendage impales the device.

Fluttershy lands on her back and scurries away to avoid getting stabbed by another Necromorph, and the Slasher that stabbed the stasis station shrieks and jerks as sparks of electricity violently shoot out, burning it and the area around it. Burnt flesh and metal taint the air, and the machine whines and vibrates with the blue aura billowing out across the floor and in the air, trapping the swarm in its field. Then a ball of fire rolls out and Fluttershy gallops across the room, leaping over a table and tilting it over for a shield.

The room shakes from a loud pop and a shock wave with an odd mix of hot and cold rushing past Fluttershy while metal snaps and screams are abruptly cut off. A couple of seconds pass and she peeks past her cover, and her eye widens when she sees body parts, office supplies and debris crawling through a cloud of stasis aura that has engulfed much of the room. The Necromorphs are slowly flying away from the slow moving explosion, with the ones closest to the ball of fire being ripped apart by the shrapnel and broken bones, and the door to the hallway is bending away with the sparks barely moving.

A few seconds later the aura disappears and the fire rushes forward, blasting Fluttershy with a heat wave, and the Necromorphs scatter and crash into the floor, pillars or desks. The junk and body parts bounce across the room and the door screeches and jerks back and forth on its broken rails with sparks flying from every opening as the bodies and furniture break apart.

The surviving Necromorphs crawl on the floor or stagger around, groaning and hissing, and Fluttershy takes a deep breath, grabs her cutter, slips in a new battery and marches forward.

It takes only a couple of minutes to wipe out the remaining Necromorphs, and after the last of the Necromorphs are killed a happy ding echoes in the room and the lights turn from red to a soft white.

“Quarantine resolved. Thank you for your patience,” says the computerized voice.

“You're welcome,” grumbles Fluttershy as she reloads.

With the new battery in, Fluttershy sweeps the area one last time just to be safe, and when she is satisfied she gallops to the office and looks through its window. The table has been broken, the chair is against the wall, and the computer lies on the ground, its screen cracked and flickering. She shines her light along the ceiling and sees the vent is fine, and she doesn't see any blood on the wall, either, but she does hear grunting and growling.

“Rainbow Dash?” calls Fluttershy.

Rainbow Dash rolls into view, snarling and clutching her combat knife, but she slams herself on the floor and holds the hoof with the knife down, teeth grinding and eyes pinpricks. She bangs her hoof on the floor a couple of times before she rolls on her back and holds the knife above her eye, coming ever closer to gouging herself.

“Rainbow!”

Fluttershy aims unlocks the door with her Master Key Band and she rushes in and shoots Rainbow Dash with her stasis module, bringing Rainbow Dash to a near standstill, thus giving Fluttershy time to get the knife away from the trooper. A few seconds later the blue aura disappears and Rainbow Dash hits herself in the face with her hoof.

“Ow! What the-” Rainbow Dash blinks and looks at Fluttershy, sighing with relief soon after. “Jeeze. About time you showed up.”

“Rainbow, what happened?” asks Fluttershy as she helps Rainbow Dash up.

“One of those things got in the room, so I was trying to kill it. Thanks for the help, by the way. I would've gotten it, but thank you, anyway.”

Fluttershy looks around, not seeing any bodies, only wrecked furniture and the knife, and she looks at Rainbow Dash, not being shy about her confusion.

“Um, you're welcome?” says Fluttershy.

Rainbow Dash goes to the doorway, and when sees the mess she whistles and looks at Fluttershy.

“Did you do that?” asks Rainbow Dash.

Fluttershy nods.

“Nice. I didn't think you had it in you,” says Rainbow Dash.

“I've actually gotten pretty good at this,” says Fluttershy.

Rainbow Dash nods. “Cool. But now that I'm here I'll take point and we can find the others and complete the missions.”

“I found Rarity and Thunderlane. I mean, Rarity found me and brought me to Thunderlane. They are very close, and I was going to take you to them.”

“Seriously? They're close and couldn't answer my calls? What is wrong with them?”

“Well...” Fluttershy hesitates. “Rarity thinks you abandoned them, so... that... might be it?”

Rainbow Dash stares at Fluttershy, and Fluttershy stares back with a nervous smile, and then Rainbow Dash takes in a deep breath, places her hoof on Fluttershy's shoulder and pokes her in the chest.

“Okay, Shy, I'm going to lay it out for you,” begins Rainbow Dash. “Rarity lied. I would never ever abandon my team. I was trying to distract that monster, which is why I shot it in the face and got it to chase after me. I only escaped because I crawled into a vent. If I didn't do that then it would have ripped me apart like what it did to the Captain and the rest of the team.”

“... Oh...”

“Hey, chin up. Abandoning me is their problem, not yours,” says Rainbow Dash. She smiles and pats Fluttershy on the shoulder. “I'm just glad you helped me out. Heck, I'm so happy right now I could kiss you!”

Fluttershy looks away. “I-I don't think that's a good idea, right now. Maybe some other time.”

And just like that, her mouth clamps with an embarrassed squeak and she looks away with a red face, and Rainbow Dash snickers and slaps her flank with her wing.

“Spoken like a true grunt! … Hey.” Rainbow Dash slides in front of Fluttershy and moves her hoof back and forth between them. “You and me are gonna survive this mess. Then I'm gonna request a permanent transfer of you to my team, and then it will be vacation where I'll show you my favorite pub in Sparkle Station and then it's on to Cloudsdale!”

“What about the others?”

“Hey, we're all getting off this tub … But I'm definitely going to be having some words with Rarity and Thunderlane, and Applejack once we find her. And none of them are going on vacation with me. It'll just be you and me.” Rainbow Dash points at the door with her wing. “That said, lead the way. I'll keep you covered.”

Fluttershy nods, checks her energy cutter and after a deep breath she goes forward. It does not take long for them to reach the area of burnt corpses, but when they reach them Fluttershy stops and pales, and when Rainbow Dash stops next to her she cocks a brow.

“What is it?” asks Rainbow Dash.

Fluttershy points ahead. The door that had been sealed is now broken open from the other side, and near their hoofs is the “DO NOT OPEN!” sign.

Rainbow Dash looks at the sign, and then at the opening, and her and Fluttershy's ears droop and they step back as a loud growl rumbles from the room and multiple red eyes appear in the dark, and with it, a large mouth made up of twisted jaws full of razor sharp teeth.

“Oh no.”

Author's Notes:

And then Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash escaped the Bon Voyage and had super hot lesbian pegasus sex to celebrate!