Copy sat on the ground, holding his head and wondering what, exactly was going on. At this point, his head was trying to focus on what he knew for sure, but with everything so shady, he was having trouble. One thing he knew for sure, he was not enjoying the way his mind was racing through thoughts and possibilities.

“Mr. Data?” Applebloom reached a tentative hoof towards the stricken colt, wondering if it was safe.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to think. As far as I’m concerned, Summer helped me stay sane. And now you guys say she’s not real, and... it’s possible that might be true, I’m just trying to figure out what is real or fake.”

“Listen, I only heard about her after we left the school, but I haven’t seen her, period.” Scootaloo stated simply.

“But I could talk to her, I could touch her, she could touch me, I felt her! If I can feel her, she’s got to be real, right?”

Johan looked at him, but didn’t say anything for several seconds. “When did you last see her?”

“Well, I kinda had a nightmare that involved her, do you mean while I was awake?”

Johan nodded. CD gulped slightly, then continued.

“Well, uh, I was with those doctors, and they said she wasn’t there. I didn’t really believe them because she was standing next to me and talking and holding me... How is it possible to have physical contact with a hallucination?”

“Tactile hallucinations cause the sensation of touch to be erroneously stimulated. When combined with auditory and visual hallucinations, people, places, and objects that seem entirely real to the person suffering from those hallucinations.”

Everyone in the group turned to Sweetie Belle, who had explained the entire thing in a dull monotone of her ‘regular’ distorted voice.

Sketch spoke up first. “Damn... that- that’s informative.”

“So if what you say is true, then the only real assurance I had that not everyone I knew was dead, was completely fake, and that means if I survive, I’m all alone.” CD sighed. “Now what?”

“Well, you said you knew her when you were younger, before you ended up here, right? So maybe she’s still back on the homeworld, waiting for you.” Sweetie’s voice was once more squeaky and adorable, as her helmet had retracted.

“As I recall, I heard mention of something really bad happening to Equus, so yeah.”

“Something happened on Equus? When?” Johan asked, his voice a little sharp. “We would’ve gotten a surge of immigrants if that was the case.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know anything that’s happened so far anymore. I have no memory of what’s happened, and with those scientists messing with my head, I don’t even know what is real or never happened, or whatever. What am I supposed to do?”

“Make us whole. That’s what you should do, Copy. Make us whole.” The spectral outline of Summer hovered in view in the corner of his vision. She was quite obviously not real at this point, laced through with spiked red lines ran through her blue, hazy form like barbed wire. She looked like she was in agony.

“March on. Don’t give up hope, just because you can’t see the end of things.” Johan said.

“Yeah, uh how do I do that? I’m asking both of you, because neither of you are being helpful at all!”

“Neither who? Wait, are you seeing her right now?”

“In a way, yes, and as creepy as you guys have made seeing her sound, and as odd as she looks at the moment, I feel inclined to listen, because she’s been the nicest person to me through this whole ordeal. Hallucination or not, at least she cares about me.”

“Please? Copy... we- we hurt...”

“Alright then, how do I fix it? I want to help, but you need to tell me how to do that first!”

“M- make us whole!” Summer demanded, the red wire dragging around her neck to begin dragging her away from the group. “Please! We’re broken, j- just make us whole!”

Summer seemed to be crying blood, before dissolving from view entirely. Nothing remained of her, minus a faint stain in the air, tinging it slightly blue. A faint, faint echo reached his ears, though he couldn’t be sure it was real, not after all of this.

“Th- the cell... inside... the... cell...”

“What cell? Where? Damnit, why does everything have to mess with my head in some way!?” CD yelled as he pounded the ground with a hoof, he was at his wit’s end with all that had happened.

“What? What are you talking about?” Johan’s voice slowly filtered back into CD’s perceptions, and he looked up to see that the entire group had been talking, until he had moved again.

“Alright. I think I’ve come to a conclusion of sorts.” CD stated, but his voice horribly betrayed his state of uncertainty that his word belied. “If Summer really is a hallucination, or not, I don’t care, she’s done nothing but good for me, and she’s actually helped me. She warned me about Cadence before we even met her. I’d say I want to keep her around.”

Johan nodded. “Fine, then let’s just get going. Maybe there’s some information at the military base about this ‘cell’ you mentioned. Let’s get going.”

Everyone else nodded and began to pack up. CD, extremely confused, just continued to get ready as best he could. There wasn’t much to do.

Johan waited by the door, getting an accurate head count in the process, and patted CD on the shoulder as he went by. Once everyone was through, he moved back to the lead, and began to guide the group, all six of them, to the next tram station.

As they arrived at the tram, with no incidents, CD looked into the tram they were heading towards, and saw Summer sitting in the tram. Pieces of her were simply missing, a glaring white light shining from the holes. She looked sad, though it was a little difficult to see that, what with her eyes and mouth emitting the same light.

CD took a breath to calm down. “Okay, I know you need help, but what’s in the cell? What do I need to do? Is there anything you can tell me to help us?”

The apparition looked at him, and a crawling sensation raced up his spine. “I’m in the cell... I’m trapped in the dark, Copy. They- they’re breaking me apart. Please, CD. Please, make us whole.” Her body began to unravel as she reached for him, pain evident in her features. A faint haze of red symbols, so achingly familiar to him, floated around her, settling into the edges of his vision.

Then, without warning, she was gone. No flash or noise, just gone. Everyone was staring at CD, and he realized he was reaching for where Summer’s ‘ghost’ had been.

The red symbols persisted in the edges of his vision.

“Okay, this is really weird.” CD turned to the group to explain. “So, apparently, Summer is in the cell, despite appearing around. And something is... I don’t know what it is or what it’s doing, but I’m willing to bet it’s related to the necromorphs.” CD decided against mentioning the symbols for now, he was focusing on figuring out how he recognized it.

Johan shrugged. “So, she’s been captured or something? I heard that some Crystal Ponies have psychic powers and stuff, but not unicorns. Either way, let’s get going, standing around isn’t going to help her, and we can chat on the tram.”

Applebloom nodded in agreement. “Yeah, let’s git goin’.”

“Eeyup.” Sketch said, earning a funny look from ‘Bloom. “What?” Applebloom just shook her head and put the helmet of her suit back up.

“Alright, so we know where we need to go, and we can work out what we need to do on the way there. Is there anything we should do before we leave, and if so, make it quick.” CD was really confused about everything and nobody was being very helpful.

After clambering into the tram, all six of the group members finding seats. CD found himself sitting a little away from the rest of the group, especially when he saw a series of faint, blue lines running through each of the people. The bright, pulsing blot in each of their chests left him with no doubts as to what the lines were.

CD spent a few moments praying that it was just in his head, but then, what was in his head became a bit of a gray line lately.

The tram ride itself was fairly uneventful, and with CD acting withdrawn as the red symbols began appearing to cluster around the other people in the tram. The entirety of the situation just made him want to curl into a ball, but he held his composure admirably.

The tram approached the station, and everyone gasped in horror. All around the massive chunk of rock and steel that was the larger residential/scientific module was covered in what at first appeared to be vines, or roots.

But as they drew closer, everyone could see the irregular, sickly pulse going through them, like the beat of a heart. And CD could see a comforting red glow filling them, though he wasn’t sure why it seemed comforting.

As the tram slid into the station itself, everyone could see walls of organic, putrescent growth coating the walls, ceilings, and floors of the station, growing over, around, and through the vending machines, poster boxes, etc.

And CD saw that the red glow he saw was caused by billions of the little red symbols streaming through the root-veins at high speeds.

The first thing that came to his mind was a nervous system, with the ‘Creep’ being nerves and the symbols acting as electrical impulses, sending information throughout the tubes. “Does anypony else see the glowing red things, or is it just me? Again.”

The rest of the group looked over. “The only glow I can see is the remaining lights in here, and our flashlights.” Johan said. Everyone else nodded or similarly agreed, causing CD to give a small groan of annoyance.

“What the fuuuck, is that? A space tumor?”

“Ah’ve never seen anythin’ like it.”

“Me either.” Scootaloo pressed closer to Sketch, her hoof with the hand reaching for her weapon. Everyone was wrinkling their noses under their helmets, the smell was rank and disgusting, like a weeks-old corpse.

“Whether we’ve seen one or not, the plan is still the same. Figure out a weak spot somehow, and blow it to bits, hoping it won't fix itself.” CD stated simply, trying to sound calm. “Right?”

“I think... I think we can just avoid it for now. The door looks like it still works.” Johan shook his head to clear out the smell. “Damn, this shit smells awful. Hey, wait, is that a data log? Can someone help me clear out the muck around it?”

“Yeah, but whoever left that log here is either dead, or really, really good at staying alive.” CD readied his Cutter, aiming for the weakest of the ‘vines’, pressing it to the meaty, corrupted flesh and fired. He watched as the symbols reached the cut opening and sprayed everywhere, hanging in the air all around.

Despite knowing the actual nature of the symbols, the way it seemed as though the roots were, for lack of a better word, hemorrhaging. Never being a fan of gore, CD closed his eyes, trying to remind himself that it was not blood.

“Oh, eww... that’s a lot of blood.” Scootaloo said, turning away. “And it’s already crusty, gross.”

CD’s eye twitched slightly under his helmet. “Shut up, no talking about it, ignoring it completely. Trying not to barf in my own helmet.”

“Okay, would it make you feel better if we referred to it as ketchup? Or can I just start screwing with you?” Sketch asked jokingly.

“Hey, no messing around. You’re mine now.” Scoots playfully slugged him on the foreleg, somehow still being a hard enough punch to hurt.

“And you’re my pillow.” Sketch grabbed her and hugged her, earning a nuzzle as the two stayed close together to ward off the horror of the situation.

“I may not like gore, but that doesn’t mean I’m not able to shoot ponies who mess around rather than helping.” CD was confused on many accounts, putting him on edge and rather sensitive.

Just finishing the job with his nose wrinkled in disgust, he cut more of the gunk away, Johan doing his best to help by yanking away the streamers of gory meat. Finally, they’d uncovered enough for Johan to pull the log out.

Shaking more filth from it, he and CD stepped away from the mat, the smell having changed from ‘old corpse’ to ‘charred corpse’, and wasn’t any better.

“It’s a text log... Oh, oh that’s... Well, damn...” Johan muttered to himself, then turned away from the display only he could see. Making the waving motion to dismiss it, he looked down at the log. “Uhm, if anyone else wants to view it... yeah. Just be warned, it’s not pretty.”

“Gory or not, if it’s information, then it’s important.” CD stated, preparing for the worst. Taking the data log from Johan’s grip, he looked at it. He wasn’t prepared for what he saw.

Braced for gore, or something gross, instead he saw a simple letter. It was addressed from someone to their sister, and told of how today just seemed like it was going to be good. It talked about the sender’s daughter, and how she was going to be in the school play, and that they were sad they wouldn’t be able to attend. It talked about normal things, and was signed with love.

It made CD want to retch. The little piece of a brighter day from before it had all started... It was not something he could stand at the moment.

“Lemme see it, can’t be too bad.” Sketch spoke optimistically, but also blanched as he read the message, feeling his heart break a little at how upbeat it sounded... especially since he’d seen what had happened at the school.

“Life’s a bitch. It’s cruel, unforgiving, and it pokes fun at all the misery it causes. And it never gives us a break. Oh well, nothing can be done.” CD just tried to stay focused. “So are we gonna roll over and take it, or try to make things better? Personally, I’m just focusing on saving Summer.”

“Yeah, let’s... let’s just get going.” Johan sighed, and lifted his Pulse Rifle again, checking his RIG’s guidance system to follow the path he’d laid out in advance. “Man, and I thought it was getting blase...”

“Yeah, never ask for boring or think things are getting easy. If you do, life’s gonna slap you in the face.” CD deadpanned. “Never understood what was so good about life anyway. So which way now, Johan?”

“Alright, left we go. I’m on point, CD, you’re behind me, then the fillies, then Sketch. Sketch, carry one, facing back, to keep an eye out.”

“So what do you think those vein-things are for?” CD asked, wondering what sort of purpose they serve the necromorphs.

“Ah have no idea... Maybe this is how they build stuff?” Applebloom shrugged.

“Sensors indicate a high level of activity amongst the cells. There is a high chance of this growth being some form of terraforming method.” Once more, Sweetie’s demonic robot voice drew everyone’s gaze to them.

“Uhm... terraforming into what?” Scoots asked.

“Unknown. Possibly lethal.”

“Like every foreign thing here?” CD stated. “Literally, everything tries to kill us.”

“This stuff hasn’t. It’s just very gross.” Johan said.

“I am just going to avoid contact with it.” Sketch said. Scoots nodded.

The group left the conversation where it was, until they turned the corner, and saw that most of the corridor was coated in a layer of the matted filth, including the floor.

“Well, that’s the direction we need to go. Crap.” Johan said, staring down the hallway. The group tentatively moved towards the muck, Scootaloo sitting on his back to watch their backs. The muck sucked and pulled at their boots, slowing them down considerably.

A few shorts steps in for Sketch, at the back of the group, a loud crash met their ears, as a wall panel blew out, and a large slasher, with black, necrotic skin and glowing eyes burst into the hallway, taking but a moment to locate them and turn.

Everyone opened fire immediately.

“Residential areas suuuck!”

Johan’s shout was met with affirmative grunts from the other five members of the group, who were all busy moving slowly but surely through the muck and filth, firing at the horde of monsters all around. Johan was their saving grace at this point, what with his ammo sweep and ammo box keeping him fully loaded on ammunition. Everyone else was forced to snag whatever ammunition happened to be on the corpses as they went, throwing ammo to whoever was lowest or could use it at the given time.

Sketch was on his last few Line Racks, as he’d been deciding not to use his Divet if he didn’t have to. CD had eaten through his Plasma Cartridges like wildfire, and was down to his current clip of eight and nine more in his inventory. Johan had only unslung Jackie twice, in order to take out a couple more of the ridiculously tougher black slashers that had shown up.

“H- how much further?” CD was panting slightly, thinking he’d probably be dead as soon as his ammo was used up. Speaking up over the chatter of Johan’s Pulse Rifle and the blasts of Sketch’s line gun, along with Scoots’ own Cutter. “Not sure... how much longer... I can go.”

“We’re about-” Johan cut off for a moment to fire another burst at one of the pukers trying to spit up onto Scootaloo, who had no armor yet, “about halfway! Shit, we’re gonna be fuckin’ screwed if they don’t let up! Fuck!”

The last exclamation was from a slasher grabbing him and beginning to bite and claw at him. though he threw it off, everyone else could see he’d been taking a lot of hits for everyone else, and his rig was down to a dark orange.

“Dang, where are they coming from?” CD asked somewhat rhetorically, as he tried not to think about his rapidly diminishing ammunition.

As if in response to his question, the flood of necromorphs let up, dwindling rapidly to a mere six, which were quickly dispatched. However, it probably wasn’t a good thing, as a deep, rumbling roar accompanied the lack of assailants.

“Y’all just had ta ask, didn’tcha?”

“Spite me later kid, now we pass around Medigel before we die.” CD said, pulling out his only medium gel.

“Scoots, how are you on ammo? Need any medigel anyone?” Sketch asked, calling out to the group. Scoots showed the full clip, but said that she had no spares.

“Y- you guys probably need it more.” Johan said, hunching over a bit and holding his side, as CD reloaded what little ammo he had left.

“Shut up and take my medigel.”

“Dude, don’t be stupid, just because you’re not dead yet doesn’t mean you’re fine.” CD reloaded and healed himself, hoping the monster wasn’t as big as it sounded.

“I- I’m fine. Right? I feel fine.” Johan’s voice was laced with pain as he straightened up with a soft groan. “Okay, maybe not so fine...”

“Yeah, unless your RIG is Scootaloo, orange is not its natural color, catch.” Sketch tossed him a medium medigel.

The security officer caught it wearily, plugged it into his suit and used it. Immediately, three or four bars filled on his RIG. Sweetie Belle turned and pointed up at one of the balconies above the room they’d wandered into, a hub room.

As everyone looked up, a large, bulky shape appeared at the edge. CD saw a webwork of red tangled within it, with duller patches near the ‘shoulders’ of the heavy, armor-plated arms.

Whatever the thing was, it was huge, and roared as it leapt down, a thunderous crash announcing its landing. The creature was easily as tall as Johan, and was immediately beginning to charge the group.

“Scatter! Fucking scatter!” Johan yelled to the rest of the group as the brutish creature barreled straight into him and knocking him back hard against a support pillar. Like the rest of the monsters so far, it seemed totally not inconvenienced by the muck that dragged at the living people’s feet.

CD did his best to get away, the necrotic mat covering the ground more than slightly hindering him. He wondered what would happen if he shot at the yellow patches of flesh on its shoulders. If it didn’t work, he’d be out of ammo and dead in moments.

From his position, he hit it more along the back, where he could see large, boil-like yellow patches, the plasma bolts shearing through the dead flesh with ease, causing the creature to roar in pain again. While two of the five bolts simply deflected off the heavy armor of the creature, the other three got its attention, and one of its arms was certainly less attached than before.

Also, Johan was no longer the target of its ire, and it began charging towards the engineer instead.

Just a meter or so away from him, a burst of blue light splashed across it, and the brute slowed down to a crawl. A series of red symbols crowded around the shoulders, and he shot three more vertical shots at it, severing one of the armored limbs.

A distorted, slowed growl echoed from it as it raised its remaining arm to smash him, and even the stasis effect on it wouldn’t let him get away in time.

Just before the limb came hurtling down as the stasis wore off, CD felt himself get hit hard on his side, and he heard a sickening splatch as the arm came down. He looked back to see what had saved him, and had to force down his gorge as he saw what, or rather who it was.

Applebloom, the rearing pony decal across her helmet, had the blue lines tracing through her still, her heart pumping blood in CD’s enhanced vision, but those lines terminated suddenly where the brute had slammed down on her. Nothing remained of her from the hips back.

Three shots, each echoing throughout the chamber deafeningly, blew the other limb off the brute, and it finally went down, tipping to the side. Sketch, Sweetie, and Scoots peeked out from where they’d hunkered down, behind a desk.

“‘Bloom! N- no!” Scoots screamed the words and sprinted as fast as she could across the muck and gore, the filly visibly stricken as CD crept closer. He could still see the life in her, but it was beginning to fade.

“Fuck! Quick, I got some medigel! M- Maybe theres a small chance!” Sketch panicked, following Scootaloo as best he could, Sweetie not far behind him.

As they arrived, though, each of them heard a noise usually reserved for hospitals, the insistent tone of a flatline. Applebloom’s RIG was completely dark.

CD put a hoof out as the last of the blue faded from her, no longer visible.

“Scoots, stick close, Sweetie, pick CD or Johan and never leave their side, we can’t let this happen again.”

CD stared at the dead filly. It was not pleasant at all, but, she had saved his life. “Yeah, nobody else will die if I can help it. Wait... what happened to Johan?” CD turned back to the support that Johan was bulldozed into. The whole pillar was cracked all the way to the top, and Johan was sitting against the base of it, a smear of blood behind him where he’d slid down. Jackie, the seeker rifle, was sitting across his lap.

From what CD could see, he still had his blue core and such, so he was still alive, but from the way the lines seemed to fade in some parts of him just didn’t seem healthy.

“Damnit, help him! Sketch, how much gel do you have left?”

“Two! You take one, the other is for Johan” Sketch tossed CD one medium medigel. The earth pony caught it and quickly used it. A sigh of minor relief escaped him as the numbing agents made the pain he felt go away, just a little.

Sketch, meanwhile, ran over to Johan, told him to take the medigel and stay put. The weary soldier just nodded, leaning back against the blood-soaked support pillar.

Sweetie gave the corpse of her friend a short embrace. A moment later, the gentle sound of the lullaby ‘hush now, quiet now’ began to filter from her speakers. As the helmet retracted, CD and Scoots saw that it was actually Sweetie singing, and her voice was incredible.

CD sighed “Well, I am convinced, this is far from over... and yet, why does everything have to go wrong!?” CD shouted the last words into his forelimbs as he tried, and failed, to hold back tears. Sweetie was holding a sobbing Scootaloo, and even Sketch and Johan couldn’t hold back on the waterworks.

At least it seemed they had a break, something they sorely needed.

CD took the respite as an chance to calm down and make sense of things, but it did little good. He was not sure when he’d actually be safe, and that just made things worse.

Sweetie’s song faded out as she gently stopped singing, and Scootaloo wiped her eyes. Sweetie’s helmet slid back into place, no emotion showing on her face, just stony determination.

Johan, barely able to stand by using Jackie as a walking stick, hobbled over with Sketch’s help. “Guys, we need to keep going. If we stay here, another of these... brutes, I guess, could come by. I... I don’t think we could survive that.”

CD stayed quiet, not doing much other than looking for how many rooms this area led to. A couple of larger doorways were covered in the growth, at least a half meter of it, and the only remaining door was a large, heavy-looking one.

“Yeah... let’s... Let’s go.” Scootaloo looked away from the corpse laying on the floor.

“Yeah... “ Sketch settled a little lower to allow Scoots to climb up, once more watching their backs as Johan began to lead them away, Sweetie helping CD stand up.

“The quote, I believe, is an old human one: Life is a bitch...” Sweetie began, and CD nodded, finishing it.

“And then you die.”

Sweetie paused for a moment. “Addendum: And then you come back.”

CD then added his own end to the phrase. “Sometimes you wish you die sooner.” CD then sighed again. “Alright, we need to go. If we don’t make any progress, then Applebloom would have died for no reason.” He paused. “And I won’t have that. Period.”

“Affirmative.”

The two left it at that, and followed the three other survivors. Quickly falling into place between Johan and Sketch, Sweetie and CD kept an eye out to the sides. The trip, from there, was quiet.

Silent, like a tomb.

Author's Notes:

Well now, it's been an almost incredible gap between updates, so I'm going to keep this short: Now that I have internet again, these chapters are going to be updated 2 a week until we're all caught up.

Thank you to all my wonderful co-writers/victims, thank you Hasbro for giving us this fandom, and thank you, my wonderful audience, for hanging in there, like kittens in a motivational poster.

CD, Sketch Pony, Johan Allegro, and all the others are properties of their respective players, while ponies in general and the CMC in specific belong to Hasbro.
I think I can quit with the credits at the end of each chapter unless someone new shows up, this is getting repetitive.