“DO NOT OPEN!”

Such a simple sign with simple instructions now laid bent in front of the two pegasi, and what had once been a barrier is now a gaping hole of twisted metal and jagged edges. Light bulbs flicker in the back, giving just enough light to show a large creature with a mouth made of multiple twisted jaws with the bones jutting up like fangs. Its head has many heads of ponies, griffins, and goats fused together, with some retaining their looks of pain and horror, and others warped almost beyond recognition. Its multitude of eyes glow red and slobber drips from its large, deformed mouth as it steps into the hallway on four legs, made up of twisted limbs, spiny bones and strands of flesh wrapped around each other. On its chest are pulsing bags of yellow puss and green acid, all of which are shielded by thick ribs. It's throat vibrates as it releases a shaky roar, and the two mares step back, eyes wide and colors drained from their faces.

“Oh no,” says Fluttershy.

“Run!” yells Rainbow Dash.

The Uber Puker charges them, shaking the hall with every step, and the two mares shriek and bolt down the hallway, not looking back even though the shaking is getting closer. They gallop down the hallway, taking the first sharp turn they can, and the area shakes at the large Necromorph slams into the wall, bringing the lights to flicker and some bulbs to shatter. The roar hurts Fluttershy's ears and the taste of hot iron burns her tongue and throat.

They take another turn and gallop down the hallway, towards a large door that is rapidly snapping open and shut with blood splattered on its edges. Fluttershy shoots a Stasis blob at it, and upon impact the door's rapid speed drops to a crawl, allowing the two ponies to go through. Though, once they enter they find themselves in a dark lobby with dim orange lights, broken benches and scattered luggage. A gaping hole is in the ceiling, and flickering advertisements blocked by cracks and blood splatter. At the far end is a crooked door that leads to an outside platform with the trolley pulling to a stop with its door opened and a “Next Stop. Section F” scrolling across its message board. There are also Slasher Necromorphs walking around the lobby in a daze, and at first they don't see them, but when the Uber Puker slams into the door and begins tearing it off of its rail, the screeching metal and electric discharge brings the group to look in their direction. Then they scream and charge the two pegasi, and Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash run forward, not looking back as metal snaps and a thud echoes in the room.

The two weave in between the Slashers as the sharp appendages sweep at them, and they leap over the benches and rush towards the trolley with the swarm giving chase and the room shaking from the Uber Puker.

They get outside, and the trolley dings and starts sliding forward as its door closes, and Fluttershy narrows her eye and puts every bit of energy she can into her legs while Rainbow Dash zips ahead with a rainbow trail in her wake. Rainbow Dash easily makes it on the trolley and holds the door open, bringing the trolley to stop, and she extends her free hoof to Fluttershy.

“Come on! Hurry!” orders Rainbow Dash.

Fluttershy takes a running leap into the trolley, and Rainbow Dash hits the emergency close switch next to the door, bringing it to slam shut as a Slasher runs into it face first. The Slasher screams and stabs at the door while the trolley pulls forward, making a pleasant ding as it goes.

“Next stop. Section F,” says the trolley's computerized voice.

The glass suddenly shatters and Necromorphs scream as they cram against and bully each other to get in. The interior lights of the trolley snap to red and a screeching alarm sounds as white lights flash inside and the trolley snaps to a standstill. Then the trolley shakes as the Uber Puker leaps on its roof with more Necromorphs climbing on it, causing it to shake and more glass to shatter as their deformed limbs break through.

“WARNING: Conditions unsafe. Brakes engaged,” says the computer voice.

Fluttershy launches a Stasis ball at the nearest Slasher in the swarm, which have crowded into the broken windows, and she follows with a salvo of cutter beams as Rainbow Dash runs to the control panel of the trolley. There, she quickly and sloppily starts pushing every button, turning every dial and pulling every lever she can, bringing the lights to change from red and white, to rotating tropical flower themes, to black with swirling stars, to disco, with each light having a matching theme of music to go with it while the alarm continues on.

Back in the passenger area, the Slashers have gotten inside, but a few dead Necromorphs lay in front of Fluttershy while large claws tear into the roof. Now Fluttershy is wrestling with a Slasher that lost one of its scythe limbs, keeping its other one from piercing her face. Not too far from her, her energy cutter is laying on the floor, getting kicked around by the abominations that are trying to get to her, but she is forcing her current target to block them by sweeping it side to side.

“What are you doing!?” yells Fluttershy as a mix of screeching alarms and disco music plays over the speakers with a collection of red, blue, orange, and green dots rolling around the interior.

“I'm trying to get this thing to move!” shouts Rainbow Dash.

With a sharp twist, Fluttershy snaps off the Slasher's scythe, and then stabs it in the face with the sharp bone. While it recoils she unslings her shotgun and shoots it in the chest, followed by blowing the leg off of another Slasher that is charging her, and after that she turns and whacks another Slasher away with her weapon before shooting another one.

“Hurry up!” snaps Fluttershy.

“Hey, don't tell me what to do!” counters Rainbow Dash.

Rainbow Dash pushes another set of buttons and the trolley lurches forward, causing Rainbow Dash to lose her balance, and right as it pulls away from the station a Leaper jumps on the window. Rainbow Dash curses, and the window cracks from the Leapers claws; then it roars, coils it sharp tail, and stabs the windshield. The tail breaks through, and Rainbow Dash draws her pistol and puts two in its chest and one in its head, but all it does it make it mad and lead to the cracks on the window spreading. It growls and stabs the window again, and as the trolley passes another platform two more Leapers grab on to the trolley.

“WARNING: Emergency Brake disabled. WARNING: Brakes disabled. WARNING: High Speed mode activated. WARNING: Trolley damaged. WARNING: Connector damaged. WARNING: Trolley over capacity. WARNING: Passengers in imminent danger. Please see Transportation Supervisor for termination and prosecution.”

“Yeah, I'll get right on that!” says Rainbow Dash.

The Leaper stabs the window again, and it shatters, bringing in a rush of wind and glass to scatter on the floor. The Leapers crawl inside, their clawed hoofs tearing into the control panel or digging into the ceiling, and Rainbow Dash expands her wings and scrapes her hoof on the floor, snarling.

“Come and get some!” snarls Rainbow Dash.

Fluttershy screams in pain as the sharp curved bones of a Slasher cuts through what is left of her armor, and she retaliates by freezing it with a Stasis blob and rolls away from it while two more Slashers give chase to her. She stops by her energy cutter and uses her shotgun against the remaining Slashers as fast as the weapon can pump while Rainbow Dash wrestles with the Leapers with unpleasant results.

BLAM-shick

BLAM-shick

BLAM-shick

BLAM-shick

Click-shick

The group of Slashers drop with chunks of flesh and severed limbs scattered everywhere and the trolley's interior is splashed with their rust colored blood. Fluttershy returns the shotgun to her saddle, picks up her energy cutter and executes the last Slasher as it is on its final stages of thawing out, dropping hard and fast when Fluttershy passes it. She then shoots at the Leapers that are gnawing on Rainbow Dash's armored hind legs or scratching at her vest. One of the Leapers has its tail and limb severed, and a chunk of its body sliced off in a volley of red beams. The second Leaper looks up, and jumps towards Fluttershy, but before it can bite her she punches it down and empties the last of her battery into it. With that Leaper dead, Fluttershy reloads and Rainbow Dash bashes the last Leaper in the head with her hoof, and then she forces it on its back and stomps on its head until it is flat. By the time she is done, Rainbow Dash is shaking and dripping with blood, and she laughs shakily as she backs away.

“Ha! I-I lived! I lived again!” laughs Rainbow Dash. “Did you see how awesome I was? I was awesome!”

A chunk of the roof is suddenly torn open, and the Uber Puker's face appears, mouth open and drool dripping down, and it looks right at Fluttershy before it barfs out the acid vomit. Fluttershy dives out of the way while the acid lands on a bench and dissolves its foamy guts and plastic exterior, and when she gets back on her hoofs she shoots at it with her energy cutter. The Uber Puker roars and retreats, but its hind legs are still in view of the passenger window, which Fluttershy takes the opportunity to shoot them as well, bringing the limbs to jerk up and the trolley to shake from the shift in weight. The disco and emergency lights flicker and flash rapidly, and the music and alarms turn to disjointed buzzes of various volume levels as sparks fall all around the pair of pegasi, then a chunk of the roof is peeled back and the Uber Puker's mutated face returns.

“Damn it!” yells Rainbow Dash.

She and Fluttershy shoot at the beast, tearing into the roof and its chitin with a mix of bullets and cutter beams. Sparks and bits of bone and flesh fall, and the Uber Puker shrieks before spraying acid at them, forcing the two to jump away as the green liquid splashes on the floor, Slasher corpses and windows. The metal bubbles and snaps, and the windows shatter while steam rises and the stench of melting metal and boiling flesh fills Fluttershy's nose.

Once Fluttershy is back on her hoofs she aims her cutter at the beast, but before she can shoot it there is a metallic snap and she is forced off balance by a sudden drop. The trolley shakes and tilts to the side, knocking her and Rainbow Dash into the benches, followed by a loud groan and another snap that causes the trolley to take a sharp dip backwards.

Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash scream and tumble down with the dead Slashers, but while Rainbow Dash is able to grab a bench Fluttershy tumbles down the aisle. Everything is a blur for her as flickering lights, sparks and metal rush past her, and then she lands on the emergency back door, causing its window to break and the door to snap open, leading to the corpses to spill out. She is barely able to hook her front hoofs on the broken frame, and her back legs dangle as the door swings from her weight and the trolley's continued path down the track.

“WARNING: Stand by for emergency system shut down,” says a computerized voice, its voice fuzzy and changing volumes. “ERROR. Emergency shut down offline. Please use manual shut down. ERROR: Manual shut down not detected.”

“Hang on, Fluttershy!” shouts Rainbow Dash.

Fluttershy looks to the side and sees two Leapers climbing on the wall of the Bon Voyage. When the trolley is close enough they jump towards it, and even though Fluttershy is dangling she still tries to shoot them with her cutter, but she misses all but one shot shot. However, that one shot is enough to send one of the Leapers spinning off course to splatter below, but the other one still latches on to the trolley and climbs up, quickly going out of sight.

Fluttershy's growls painfully from the burning in her joints burn, and she seethes and slips her cutter back in place before her other hoof grabs her ledge, and as this happens the screech of ripping metal clashes with the howling wind, and Rainbow Dash swears as the Uber Puker and the Leaper scream. Gunshots ring out, and as soon as Fluttershy looks up she swings herself to the side to avoid being hit by a bleeding Leaper that tumbles past her. She looks down and watches the Necromorph splatter down below with a horde of Necromorphs filling the bottom, and she looks up again and sees Rainbow Dash shooting at the Uber Puker as it crawls along the torn roof. The bullets do little to hurt its chitin armor, and Fluttershy's heart races as she tries to pull herself up, but the hinges snap, and she shrieks from the door's sharp, angular dip.

The door groans again and pieces of the remaining hinge pop off, bringing Fluttershy to grit her teeth and strain herself as she climbs up, battling the rushing wind and the swinging of the door. More screws pop out, and another piece of metal snaps, and Fluttershy screams as she stretches her hoof out as far as she can go. She hooks her hoof on the doorway, then locks her muscles as the door finally breaks off and tumbles below.

Fluttershy's heart races as her body dangles, and everything feels like it is rushing to her throat while her damaged mane slaps against her face, and despite the pain ripping her muscles and joints she manages to pull herself inside the wrecked trolley. Once she is inside she flops on her back, mouth open to swallow air, and she presses her energy cutter against her chest as it rapidly rises and falls with her heart racing.

Near her, Rainbow Dash climbs down and shoots at the Uber Puker again, and she leaps to the benches across from her when the large creature sprays a stream of acid at her. Her previous perch shrivels and dissolves, and while the chunks tumbling down, Fluttershy shoots at the Necromorph with her energy cutter, forcing it to climb out of sight; but with the shift comes a violent shaking for the trolley.

“Fluttershy!” calls Rainbow Dash.

Fluttershy looks at her partner and sees she is still climbing towards her, and Fluttershy begins climbing up. Every move hurts, every shift of her joints brings a throbbing pain to her, but she keeps climbing one bench at a time. She only stops to shoot at the Uber Puker when it breaks open the side of the trolley and tries to crawl in, but it retreats and scrambles up the side after Fluttershy unloads the last of the battery power into its chest, limbs and face, popping some of its eyes in the process. But while the Uber Puker climbs up there another loud snap, and before Fluttershy can make so much as a thought she is lifted in the air with Rainbow Dash, bounces between a pair of benches and grabs a piece of the broken roof as the metallic walls zoom up.

“Oh shiiiiiiiiiiiit!” yells Rainbow Dash over the rushing wind while she holds on to a bench.

The end is as sudden as the beginning, and Fluttershy is flung into the air when the trolley hits the floor. Everything spins and her terrified is screaming is abruptly cut off when she lands far from the wreckage with a loud crunch. Fluttershy rolls across the floor, body getting stabbed by sharp jabs of pain and her vision flashing in and out as a messy blur of gray, orange and red spins past her. When she stops, she is laying on her side and her mouth is hanging open, her both of her wings hang limply and her lungs and throat feel stuffed. She wants to move, but cannot, and she wants to scream, but nothing comes out. Her vision is wet and bloody, and she can only watch the trolley. It is standing upright, back end squished and the remains of the gears mangled; the vehicle groans and sparks, and then it flops with a loud thud that sends glass and sparks towards Fluttershy while its bottom faces the ceiling.

Fluttershy extends her shaky and bleeding hoof, vision pulsing and her breath short and sharp while the smoke from the fire spreads all around like a fog from Hell.

“Rainbow...” gasps Fluttershy. “... Rainbow, no... No, please... No...”

“Make us whole again,” whispers a collection of voices.

Fluttershy pushes herself up, grabs her cutter and hobbles towards the wreckage as a group of red blurs with black orbs for eyes gallop towards her in the fog, screaming and flailing their curved limbs. Fluttershy slips a new battery in her cutter and shoots each of them, causing them break apart into dust, and with the blurry creatures gone a crackling fills her ears as a radio display appears in front of her.

“I'm sure he's fine. Colony ships frequently lose contact in the Onyx System. That place is a dead space,” says a mare.

“I-I'm sorry, but this just... just... this feels different. Please, I need to go,” says Fluttershy.

“You never answer, never called. Why did you come now?” says Zephyr.

Fluttershy keeps limping towards the wreckage, which does not seem to be getting closer, only farther, and after a few paces she is knocked flat on her back. A blurry creature with black eyes and its maw hanging loose presses its bulky hoofs on her barrel and screams as it raises its scythe limbs, which barely holds together in its foggy state. Fluttershy shoots its barrel, face and limbs with sporadic shots, and while it dissolves off of her she pushes herself up and limps forward.

Blood and sweat wet Fluttershy's face as she sweeps her weapon through the fog which is now pocketed with slow pulsing red lights that gradually form silhouettes of three pegasi sitting at a table.

“We only want what is best for you,” says a soft spoken stallion.

“Please don't be mad,” says an equally soft mare.

“But that was my dream,” says Fluttershy.

“You can have a better one with us,” says the stallion.

Fluttershy turns away from the silhouettes, and the voices are replaced with an applause and celebratory whistles, and the area shakes as the pulsing lights return to form a towering double helix with glowing white hieroglyphs.

“Praise the Great Marker! Unity is forever!” shouts a mare charismatically, whose words are met with a roaring cheer that makes the radio display flicker out for a moment.

“Do you remember that? Unity is forever,” says a stern stallion.

Fluttershy's heart races, and she hastily turns away from the Marker and hurries towards the direction of the wreckage, but the wreckage is a speck in the distance that only seen in the thick fog because of the sparks and flames licking the air. But as she limps through the fog, red masses with black eyes run towards her, quickly forming into deformed beasts with sharp limbs protruding from their backs with more voices breaching the crackling of her radio.

“One mind. One soul. One flesh.”

“Do not be afraid.”

“Make us whole again.”

“Stop it!” cries Fluttershy.

One of the red masses rushes her, and she side steps its slash, slams her cutter against its skull and as it staggers away she shoots another mass in its legs before turning her cutter on her first target's head. Both masses dissolve with hieroglyphs spreading out and fading.

“Return to us.”

“Be whole with us.”

Fluttershy growls and guns down another pair of screaming ghostly figures before having to reload. As she reloads, one of the figures jumps on her back, and she buckles and screams as teeth sink into her collar, soaking her shoulder and neck in hot blood. Her hoofs shake as she slips the new batter in, and then she presses her cutter against the ghostly figure's skull and pulls the trigger. The creature jerks off of her, and she turns around and shoots it limbs off, turning it into a dissolving husk. After that creature disappears, Fluttershy turns back to the wreckage, which is not even fifty feet away now. Her chest and throat is heavy, her heart thumps in her ears, and her bloody mouth hangs open from her panting as sweat and blood drips off of her. Every step is a sharp jab of pain that brings a whimper out of her, but right as she is about to reach the wreckage, the smashed trolley pulls away from her.

“But you cleansed your soul,” says the soft stallion. “You are one with the Church.”

“What did we do wrong?” sniffles the soft mare.

“I'm sorry. Please don't leave me,” begs Zephyr.

“Make us whole again,” chants a swarm of voices.

“Get out of my head!” yells Fluttershy.

More blurs rush towards her, and she shoots a few of them before beating down the last one. After the last one is beaten into dust, Fluttershy drops down to her haunches, panting and pressing her cutter against her ear while her other hoof struggles to hold her up. Her eyes are wet and heavy when she looks at the wreckage, which is now directly in front of her, and the Frail Stallion is also standing in front of her, looking at her with its black pool of eyes. The Frail Stallion walks towards her, and she grits her teeth and pulls the trigger of her energy cutter, but all there is is a series of empty clicks. The Frail Stallion continues his approach, and Fluttershy ejects her empty battery, quickly slips in a new one and when she brings her weapon up Rainbow Dash pushes it aside just in time to divert the shot away from her.

“Whoa, careful with that thing!” snaps Rainbow Dash, who is bloodied and bruised, but her intact wings are stiff and ready to launch her into the air. “Come on, we need to get out of here!”

Rainbow Dash pulls Fluttershy close to her chest before she can prepare, and then they are launched herself in the air with a loud boom and a circle of dust rolling out from where they used to be. The walls and dim lights become a blur as the two travel through the Bon Voyage, and Fluttershy looks down, gasping when she sees the swarm of Necromorphs circling the smashed trolley.

Fluttershy tightens her grip around Rainbow Dash's neck and hips, and she closes her eyes when the trooper swoops over the sparking trolley rail. When she opens her eyes again she looks down and watches a group of Necromorphs roaming around on another platform. Thankfully Rainbow Dash flies over them, and when they come to the Section E Platform the prismatic pegasus dips and they have a hard landing on the platform. The two bounce and roll across the metal floor, and when they stop Fluttershy is on her side and Rainbow Dash is on her back, laughing.

“Holy shit,” laughs Rainbow Dash. “Ho-Lee. Shit! That was nuts!”

Fluttershy pushes herself up, having to use a bench for support to keep her wobbly legs up, and Rainbow Dash rolls on her stomach and grins at Fluttershy.

“I gotta say, I'm impressed,” says Rainbow Dash. “I mean, no offense, but when I first saw you I thought, 'Man, how can a pansy like this get in the Corpse?'. But after all that has happened today we might have to clone you.”

Fluttershy wants to say something, anything, but since her tongue is not working she just settles with a nod, and Rainbow Dash hops to her hoofs and trots towards Fluttershy. While the trooper trots towards her, Fluttershy looks past her shoulder to the darkness of the lobby beyond the broken door, then her eyes flick up to see a camera above the doorway. She scrunches her brows at that, but she snaps to Rainbow Dash when she stops in front of her.

“Hey, just because we may not be able to do this for a while,” starts Rainbow Dash.

“Do what?” asks Fluttershy.

Rainbow Dash's hoof cups the back of Fluttershy's head and then she roughly presses her lips against Fluttershy's.

Fluttershy's eye bulges, cheeks and ears heat up, and her lips lock while Rainbow Dash tries to force them open, but her attempts do not last long, for she pull away a few seconds later, licking her lips with a teasing smile.

“Yeah, we'll need to work on that,” says Rainbow Dash.

“Wha-wha.... What the heck?” sputters Fluttershy. She wipes her mouth. “What was that!?”

“Hey, I said I wanted to kiss you when you saved me, and after all the crap that we just survived I figured why not now? Besides, its not like anybody is watching us.”

Fluttershy points to the camera above the broken door, and after Rainbow Dash looks at it she shrugs dismissively and turns back to Fluttershy.

“They probably liked it,” says Rainbow Dash. “Also, I know a couple of guys back at Sparkle Station that are friends with benefits, so when this is all over you and I are going to go on vacation, hit the best bar on my tab and then we're gonna get laid!”

This brings Fluttershy to scrunching her muzzle with a red hot face, and Rainbow Dash turns around and brushes her tail under Fluttershy's nose before trotting forward, which brings the medic to shudder and shake her head.

'Of all the times to do this...' thinks Fluttershy.

“Well, that's enough lolly gagging for us. Gotta get back to the team for a meeting!” says Rainbow Dash.

Fluttershy composes herself with a sigh, and then she limps after Rainbow Dash, but stops when the trooper halts and slaps herself on the forehead.

“Oh, what am I doing,” says Rainbow Dash. “You know where Rarity and Thunderlane are hiding. You gotta lead the way.”

Fluttershy stares at Rainbow Dash for a few seconds before she nods and walks ahead, squinting her eye to see in the dark and hoping for an easy trip on the ship for once.

And for once Fluttershy has an easy trip through the Bon Voyage. The trip back to Rarity and Thunderlane's room had no troubles, aside from killing a couple of straggling Slashers, but with Rainbow Dash's help the Slashers went down hard and fast. When they reach the break room Fluttershy is relieved to see the door is still red and there are no signs of any Necromorphs trying to get in, and she uses her Master Key Band to unlock the door. The door slides open, and once the two pegasi are inside Fluttershy closes and locks the door.

In the back, Thunderlane is still working on his giant bomb, but he stops as soon as he sees the two mares.

“Rainbow Dash? Fluttershy? You're actually alive!” says Thunderlane cheerfully.

Fluttershy feels slightly insulted by that, but she keeps her mouth shut while Rainbow Dash forces a smile and walks forward, leaving Fluttershy by the door. A moment later, Rarity comes out of the bathroom, and her posture perks when she sees Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash.

“Oh my goodness, you made it! I was getting worried,” says Rarity. “You both look like you can use a good night's sleep and a week at a spa.”

Rainbow Dash's smile grows, but while the vibrant pegasus smiles, a cold weight drops in Fluttershy's gullet, and from the increasingly nervous expression of the other two she can tell they are all feeling the same thing.

“There's my team!” says Rainbow Dash brightly as she continues walking. She stops in the center of the room looks around, nodding approvingly. “Wow, you two were busy collecting stuff. I mean you got food, medicine, batteries... fuel...” She taps an ammo box with her hoof. “Bullets... It's like you were too busy to answer my distress calls.”

The smiles from the other two are now gone, and they exchange quick looks before Rarity speaks.

“Rainbow, we didn't hear any distress calls from you,” says Rarity. “If we did, we would have come right to you.”

“Rarity! Oh, Rarity, my good... loyal friend, Rarity. So loyal in fact that you completely ignored me when I was trapped just down the hallway,” says Rainbow Dash.

“Rainbow, we really didn't hear anything,” says Thunderlane.

“I wasn't talking to you!”

Thunderlane clamps his mouth shut and Fluttershy's eye darts between the two while Rainbow Dash turns her focus to Rarity.

“Rarity, have I ever abandoned you?” asks Rainbow Dash.

Rarity shakes her head, and Rainbow Dash tilts her head to the side with her wing to her ear.

“What's that?” says Rainbow Dash. “I didn't hear you.”

“N-No,” says Rarity quietly.

“No? Never?”

“Never.”

“After all the years we worked together, have I ever been a coward?”

“No.”

“Never?”

Rarity swallows.

“Never!?” shouts Rainbow Dash.

Rarity shakes her head. “N-Never. Never.”

Before anybody can blink, Rarity is on her back and Rainbow Dash is on top of her, pinning Rarity's head down with one hoof while pressing her hips down on her so she cannot move.

“Then why did you call me a coward, huh?” snarls Rainbow Dash.

“Rainbow, wait a second,” says Fluttershy.

She hastily steps forward, but stops when Rainbow Dash whips out her pistol and aims it at her, and then she presses it against Rarity's head, bringing Fluttershy to gasp and Thunderlane jump up with his hoof extended.

“Rainbow, stop!” yells Thunderlane while Rarity whimpers and squeezes her eyes shut.

“Rainbow, please stop!” says Fluttershy.

“Calling me a coward when you never answered my calls!” screams Rainbow Dash. Her pupils have shrunken to pinpricks and is putting pressure on Rarity's skull. “I almost died for you and this is the thanks I get!?”

“Rainbow, don't do this,” begs Fluttershy. “She didn't mean it.”

“Say it! Call me a coward again! Say it to my face! I dare you! I fucking dare you!”

Rainbow Dash is then knocked off Rarity from Thunderlane ramming into her, and as her weapon skids across the floor Rarity scrambles up and shrinks behind Fluttershy.

“Please stop this!” begs Fluttershy.

Thunderlane is quickly punched in the jaw and kicked off by Rainbow Dash, and while he recuperates from the metal boot breaking his teeth, she slams him into the ground and presses her hoof down on his throat.

“You left me, too!” screams Rainbow Dash over his gags and weakening attempts to kick her off. “Was I not good enough for you!? Am I not good enough for any of you!?”

“ENOUGH!”

The voice is loud enough to rattle the room, and Rainbow Dash jumps off of Thunderlane with her ears and wings stiff and her wide eyes on Fluttershy, who is shaking and seething with her teary eye focused on Rainbow Dash.

“Just stop! … Please,” says Fluttershy.

Rainbow Dash backs away from Thunderlane, and he gets up and rubs his throat, coughing and wheezing for air. As he does this, Rainbow Dash looks at him, then at Rarity, and then at Fluttershy.

“Are you going against me, too, Fluttershy?” asks Rainbow Dash.

“Nopony is against you,” says Fluttershy. “We all want to get out of here, and I need to find Zephyr, and that can't happen if we are fighting.”

“Rainbow, I don't think you're well,” says Thunderlane with his hoof covering his bloody mouth. “I think this ship's gotten to you.”

Rainbow Dash snaps her wing up, blocking him from her sight while she keeps her eyes on Fluttershy, but says nothing.

“Rainbow... Breathe... Just breathe,” says Fluttershy. “We're all friends here.”

Fluttershy glances at Thunderlane, who is wiping the blood from his mouth, and after spitting out a broken tooth he gives Rainbow Dash a cold look.

“Yeah, we're friends,” says Thunderlane.

“Yes, we're all friends,” says Rarity, though she has yet to stop using Fluttershy as a shield.

Several seconds of silence pass, and Rainbow Dash snorts and walks into the bathroom, and when she closes the door the circle flashes red and “Occupied” appears above the door. Fluttershy looks at the bathroom for a few seconds, and when Rarity sulks away from her, she watches the unicorn shakily plug her hoofpad into a terminal and start typing in commands.

“Rarity, are you okay?” asks Fluttershy.

“No time for small talk,” interrupts Rarity. “I have to see what other part of this ship aren't destroyed. It can give us a path to the bridge and clues to Applejack's whereabouts.”

Fluttershy nods, and she goes to Thunderlane; he is back to working on his bomb, face twisted from pain, and he glances at her when she stands next to him. She opens her mouth, closes it, paws the floor awkwardly and looks at the bathroom door before looking at Thunderlane again.

“Nothing happened between us. We're strictly professional,” says Thunderlane.

“Oh... That's good... Are you okay?” asks Fluttershy.

Thunderlane points to an area where a bunch of crates have been pushed together. “Just sit over there, please. I got to finish this bomb.”

Fluttershy stands silent and still for a few seconds, and then she goes to the crates and lays down on them with her hoofs folded under her head and her ears drooped. After that, she exhales and looks at the pair one last time before she closes her eye.

Author's Notes:

So now both of her wings no longer functioning and the hallucinations are getting worse... She'll be fine.

But in all seriousness, I'm glad this chapter is done. That makes it all but Applejack reunited, and the story can continue.
So what will become of our heroes?
Will they get the signal out?
Will they find Applejack?
Will they make it off as a team with the power of friendship and grit?
One or none of these questions may be answered next time on Dead Space: Forsaken!