The place she found was dark. Very dark. Searing cast a light spell and the darkness, for the first time in thousands of years, receded just a bit. She was expecting dust, and there was some, but not as much as the bunker she had been relocated to.

She stood on a catwalk that went over a chasm to an opening in the cliff on the other side. She looked down and, even with her light spell, couldn't see the bottom. "I'll just go across now." A moment later, she had the saddlebags on and was walking. "Don't worry about the fall, just go across," she repeatedly said as she walked over the chasm.

It felt like nearly an hour, but was really just over a minute. The sound of her hooves hitting the metal path echoing in the vast space did little to soothe her nerves. It wasn't until she was on more solid footing that she relaxed. "Okay, that was. . . Why would anypony build something like that? Must have been some geniuses that thought of it."

Five brilliant scientists and engineers looked out a window and into the darkness that was outside their underground lab. All of them were drunk. "Hey, guys. . . *hic* what if we build a. . . a. . . a um. . . over to there?" One stallion drunkenly said.

"A bridge?" A drunk mare suggested.

"No, no. . . Those things in the big big rooms. On the walls. You walk on them. Kittypaths. . ."

"A catwalk?" Another drunk stallion asked.

"That's what he said," a second drunk mare said.

"I'M DRUNK!" The third stallion drunkenly said. Have we mentioned that they're drunk scientists and engineers? Because they are. "LET'S DO IT!"

Searing looked around for something she could use as a landmark in case there were other stupidly placed catwalks. Finding nothing she could use, she did the next best thing and carefully burned her cutie mark onto the floor, along with an arrow pointing to the catwalk. "Okay. . . Which way to go?" She looked left and saw doors in a curving hallway. She looked right and saw doors in a curving hallway. She decided to go right.

Each door she tried to open was locked, and labelled with writing that she didn't recognize. "Why are they all locked? Buck it. I'm cutting through this one." She powered up her heat beam and started cutting around the door knob. When the cut was complete, the door slowly swung inward with a groan and the mechanism fell to the floor.

Out of curiosity, she picked up the portion of the door she'd cut out. The part that was inside had a little part that, when she turned it, unlocked the door. Well, it would have if it was still attached to the door. "Hmm. . . Nah." She set the piece down and went into the room.

It was very much a science room. Beakers, vials, tubes, pipes, all kinds of stuff. There was even a display of some kind against a wall, and it had a skeleton of some kind of creature she didn't recognize. Long hind legs, a pair of arms with claws, a decently lengthy neck with a long skull filled with pointed teeth, and a long tail to balance the pony height creature out. "What were you?" She did not know that it was a faux bone model of what some scientist dreamed up. She found herself strangely fascinated by it, and eventually decided to just take it.

To her surprise when she picked it up with her magic, the display case wasn't secured to anything. She still moved it very carefully, especially through the doorway. After setting it down, Searing went back into the room to look at a circular diagram next to the doorway that caught her interest. It looked like a series of segmented rings with a few lines coming off the outside, and a downward triangle in one spot near the outer edge. "Is. . . Is that a map?" Nobody answered her. "It probably is."

After checking the room for anything else of interest and finding nothing, Searing went back out into the hall and brought the skeleton display back to the mark she left. To her surprise, there was a bright red card there with her cutie mark on it. After setting her first piece of loot down, she opened the card.

Hey Searing, Discord here. I just realized I never told you how powerful those saddlebags of yours are. Just take whatever you get and stick it in, even if it's bigger than you. It won't add much weight to the bags.

Oh, stare at these blacked out words for a bit.

Once again, there is pain.
I bring flames, I bring cold.
I'm the blood red sandman, coming home.
On this unholy night, I will make you my own.
Blood red sandman, coming home again.
I'm coming home again.

As soon as that tingling feeling in your eyes goes away, you will be able to read everything here.

Fun fact! Yang can read everything here already because, conveniently, it's the same writing and language as where she's from. This means you two can share secret notes now, and isn't that just sweet?

Searing blinked repeatedly as the tingling feeling in her eyes slowly faded. Part of her wanted to scream from what she'd somehow read, but her boot camp discipline kept her from that. As soon as the feeling was gone, she looked at the display and read the placard on the bottom. "What's a. . . Velociraptor?"

Searing decided to leave the display where it was as a landmark. She went back to the room she'd gotten it from and saw that the circular diagram was a map of the Terra Technology and Science labs. She was on the bottom level, and the area she was in was the Artificial Genesis section. "What does that even mean?" Searing asked as she stared at the map, possibly hoping it would give her the answers she sought.

It never gave her any answers, but she did notice an adjacent area in the direction she was heading labelled 'Armor and Armaments,' and that caught her attention. It happened to be just a few doors down, too.

Searing read the doors out loud as she passed them. "Personnel Resources, break room, cryopre. . . Cryoprese. . . Cry-o-pre-ser-va-tion." If she hadn't already stopped to try and figure out the word, it would have frozen her in her tracks anyways. "I wonder what's in here?"

One cutting beam later, the door opened for her. The room had long lost most of its deeper cold, but it was still cold. Around the room were various pods that looked big enough to hold a pony, and all of them were closed. In the middle of the room were various frozen, legible documents on the theoretical uses for cryopreservation and cold. "Advanced computer cooling, trench reinforcement, waste management, wide area internal temperature control, weather manipulation, engine and machine cooling. . . I don't understand this."

She went over to one of the pods, labelled 'Stasis 1,' and got her magic under the lid. She had no idea what was inside, but feared the worst. With some effort, she broke the latch. After taking a breath to steel herself, she opened the pod.

The contents were not what she was expecting. Instead of a frozen alicorn made from stitched together ponies, she found a chocolate hoofball shaped trophy on top of five frozen pizzas. ". . . What?" The next pod she opened had a stack of frozen meals in it. The next, a colored ice sculpture of Celestia and Luna. A stack of cookbooks with easy microwave recipes. A busted can of smelly fuel. An alarm clock. An equinoid robot figure that looked like it was made of multiple vehicles. "Why are these all here?"

A scientist solemnly stepped into the Cryopreservation lab, his head hung in defeat and his hooves heavy with sorrow. "Bad news, everyone." He quickly had everyone's attention. "The stasis project is cancelled. Management says we've had too many shattered test subjects, so we have to repurpose or dismantle."

"I'm on it!" Another stallion said, quickly sitting down at the table and writing down ideas. "Hey, do you think we could get a kitchen installed in here?"

Searing decided to get the toy robot and alarm clock, putting both in the saddlebags. She also decided she'd had enough of the chilly room, went back to the hall, and continued on her way to her original destination.

Three doors and five minutes of walking later, she found the door she was looking for: Armor and Armaments. One cutting beam later, and she was in a foyer with a very secure steel door in front of her and a security booth behind a pane of tough looking glass. In the booth, she could see a regular door that was slightly ajar.

The choice was easy. The frame holding the glass in was weak, so it was easy enough to inflict a little damage and remove the glass. One jump later, she was on the other side and in the lab's reception area in short order. All around the lab stood mannequins of various species with armor on display, each one inside an intact display case and paired with at least one weapon. Some were even proportioned and built similarly to Yang, hands included. All of them had labels that the armor and weapons were not models or replicas, but fully functional.

Some of the armor sets had titles or names on placards. Charge. Discharge. Mach. Freeze. Artillery. Phoenix. Barrier. Spin. Stinger. Blade. Swarm. Copy. Caster. Stealth. Each one looked like something out of an action comic book.

One display case, more artfully made than the others she'd seen, stopped her in her tracks. The armor inside, titled Fireblast, looked like it was made just for her. Bright red metal over a black material, bits of gold on the armor, a few blue details, and sized perfectly, so she hoped. On either side of it were weapons. To the right was a sword grip and hilt with no blade. It looked more like a fancy metal club than anything, though. To the left was a pair of matching weapons that she did not recognize, though she knew what the black and yellow stripes meant, and that just made her want it more. The things looked longer than Yang was tall.

It didn't take long to come to a decision. "I'm taking you." The display case, like the Velociraptor skeleton's, wasn't secured to anything. Tentatively, she tried to put it in her saddlebag, and was pleasantly surprised to see it shrink down and fit with no problem. She barely noticed the weight it added either. "But why stop at just one? It's armor time!" Searing went around and gathered up the unsecured displays, sparing none. Every bit of armor and every weapon, even ones that she didn't understand, or weren't even for her species, was collected.

Searing was happy.

She was just about to go back through the security booth window when she thought she heard a growl. "That's just my imagination, right?" A mighty roar shook the glass that she'd removed. "Nope!" She zipped back inside and closed the door behind her. She took refuge behind the reception desk. "Okay, what exactly do I have?" She set her saddlebags down and fished out the Fireblast display. She had all of ten seconds to look at the shrunken display before it quickly grew back to its original size.

Opening the case was actually pretty easy, consisting of one long latch along one side. She floated out the club-looking weapon and inspected it. "Please tell me this isn't just-" She accidentally flipped a low profile switch and felt a sizable amount of her magic get drained into the weapon. When the drain was done, leaving her with only enough for telekinesis and light, a long, broad red blade and a few similar guards on the hilt appeared. "O-o-o-o-o-hhhhhh! It is a sword!"

Another monstrous roar shook the area, snapping Searing from most of her happiness induced high. She was fully back to earth when she heard something pounding on the steel door, shaking it with every impact. With the sword at her side, she peeked up just in time to see the door get pulled off by a pair of massive, shadowy hands before getting tossed aside.

What stepped through was a thing built like a gorilla, covered with bone armor and ominously glowing red. It roared again and pounded its chest, staring straight at Searing.

The unicorn did not hesitate to send her new sword forward, in spite of the fear coursing through her. The blade effortlessly slid into the shadowy gorilla's head, and it died on the spot. "Woah." She stepped out from behind the desk and looked over the dissolving corpse. "I think it's time to go back."

The blade, which she decided to call Crimson Breaker, stayed out as she put the rest of the display back in her saddlebag. She had no idea if another of those dark, shadowy creatures was lurking around.

She slowly left the lab. She looked to the left and saw nothing. She slowly looked to the right and came face to face with a shadowy equine head with bony plates and ominous glowing red eyes. Her gaze went upward and she saw what looked like a noodly rider made of the same stuff with a skull for a head. "AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!" Crimson Breaker's blade sliced through the wall and the creature's legs, then came down from above, bisecting it.

Searing took a moment to catch her breath and kept her head on a swivel. As soon as she had recovered some strength, she ran back the way she'd come. Along the way she encountered more of the shadow beasts, each one falling to Crimson Breaker with ease. Shadowy bears, wolves, even a manticore fell to the blade. The hallway also suffered burns and cuts from the sword.

Finally, she came to her skeletal landmark, packed it up, and after making sure the coast was clear, crossed the bridge, pausing at the far end just long enough to cut the path. Once she felt safe, she looked over the sword to try and figure out how to turn the thing off. After a minute of careful inspection, she found the switch and flipped it. The blade quickly disappeared, and she promptly crossed the catwalk. Once she was back in her temporary home, she collapsed in exhaustion. "I think that's enough excitement for the week."

Author's Notes:

More shadow beasts and Searing gets a Crucible blade.

I've already got a design for the armor, albeit in a human form, along with the weapons. BEHOLD!