The four ponies and the human officer had taken refuge in what seemed like a maintenance group’s prep room, including a nano-circuitry bench and an AutoStore station. The door was able to be locked from the inside, had only a single, small vent, and had heavy grating over the windows, making the whole thing the perfect bunker to take a break in.

Sweetie had taken Applebloom’s Cutter, if only to prevent waste, but there still wasn’t any ammo for it.

CD took the opportunity to purchase a Line Gun and forty-eight plasma cartridges. Unfortunately only small medigel was available, but he took four for the sake of safety. Also listed was a small air tank. Given his fear of Murphy’s law, he purchased four. In addition, he bought twelve Line Racks, to give him some breathing room where his Line Gun ammo was concerned.

Noticing the crimp on his space it was producing, he handed the ‘magazine’ he’d acquired to Scootaloo, in a discrete fashion, of course. She took it without question, and simply put it away.

He whispered to Scootaloo some advice about keeping such material away from public places. And that she count herself lucky a teacher didn’t find it and he wasn’t in the mood for blackmail.

After that, Sketch bought stuff next, purchasing three small medigel, sixty Divet rounds, a pair of Line Racks, and handed twelve hundred credits to Scootaloo, leaving him with a mere three hundred left.

The only things Johan bought where some more medigel, though his looked to be the larger packs than everyone else had. Then, he stepped into the booth, stating he was going to change to his old suit.

Stepping out, he was clad in what, at first glance, seemed to be the same suit. However, this time, the plating was mostly in cream and red, with a red cross on the left arm plate, and the face plate’s coloration was in that of another red cross.

“Alright, this is the suit I know best. Doesn’t chafe as bad around the neck.” The officer patted the suit’s heavy collar. “My good ‘ol Triage suit.”

Stepping back, Scootaloo was ushered in next. She, too, got her suit out of storage, and came out of the booth wearing a mostly gray suit, though with a large, glassy dome over her head. The dome had thin bars forming a wide-spaced grid over the whole thing, like an ancient diving helmet.

The suit also had additional maneuvering thrusters attached to both her wings and hooves, far more than any of the other suits had, along with many more lights already built into it. A large lamp took up some space on one side of the helmet, the twin bulbs projecting a bright beam of light straight ahead, with multiple lights tracking along her limbs, along with one pointing straight down on her legs, pointed at the floor. In all, she was very brightly lit.

She took a moment to stretch out, shaking and picking at the various sections of her suit to check it all out.

Sketch had to think of cold baths as she seemed to purposefully turn away and stretch like a cat, her rear pointing straight at him.

“Ah, much better. I love my EVA suit. And, best of all, it’s so tight.” She specifically pointed out that fact while obviously showing off to Sketch. He could still hear the hurt in her voice, though, and tried not to think too hard about it. Mostly he failed, but it was a valiant effort anyways.

“So, are we all ready, then? We’re only about two thirds of the way there.” Johan said, sounding much better off. Everyone had been able to get at least one small medigel on the way to the prep room, but nobody except Scootaloo and Sweetie had more than half their bars of health.

“Yeah, the sooner we move, the less likely we are to be ambushed.” CD stated, worried that another loud roar would signal the quick arrival of their deaths.

“Yup, lets go. Also Scoots, all these suits are tight.”

“Yeah, but this one is tight in the right places.”

“Okay, we all know you’re flirting with him, can we move on and move out, please? I think he gets you want him to bone you.” Johan said with an exasperated tone. “I mean, jeez, you never stop.”

“Complaining doesn’t help.” CD stated quickly. “Just ignore her and she might get the hint.”

“Who get what hint?”

”Shut up Sketch, nothing matters. Just move. Everyone.” CD was getting tired of wasting time, he felt like the only one who actually knew no place was safe.

“I vote in agreement. Time is of essence.” Sweetie’s evil robot voice was the deciding factor, and everyone began shuffling from the room, once again in the order they’d established. This time, though, Scootaloo had a headlamp with which to watch their backs.

“Yup, lets go Scoots.”

The five of them began to move out once more, though they quickly ran into more necromorphs.

“This is getting ridiculous!” Johan shouted at the top of his lungs as he fired another full clip into the wall of necromorphs blocking them from continuing. They had gotten into a good rhythm, and were mowing them down with relatively little trouble. It was also a good thing they got Scoots her suit when they did, as they went through a depressurized area shortly after. The necromorphs hadn’t seemed to notice much.

“Focus on shooting them, not stating the obvious.” CD said as he shot at one with his Cutter to remove it’s limbs. Spying another one of the black-skinned slashers, he concentrated on it for a moment.

Gunning down another puker, Johan only grunted his agreement, as Sketch continued to fire knee-height Divet rounds into the mass, slowing many of the creatures down. Eventually, though, they reached another lull in the assault. Taking the time to reload and check for who needed medigel, they all looked warily around.

They had traversed into another hub, this one much more heavily infested than the last. It also had a large, transparent dome over the top of it, letting a tiny amount of dim light from Tyranis. The planet appeared bloated and bloody due to the lack of sunlight, its internal processes producing barely enough light to see by.

At this point, Scootaloo had been promoted to ‘flashlight’, and was pointing her headlamp wherever it was needed, as it was the brightest and widest of the flashlights they had. “Hey, guys, there’s something moving outside that glass. Pretty quickly, too.”

As everyone looked up warily, they saw the shape of something humanoid moving a brisk jog across one of the metal frames of the windows, followed shortly by a group of some sort of three-limbed necromorph things and a single shrieker.

“So how do we help?” CD asked, trying to think of a way that didn’t involve breaking the glass and attracting attention.

“Is there anyway you can use your magic to mess with something on the other side of the glass Sweetie Belle?” Sketch asked.

“I am not capable of advanced magic at this time.” Sweetie said, still watching the glass dome as the person disappeared on the far side of it, still sprinting as best he could without any gravity.

CD, meanwhile, realized that there was a note that someone was using the ‘Engineering’ channel. Not bothering to worry about details, he accessed the channel and assumed it was the guy outside. The first thing he heard from it was, “-itshitshitshitshit. Oh come on I just fixed that patch yesterday why did you have to- okay I can escape through here jump and boost... Yeehaaa!..” the voice trailed away as the channel cut out from distance.

With a sigh CD decided to at least ask what was going on. “Who are you, what are you doing outside and how can we help you? Damnit.” He swore under his breath as he realized the person couldn’t hear him by the time he’d processed the message.

“Jeez, poor bastard. Wonder who he was.” Johan remarked casually. “Uhm, anyways. We, uh, we need to head this way next...” He turned and looked towards a door on one side of the hub.

The group, shaking off the... ‘interesting’ spectacle, continued onwards towards their destination.

Along the way, they found a door with a locking point that required a Power Node to open.

“Shit... does anyone have a spare node?” Johan asked, looking around. “I’m out right now.”

“I used mine to upgrade my RIG and Cutter, so no.” CD said. “Although in the interest of survival, I regret nothing.”

“I regret the bagel I had for breakfast.”

“Sketch, I’m going to hope you are done messing around, because if you continue to lose focus, I’m going to smack the focus back into your skull.” CD replied sharply. “Humor stopped working when an innocent filly got crushed to death saving my life, I’m done laughing.”

“And this is how I deal with the horrific happenings around us.”

“There’s a time and place for everything, so shut up and wait for then.” CD turned away from Sketch. “Seriously, I’m not feeling very tolerant right now.”

“Guys! Both of you stop, alright?! You only knew her for a few measly hours! She’s been our only friend for close to eight years now!” Scootaloo shouted at the both, looking utterly pissed. “We’re all coping, alright?” She sighed, then reached for her inventory. “Here. It’s the node ‘Bloom had left over. She always carried an extra in case she came across a door like this.”

Johan gently took the tiny node, settling it into the door’s control box, where it clicked into place, becoming irremovable without very specialized tools and codes.

The door, once labeled [Locked], was now a soft blue and labeled [Open]. With a tap at the controls, Johan made the door open. Inside was a small storage room, a bank of lockers on one side and some simple box shelves on the other, a large vent cover on the far wall. A small stack of green storage boxes sat under the vent. A quick count found there to be six of them.

Johan whistled appreciatively. “Well, that was a node well-spent.”

“Indeed, everyone get a box or two and hope for the best.”

“There’s a ton of stuff in the cubbies, too, and four of those lockers are unlocked.” Scootaloo pointed out.

A quick look in the cubbies showed the loot included two separate schematics, a half a dozen medium med packs, a medium air tank, and several line racks and plasma cartridges.

“Well those medium med packs prove my small ones a waste of credits, CD, wanna split the line racks? And could Scoots get some of the cartridges?”

The group looked over the supplies, Sketch’s suggestion receiving nods and grunts of affirmation. Scootaloo, Sweetie Belle, and Sketch distributed the medigel evenly between them. Sketch gave one of his small capsules to CD, as well.

Sketch and CD split the seven Line Racks between them, CD getting four. Johan picked up both of the schematics, looking them over. “Huh, alright. Looks like a Ripper schematic and... and... oh, holy shit! I didn’t know Shockpoint Suits had even been finished in development! Why the fuck was this just sitting out?!”

“Poor organization and distribution?”

“Uh, that’s a pretty big stretch, I think it might’ve been left here in case of emergency.” CD gave Sketch an odd look. “How would you just misplace a wearable method of what amounts to FTL space-travel?”

“I dunno, but that sounds more like espionage, not accident. This sort of thing should be in a top secret lab, not a glorified storage closet.” Johan argued.

“The real question is, do we really care? It’s here, free, and very useful.” CD stated. “Let’s just check those boxes.”

“Oh, alright. Here, Sweetie, you get the first one.”

The filly’s helmet retracted, and she gave a squeal of delight as she viciously smashed the box open. Inside was a hydrazine tank. Her face fell, when she realized that nobody in the group could use it.

Johan, not wanting to see a filly cry, quickly snatched the next box and handed it off to her. “Here, try this one!”

The filly smiled again and snatched it, smashing it between her hooves. This time, it was a Detonator Mine. In spite of the fact that none of them could use it, she still smiled happily and hugged the explosive to her armored chest.

The entire group just stared, except for Scootaloo. She just shrugged and grabbed a box for herself, smashing it underhoof. Inside was a large medigel. Once that was safely tucked away into her inventory, she simply sat down and waited. “Well? Go on, break your own. She gets like that around explosives.”

“Whatever.” CD walked over to the box nearest to him and broke it open, picking up a lone Line Rack that was inside.

“Uh, I guess I’ll go next, then?” Johan said, reaching for a box.

“Nope.” Sketch said, breaking the box before the human could get it. Inside was a Plasma Cartridge with four bolts in it.

“Here ya go Scoots, more ammo.” Scootaloo thanked him, and Johan took the chance to smash the remaining box before anyone else decided to snag it from him. Inside was, to his non-delight, twenty-five Pulse Rounds. Whee.

Sighing, he turned to the group. “Alright, there’s four lockers. Let’s open them and see what’s inside.” Pulling the first one open, he found some credits and, surprise surprise, more Pulse Rounds.

“That’s it, Johan, no more opening things for you, you only get more ammo.” Sketch said, opening the locker next to it.

Rummaging inside, he found some well-thumbed catalogs for parts, a magazine for home hydroponics, and some Divet rounds.

“Well, so much for your luck.” CD mumbled as he went to search through the next locker. Inside was three thousand credits on a chit, buried partly under a pair of underwear with a dark streak all along the back of it.

“Dirty cash? That’s a really dumb joke, universe.” CD sighed and moved on, wondering why they never bothered to try to force open some of the closed lockers.

“Okay, that’s it, I’m opening the next one, I’ve just got to see what’s in there.” Scootaloo said with evident relish, pulling the green-lit locker open. Inside was a couple of Rivet bolts and a data log, the rest of it completely empty.

“So do we review the log now, or do we try and open these other lockers first.” CD asked. “Usually ithe locked up stuff is better than the stuff begging to be scavenged.”

“The ones here would take a heavy-duty pry-bar to open it, unless we’re willing to fire a couple of Line Gun shots at them, but we’d probably just blow up whatever was inside.” Johan said, dismissing the idea.

“Point taken, but we should make sure we’ve got everything we can.” CD said, despite having no idea how to open the lockers. “See, this is why futuristic security is a wonderful, wonderful curse.”

Everyone nodded. after a moment of silence in the cozy-sized room, Scoots spoke up. “So, uh, if I played the file, we could all see it. It’s a video log, and EVA suits have external projectors.”

“Nice, a flashlight and a data log player.” Sketch remarked.

“Alright, playing the file...” Scoots said, and Sweetie scootched in closer, more or less cuddling with scoots to have a good spot. Everyone else was stuck with viewing the video mirrored left-right.

The hologram flickered on, the man slowly revealed himself, his helmet sliding off. Blood smeared his engineering suit and he lifted his plasma cutter into view, pointed towards the ceiling. His light blue eyes looked dull in the recording, and his face looked haggared. He pulled the trigger showing his ammunition count. Zero.

He looked towards the recording device, thus, looking at whoever is watching. “I guess I’m all out... I got away, so that’s a plus, but, if I find another group of them I don’t think I can take them on.” He scratched his stubble with his left hand.

“If you find this, I am heading somewhere I can fortify. If you find this, I think I am going to head down the hall past two hallways, turn right, then head down the hallway until you find a crossway, then head outward until you reach the next crossway, then turn right and head down for another 4 hallways then go in the left hallway, it should be straight ahead of you by then, Thoth wing, suite 203.” With his sentence over with, he disabled the recording, ending the hologram. Thinking it over, CD and Sketch both recognized him as the guy from the previous recording about what necromorphs were.

“Informative.” CD deadpanned. “I just wanna know who that space cowboy was back there. Probably not this guy, he seems much calmer.”

“Well, he might still be alive. The recording lists this as only being made about twenty minutes ago.” Johan thought for a moment. “Wait, no, fifty, I forgot the numbers are mirrored.”

“Thank you usually totally irrelevant ability to read backwards.” CD sighed. “Yeah, if it’s been an hour, I’d say anyone has a good chance of being dead. Then again, this guy is quite the survivor.”

“He is recognized as the person from the recording Ms. Rust was holding on to, at the school.” Sweetie said, once more in her filtered voice.

“And the guy from the logs at the mall.” CD recalled. “He definitely knows what he’s doing. I think finding him would be a good idea.”

“Can we not run in after it guns a-blazing? I would prefer this be a stealth mission.”

“Who said we’d be loud?” CD rolled his eyes. “Really Sketch, why do you always assume the worst of my plans? And yes, I mean always. Oh forget it.” He sighed.

The two fillies in the room just shrugged.

Johan shook his head. “No, we’re not going in guns blazing. I have the coordinates for this ‘Thoth wing Suite 203’, so we can head there. We should probably hurry if we don’t want to find him dead already.”

“I second that motion.” CD said. “Which way?”

Johan held out his hand, and began to follow the hologram only he could see. “This way. same order as normal. It says there’s a depressurization section ahead, so make sure your helmets are on and locked.”

“Way ahead of you.” CD had yet to have his helmet not be covering his face for... he couldn’t remember, it didn’t matter. He didn’t want to get a faceful of acid.

The group continued along, finding the depressurized zone fairly quick. Johan turned to the group. “Okay, this whole next section is labeled as zero-g, no atmosphere, so stay together as much as you can. If you have no experience with zero-g, just stick to a wall and hurry up. You may need to jump, so stick with someone who does have experience if you don’t have it.”

Everyone nodded and murmured that they had experience, except for Sketch, who looked around in dismay.

“Two problems, I have no air tanks, and no experience in anything but normal gravity.”

Johan stopped. “Shit, that’s right, you kept skipping on our zero-g basketball games. As for the air, it shouldn’t take more than a minute or so to get through anyways.”

“Not my fault I had a commission to draw, humans take longer.”

“No need to point fingers, man, just saying. Uhm, just stick to Scootaloo. Heh, it’d be the opposite of normal for you. She’ll be carrying you this time!”

“Huh?”

“Well, she’s been riding you for a while, so now she’s going to carry you.”

“Why did you have to word it like that?”

“Because she’s totally trying to get you to have sex with her? Duh?” Johan said, matter-of-factly, Scootaloo nodding eagerly.

“Nobody seems to be making progress, so who do I have to push out first?” CD asked, sounding rather annoyed with his teammates. “Sketch is hardly contributing, Scootaloo is... best comparison that comes to mind is ‘one-bit whore’, and Johan has done the least about these issues, and so far, Sweetie is the only one I can deal with.” He paused to take a breath. “Unless you don’t care that people are either dead, dying, or much worse!”

“Sorry, I’m trying not to go completely nuts and simply shoot you all over here.” Johan said, as Scootaloo turned to regard CD from behind her mirrored helmet. “And how am I a whore? I’m not asking to be paid, just laid. By my coltfriend.”

“How about I answer everyone with the same response. I don’t give a shit anymore, and people are dying. If you want to do nothing, then fine.”

“Oh, sorry, I just thought making sure nobody would simply go spinning off into space and force us to mount a rescue would be smart, mr. ‘I’m going to delay everything by complaining about it’. Maybe if you shut up for once, we could get somewhere.

“CD, we just want to make sure we don’t die, also what will I do about a lack of air tank? Scoots, got any ideas?”

“Dude, the suits have built in air tanks. Just tell me if you’re running low, I can run a line to your suit for more air if I have to.” Scoots said from her position on Sketch’s back.

“I’m fully aware that I’m being an asshole, but I don’t care that I am, because being nice rarely gets people to pay attention and listen.” CD retorted. “In my experience-”

“Then shut the hell up, you’re the one delaying us now.”Johan said, “Sketch, the suits have air in them. CD, we’re going now.” Johan then hit the door button, and it slid open. They all felt the air rush out, and heard their suit announcement systems mention that they were now exiting atmosphere.

Taking a step through the doorway, they then received the announcement that they were entering zero gravity. Almost instantly, Sketch felt a lurch in his stomach as the gravity vanished. Taking a few shaky steps, he followed the group.

Over his comms, he heard Scoots’ voice. “Alright, just let go of the floor, we have to go through that debris ahead, apparently.”

Sketch looked up, seeing the tangled, ruined mess of what was once the side of the habitat. Johan, CD, and Sweetie had already begun moving off.

“Okay, please don’t let me go flailing about in zero gravity.”

“Don’t worry, I got you.”

Sketch let go of the floor, feeling the minor thrum in his hooves stop as his mag-clamps deactivated. He could hear, through his suit, the faint puffs of air and feel the vague heat of his own thrusters, as his suit fought to keep him aligned to Scootaloo, who was powering him after the others.

After several seconds of simply drifting along after Johan like a trail of ducklings after their mother, they began to cluster closer together, as everyone got more used to the movements of the suits in zero-g.

As they approached the door back inside, Sketch felt a painful, clawing sensation in his lungs. Looking at the readout for his air projected onto his faceplate, he saw that he was down to the last twenty seconds of air.

They all closed on the door together, just a mere eleven seconds to go, as Sketch flailed for the floor, his magnetic boots clanging as they grabbed for the deck. He could see black encroaching on the edges of his vision as the counter reached six seconds left and the door opened, and everyone piled in.

The door finished closing just as his counter reached zero, and could see his vision go red in the center as it began dwindling down to just a single point. A faint hiss met his echoing hearing, and he felt cool, refreshing air flood back into his lungs.

Laying on the floor, gasping for breath, his vision still hadn’t returned fully yet. He could vaguely feel his helmet retract and he continued to gasp like a beached fish. He could hear something vaguely calling out, echoing and tinny.

“Wha- wh- what's... g- going... on?” he gasped again, the black vignette around his view receding slowly, though his vision was still tinged red.

He could hear some sort of reply, but he couldn’t understand it through the vast number of distorted echoes ringing through his head.

“I... I- I can’t... h- hear you.” He wheezed, still trying to catch his breath. The echoes finally began to recede, but is vision was still blurry and tinged red. After blinking a few times, he realized it was only blurry, the lights were red. Scootaloo had flipped him onto his back, and everyone was gathered around, CD keeping an eye out while Johan check Sketch over.

“I said, you nearly suffocated. CD did better, he just used an air tank, but you almost died.” Johan said, crouched over him. “Three or four more seconds and you would’ve woken up a vegetable, man. Might’ve been a step up, but I don’t want you going popsicle, okay?”

“You asshat, I’d be the best vegetable you’ve ever seen.”

“Well, delirious is better than dead, so I’ll count that as okay enough. The lab is just a little ways away now.” Johan patted his friend and gave him a push to get him on his hooves. Scootaloo helped him up.

The woozy colt stood up, leaning on Scootaloo a little. The five ponies began to move out, looking around as they did. This section of the habitat didn’t have nearly as much of the corruption spread across it.

As a black-skinned slasher dropped out of a ceiling vent, Sweetie shouted, “Oh, come on!”

After few dozen more slashers, pukers, and the black-skinned slashers, they finally ran out of targets. Panting and looking around, they surveyed the carnage.

Standing alone in a small ring of charred bodies all her own, Sweetie made a succinct observation, “Madre del Sol, que nunca dejan de venir, ¿verdad?”

Everyone else just looked at her in confusion. Still in her demon-robot voice, she explained. “Mother of Celestia, they never stop coming, do they?”

“They do stop, just long enough to give us a sense of security.” CD noted. “Are they getting smarter, or am I starting to wear down from hunger? I haven’t had anything to eat since the torture room mush from a straw.”

“Uhm, possibly a little of each? Let’s hope they aren’t getting smarter...” Johan said.

The group continued on, finally finding the corridor with the door to the suite they were looking for. In the middle of the well-lit hall, just outside the door to suite 203, was a body, missing and arm and its head, looking like those bits had been sheared off by the door.

Considering the amount of blood on said door, that was likely what had happened. Several burn marks on the wall behind him, resembling Plasma Cutter shots, gave evidence that there was likely some sort of actual firefight. The fact that the corpse was wearing the remains of a Security official’s suit, gold stripes and everything to show him or her as a sergeant, only made everyone wary.

“Uh, Maybe I should go first? I am the medic, and if someone’s in need of help...” Johan trailed off his sentence, looking at the [Locked] message on the door.

“So how do we open it?” CD asked. “Again, all this high-tech security is not helpful in a catastrophe.”

Johan just shrugged. He stepped up to the door, slinging his Pulse Rifle back onto his shoulder. He stepped up to the door, and knocked on it. “Hey, is anyone still in th-”

“No! No, you stay back there. You wanna talk, you talk from out there. And don’t say you’re here to help. The last guys who did tried to kill me.” The voice was masculine, but sounded shaky

“We’re only here to help if you want help. How about we just talk?” CD spoke, hoping nothing with too many limbs ran through the door.

“Whether we talk or not, I’m a medic. I give you my word that I’m only here to heal folks and get rid of those necromorph things.”

“You know what they are?”

“Yeah, we found a bunch of video logs.” Johan said, motioning for the rest of the group to back away.

After a delay, he spoke again. “Which ones?”

“The other two saw the first one, and I saw the one that those two at the school had. we found another one a ways away, in a break room of some sort. Had a node-lock on it, didn’t look like someone had used it yet.”

“The first one was in a mall.” CD offered.

“The school! Are they safe? Are they still safe?” The voice sounded frantic, worried.

“Uh... some of them didn’t make it. There were too many necromorphs and we couldn’t get rid of them fast enough. A few kids... yeah. Sorry.” CD replied sadly.

“Some... some.” A faint sigh could be heard. “Just... At least you helped some.” There was a click, a beep, and the door changed to [Open]. Johan held a hand out to the rest of the group again, telling them to stay put.

“Hey, I’m going to come in alone, at least at first.” Johan called out through the door, reaching out to open it. “Are you injured in there?” He asked the question as the door slid open, dripping small bits of blood.

Inside was some sort of laboratory, lots of desk space, with plenty of mannequins with various types of suits on them. Most of them were human-shaped, and had dozens of tiny holograms floating around them, but a few were pony-based, similarly covered by floating holograms. On the floor was three dead bodies, all of them human.

One was missing both arms and had a vertical slit burned into his chest, another was missing both legs and had his head split down the middle, while the third was sitting not a meter away from the fourth thing in the room, the body chest-down and missing its head. The person sitting, slumped against the bank of computers in the corner, was holding an oddly bulky-looking Plasma Cutter-like device, still pointed resolutely at Johan. The figure was wearing a silvery-colored Engineering suit, unlike all the security-suited corpses lying around.

“Alright, you aren’t one of them.” He lowered the Cutter slightly. His voice sounded a little ragged, but otherwise mostly fine. “Said there was more of you, might as well let them in...” he said with a wave of his hand.

The two fillies came in first, quickly followed by the engineering suited colts. CD recognized the suit the man was wearing as a Forged Engineering suit, just like the one he was currently wearing. As they stepped in, his helmet retracted, showing an aged face with faint wrinkles at the edges of his ice-blue eyes and hair going very gray. It gave him quite the distinguished look as Johan knelt beside him, checking his RIG.

The man, nodding in a vaguely friendly fashion, waving at the group as he spoke. “The name’s Rick. Nice to see another living group.” He ran a hand through his hair, the motion showing that there was still some brown in it, but most had gone as silver as the metal of his suit.

“Alright, you look fine, but a little medigel would do good for you.” Johan said, “If you have any, I’d suggest using it.”

“Waitaminute, you’re the guy from the school! The one who saved me, Dave, and Rusty!” Scoots yelled, pointing at Rick.

“Hold on... Scootaloo? That you?” He asked with a questioning tone.

She nodded, tapping her helmet to turn off the reflective state. Once Rick saw her face, happy and smiling under the thick layer of synthetic glass, he too smiled.

“Yeah... it seems we’ve been trying to find you since this whole thing began.” CD noted. “I figured anyone who knows more than us would be someone worth finding.”

“Yeah, I was looking for you, but you ran off!” the orange filly said, sounding a bit unhappy.

“I was trying to do all I could, I just can’t stand by and let others die.” He said shaking his head slightly. Then he turned to CD. “If you have been looking for me that long, I guess you found some of my little ‘gifts’?”

“Well, most of them were already ransacked, but we did get some stuff.” CD recalled the rooms “But you obviously are trying to help, and you did. Quite a lot.”

“Yup. Most things were broken, barricaded, or looted, thankfully we managed to save a class, and Scoots here was hiding in the vents.”

Rick placed his hand on his chin in thought. “Did you happen to find the schematics?”

“Yeah, I have the one for the Shockpoint Suit. Wait, did you steal that?” Johan asked, mildly scared.

“What? No! I designed it.” Rick said defensively.

“Daaamn. Scoots, could you imagine if you had that suit though?” Sketch asked.

"Well... We couldn’t get the Shockpoint Drive to work, so we just had the power rerouted to make the Stasis Unit recharge faster and last longer. The suit doesn’t work like the way you’re thinking, not yet.” Rick said with a shake of his head. “It still works in general, though.”

Sketch hung his head sadly. “Damn, oh well, still sounds fun.”

“Okay, Rick, you good to go? we need to find food soon, if we’re going to get far, and the only thing that even vaguely resembles edible so far is each other, and I wouldn’t eat a pony. Not without a lot of ketchup, at least.” Johan said jokingly, though the general thought of the statement was still serious. none of them had eaten in at least three hours.

“If you need food I got some stored. Though it isn’t a lot it is enough to at least keep a man, or pony, going.” Rick said, pointing to some boxes off to the side. “Go ahead, I already ate some.”

“You are the best person ever!” CD said rather loudly, running for the chance to finally get some food inside his stomach. Ripping apart the boxes that Rick had gestured to, CD ripped open the bar’s wrappers, devouring the contents wholesale. The vaguely chocolate-flavored coverings left a thick smear of melted chocolate across his muzzle. When he paused to catch his breath, he looked up to see Summer, with many chunks of form missing, looking vaguely angry and pointing at the rest of the group. CD looked over them, and saw they were being kept away from the food by his position.

“Uh... sorry?” CD grabbed a few more bars and moved away to let the others by.

“Not cool, man, not cool.” Scoots said, shaking her head disapprovingly. The bars on her helmet retracted, the synthetic glass over her face flipping upwards with a hiss as the pressure locks disengaged.

CD mumbled back “Yeah, let’s see how well you do being fed nothing but nutritionless, tasteless goop through a straw for a year, then having nothing at all for about seventeen hours.” CD then continued to eat the bars he had taken.

“Alright, fine. Hey Scoots, how are you on food?”

“Eh, I haven’t eaten in almost six hours, I’m really hungry. Hey, Rick, you got any water?”

The silver-suited engineer nodded, and told her how to find the supply of distilled water. Everyone got a drink as they each collected food for themselves. Everyone was able to snag at least six bars.

“Alright, thanks, break time.” Sketch said, him and Scoots sitting against a wall off to the side.

CD sat in a different corner, looking at the others, each of which had their own pulsing, blue network of veins and arteries flashing as he watched. The red haze of symbols still hadn’t left the edges of his vision, but he was more than a little surprised to see that Rick had a small cloud of the symbols floating over his head.

The symbols, now that he looked at them, spelled words hovering over the man’s head, words like ‘guilt’ and ‘pain’. In fact, the cloud looked like dozens of spirals, each composed of sentences. considering he hadn’t seen this sort of formation around anyone else’s heads or anything.

CD looked to one side, where Summer was currently sitting, portions of her body gone, replaced instead with that glaring light, like at the edges of a burnt-out piece of old-style film on a projector.

Everything was really confusing, and he wanted to know what the symbols were, and he figured asking Rick wouldn’t hurt seeing as he seemed to know more than anyone else.

Standing up, CD walked over and said, “Hey, Rick, do you see any floating glowing symbol things?” He did his best to keep a ‘I’m not totally crazy’ face.

Rick tilted his head slightly. “What type of symbols?”

“Uh, well, they’re kinda like letters, but not in any language I recognize, but I can kinda read them. Is that helpful?”

“Can you write something down? There should be pens and paper everywhere around here.” Rick said while pulling open a drawer looking inside. He fished out a pen and pad of paper with a bajillion little scribbles, doodles, and mathematical formulas all over it. Flipping to a blank page, he handed them to CD, who accepted it.

“Thank goodness for suit fingers. I got used to the mechanical ones in Engineering school.” He proceeded to draw a close, but not very clear representation of the symbols above Rick’s head. One of the groups he went for was the ones he saw the most, ‘guilt’.

After a pause he finally responded. “W- where did you see these?” His voice wavered as he traced the symbols, disturbingly familiar. His hand shook slightly as he did, and his voice was as serious as it could be with how scared he sounded.

“Well, I see them on the weird necro-growth, and other places, but the symbols I drew here are floating above your head for some reason.” CD paused. “I think it says-”

“‘Guilt’... It says ‘guilt’.” Rick interrupted him.

“So you can read these? I can’t really understand them except by luck or something. Do you know what the symbols are?”

“I can somewhat read it. It’s Unitology Script, eh... Their alphabet.”

“Unitology? Sorry, I’m not terribly religious... I just follow Celestia. So what exactly is the deal with Unitologists? Like what do they do?”

“They believe in a god whose sign is that of the Markers. They’re big, spirally stone things supposedly covered in those symbols. If I remember EarthGov tried to use them for a source of infinite power. Apparently, this guy named Michael Altman, back on old Earth, prevented them from doing that with the first marker they found, and they blew it up with him trying to save it. Made him a martyr, and his teachings got out, and now the Unitologists don’t like EGov much anymore. I wanted to learn about the alphabet, and I got to learn a bunch of other stuff like the whole reason the Church of Unitology is always pushing for more freedom for the press to operate.”

Rick paused for a moment to catch his breath and take a swig of water.

“I ran into the symbols a little before that, but I don’t really want to talk about it. It’s back then when I first saw those Necromorphs, though.“

“So these Unitologists create the Necromorphs? Why would they do that?”

Rick shook his head, not wanting to talk on the subject anymore.

“Sorry, I know it’s a bit touchy, but I never saw any of this stuff since my brain was turned into a pincushion by these nutjob scientists. I just wanna know why they locked me up for a year and messed with my memories... Sorry, I shouldn’t dump all this on you.”

Rick sighed, and slowly he began. “Some things... Some things should be, just forgotten...”

Rick put his helmet back up, signalling the end of the conversation, and left CD wondering what that was all about. Forgetting and not knowing was his whole problem.

Meanwhile, Sketch was leaning against a wall, with Scootaloo snuggled up to his side, wing over his back. The two ate in companionable silence, ending with Scootaloo kissing him on the cheek.

“Affectionate one aren’t you?”

Scootaloo just smiled and licked the chocolate off his cheek. “Just trying to keep your attention.”

“Well mission accomplished, what's the reward?”

“How about a kiss on the lips? Then it’s a reward for us both.” She batted her eyes coyly at him.

“Hmmmmm, I agree to these terms.”

The two met with an awkward, lopsided kiss, as neither of them actually knew what they were doing, but that was alright. Once they corrected a bit, it was thoroughly enjoyable.

“Huh, I think we need more practice.” The filly noted, looking a little flushed.

“Probably, only been with... “ Sketch actually had to think for a moment, “Two mares before.”

“Heh, I’ve got you beat then. I’ve been with three.”

“Coltfriends?”

“No, mares.”

Author's Notes:

Shawn820 has entered the scene.
Props to his for being my adjutant along the way until now, and helping me get several ideas for other stories worked out in the process.

And please remember to vote for your favorite and least favorite characters in this chapter. Every vote counts!