"So, who's going with who?" Isaac asked. "Personally, no offense to you Applebloom, but I'd rather have Babs with me."

"I don't mind that," Babs said. "As long as you watch my back, I'll watch yours."

"Why do ah have to go with him?" Applebloom whined as she pointed at the guard.

"Why do I have to go with the whiner?" The guard said.

"You shouldn't have said that..." Isaac said as he stepped back. "Run man! Run to Paleontology!"

The guard looked down at Applebloom and managed to duck just as she jumped at his face. He took off running down the hall. Applebloom slid down the wall and took off after him, a crazed laugh trailing behind her that soon drowned out his screams of fear.

"That was priceless." Isaac said. "Come on Babs, lets go to the Geological studies."

"Lead the way. I don't know where I'm going." She said.

"Neither do I. My holograms are broken." He said. "Just let me go to the suit-kiosk and get changed."

"Should I get a new suit too?" Babs asked flipping her mane.

"Not unless you plan on freezing to death. Heh, that would be embarrassing, especially after everything we've been through." He laughed as they went to the elevator. "Come on, I'm sure there's plenty of things waiting to kill us on our long, cold journey ahead."

"You make it sound like this is fun." She smirked as the doors closed.

"It's not," he said looking down. "Babs, I... I never actually talked about it, but all of this... The Markers, Titan Station, the Ishimura, my parents... Everything just turns into an actual hell when I'm around. No matter where I go, I just can't run away from it. It just finds me, kills everyone around me, destroys everything I care about. I'm starting to think the Marker wasn't causing my dementia... Maybe it was me just reacting to everything. The insanity of what I've been through and I'm still here. All of it, because I just kept running."

"Then stop." She said. "It's like me and a couple of colts in my school, they picked on me because I don't have a cutie mark, so I ran. When I fought back though, it stopped."

"I get your point," he said as the doors opened and they stepped out. "That's partially another reason why I'm here. To kill these damn Markers once and for all. Hey, the kiosk is just up ahead. Lets hurry and get suited-up."

He hurried over to the kiosk and tapped the panel. Scrolling through the suits, a small chuckle escaped him once he stopped on a certain one. Tapping the icon, he stepped inside and the restraints closed around him.

Babs watched as the machine closed, encasing him like a cocoon. A solid white light came out from the middle, going down with the metallic buzz and then back up again. It opened up and Isaac stepped out wearing a suit with copper colored bars spanning most of his body. Tugging at his collar, he let his helmet fold into place.

"What do you think?" He asked spreading his arms. "It's nice having the old suit back, but I don't remember it being quite so loose. I guess I lost more weight than I thought."

"Are you sure that's a good suit to wear out there?" Babs asked as he picked her up.

"It's made to handle the vacuum of space, I'm sure it can handle a few snowflakes."

Babs scrolled through the different suits, going past the legendary suit she stopped on the Eva suit. Tapping the icon, Isaac pulled her back and let the machine close. Once it opened he picked up the suit and carried it to the bench where in a few seconds, the machine had down-sized it and reshaped it.

"You really know your machines, don't you?" Babs asked as she tugged at her own collar.

"I have to, I'm an engineer." He said. "Alright, lets see where we need to go."

He stuck out his hand and the blue line appeared on the floor, following it, it led to the only door on the level that was unlocked. Going in, Isaac pressed the holographic button and watched as the doorway behind them slid away from view and the path in front of them opened.

Stepping out into the snow, they both shuddered from the sudden temperature change and the sound of the wind. Together, they went forward into the snowy crevice in front of them.

To their right, only after a few steps, there was a pile of bodies wrapped in old sheets, a table covered in snow, a chart with a map still sticking to it, and a lamp glowing as bright as if it were just made. Looking at Babs, Isaac watched as she stared at the lamp before looking at the bridge in front of them.

"I take it you're suspicious?" He asked as the wooden boards creaked with each bootfall.

"Yeah," she said. "I don't think my cousin or that guard lit it. And I know it wasn't the Necromorphs."

"So we should expect Unitologists ahead, that's what you're saying?"

"I'm not saying that." She said. "Maybe it was Sweetiebelle and Nexus? They could have come through here and turned it on."

"God, I wonder what happened to them, because I heard a loud crashing noise earlier. I could have sworn I heard roaring too." He said as they turned the first bend.

As they were passing by a stack of crates, the one ahead shifted slightly as a Stalker popped its head over the top. They both fired simultaneously, both shots missing and hitting the ice beyond their vision. Getting back to the pathway, they both had their weapons trained on the space in front of them.

"I hate these things," Isaac muttered. "Dead or moving around."

"Why don't you just use that Gatling gun you made?" Babs said. "We could run to the wall back there and you could just keep shooting while they keep running."

"Now that I like." He said taking out the weapon. "Hang on, you can cover my back while I run."

"I'm almost shoulder deep in the snow," she said snorting. "How am I going to keep up?"

He bent down and picked her up, putting her against his chest, she was facing over his shoulder while he cradled her with one arm and carried his weapon with the other. She was about to speak when he took off, his every step bouncing her as he had to dodge Stalkers once or twice until they reached the door. When he was turning, a Stalker was already running at them, its shriek clouding even the noise of the wind until Babs tore it to pieces with her Pulse rifle.

Now on the ground, she watched as Isaac held his gun with two hands, the tips of the spears glowing a sickly green from the acid coating. She heard a Stalker for a second before he fired a dozen of the spikes, looking at where they went, the Stalker was pinned to a crate and chunks were already beginning to melt and let the corpse drop down.

Another ran out at them while another went for cover, with another dozen spears he managed to send the runner flying back while the other was crawling towards them. He shot out a bolt of stasis and waited for another to come out; when one ran at them, he fired a rocket at the one crawling and watched as pieces from both Stalkers went flying.

Once the last pieces came out of stasis, he looked at his ammo counter and grinned in his helmet.

"I still have a hundred and fifteen in it, plus three rockets. I love this gun even more now."

"That's fine, but how do we get in the labs? The door is locked." Babs said pointing at the small hologram.

Each time she jumped and put her hoof to it, it flashed red and went back to blue. Putting out her own hologram while Isaac tried it, it went back and curved to the right. Tapping him on the leg, he looked down and saw the line.

They hurry over to the small lift and tap the 'up' icon on it. The bar went back down and they begin to rise. Once they got to the top, there was a field of ice blocks with remains in them. Once Isaac stepped out, more Stalkers could be heard.

He audibly sighed and picked up Babs, set her on his shoulders this time, and took out his shotgun. Now with her facing the same direction as him, he slowly walked forward, his shotgun raised to the right of his chest.

A Stalker jumped out from a two blocks ahead and once it got within one block of Isaac, he fired and sent it to the ground in pieces. Laughing, he aimed at another poking its head out from a block and took the head off with a single blast. When one jumped behind them, he didn't notice but Babs did. When it began to charge, she turned around and tore its arms away with Pulse rounds before taking a leg out.

As Isaac continued past more of the blocks, he was taking aim at a Stalker as it was charging. When his gun only made a click, he cursed and angled it while the hydraulic hammer came out. Once it was almost on them, its blare almost too loud for Babs, he side-stepped it and swung upwards. The Stalker's head exploded into bloody red chunks coating both of them.

"You have no idea how long I've wanted to do that." He said as they continued up to the door ahead.

As they were only a block away, Babs tugged on his helmet, pulling his head back. He was about to respond when she pointed it towards a nearby crate; he saw the blackened Slasher immediately, crouched with only the tips of its blades sticking up. Cocking his shotgun, he walked to the door, and hearing the Slasher yell out a garbled scream, he turned and sent its torso flying with a shot to the chest.

Setting Babs down, he pressed the hologram and the door slid open blowing them with a fresh blast of warm air. Stepping in, they brushed themselves off as it turned to the other doorway.

Once the door opened, Isaac stepped out and Daniks voice filled the speakers.

"Testing. Testing. Hello, Isaac. I know you're out there... Crawling around." He said, a slight hint of amusement in his voice. "You probably think I'm an overzealous crusader, that I'm mindlessly following the whim of an angry god. It's an easy conclusion to draw and I don't fault you for it. But you may be surprised to know that I'm a man of science, a man of act and reason, cause and effect. And soon, you'll understand that I'm right... About everything." He said before cutting the link.

Isaac and Babs just stood there, looking at the speaker as if expecting something else. After a moment, Isaac was snickering, quiet enough for Babs not to notice, but loud enough inside his helmet to be emitted as static.

"He's something alright." Babs said as they entered the Geology sector.

"He's so full of shit it's funny." Isaac said snickering loud enough for her to hear. "He's a man of science and yet he's calling Necromorphs the next stage of our evolution."

The room they were in now had four large blocks of ice, all of them with a complete specimen inside. Isaac and Babs went to the one in the middle of the room, peering into the warped features of the thing inside.

Going past that, they exited the room into a smaller one. Ignoring the storage closet, they went through the door to the right. A bright red glow was being cast throughout the room, two fresh bodies were laying by the wall, and a vent like the one at the assembly was present.

"For a second I thought I was having a dementia attack, you know with all the red lights and the noise." Isaac said as they entered. "Do you want this one?"

"Could you get the ice chunk hanging there?" She asked pointing at the ice hanging by a pair of claws. "I'm not going over there alone."

He nodded and stuck out his hand, the white orb of his kinesis shot out and dragged the block over blocking the lasers on one side. quickly going past to the other side, he waited for Babs and then dragged it back to the second set of lasers. Repeating the process with that one and the third set, he opened the vent holding the piece of Rosseta.

As Babs took it out with her own kinesis, two Creepers crawled out from a vent back by the exit. They watched as the Creepers tore off the heads of the corspes and began to take aim with their weapons.

Isaac took out his Gatling gun, took aim, and fired off a rocket sending both Necromorphs into the lasers. As he was turning to make a joke to Babs, one of them got back up and threw itself at him. He was turning when it hit him and began to try and get through his suits armor.

He grabbed onto two of the fleshy legs and tried to pull it off, he hit it, smashed his head against the wall and reverted to hitting it again. As he was struggling, Babs watching the scene in shock, tripped him and dragged him towards one of the lasers. In a single moment, she forced his head down and cut the Creeper off, while missing his helmet by an inch.

Grabbing his throat, Isaac scuttled back and laid against the wall. Letting his helmet unfold, he glared at the burnt head and brought it over with his kinesis, holding it in front of him, he sent it flying through all three sets of lasers, cutting it into pieces.

"Thanks, Babs," he said. "How did you know how far to cut? It was practically wrapped around my head."

"I just guessed." She said picking up the ice slab.

"You just guessed?" He said letting his helmet fold up. "I swear, you and your cousin along with her friends will be the death of me. I shouldn't even bother with Necromorphs."

"And the guard said my cousin whines." Babs muttered.

Author's Notes:

Merry Christmas!