Fallout: Equestria, Darkness Falls

“Dawn?” I called for the third time. “Star Key? Genesis? Is anypony there?”

I have not the slightest idea how, but I awoke with a start on my couch, the very same one that I used to take naps on from my office. The atrium outside had been pitch black with no view and no sign of life, yet the gold and white washed hallway was as bright as ever. Nothing else seemed out of place; the floors and walls were clean, the air conditioning/purifier was still working to pump in fresh air, fountains still gushed crisp, clean water. It was like I had never left, except…

No pony was here!

And I could not shake the profound sense of confusion. Why was I here? Where were the others? What happened to Ghost, Scarlett, Blaster, and Whiteout? Last I remembered we were about to descend into Stable 68 when the elevator broke. I remember a terrifying sense of speed and falling, the raw sensation of unbridled horror that I was about to die for what felt like the umpteen-billionth time, because everything in this world hated me. And then a sudden blackness. But with these thoughts and my missing Stable 46 ponies, everything had turned on its head for me. I felt like a foal again, trying (and failing) to find my way to school on my first day. Goddesses, what an experience that was. I would have never found my way if it were not for Harmonics. Unfortunately, she was not here right now.

“HELLO!!” I finally shouted, fighting the urge to bend my ears back. I was met with only the echo of my own voice as it bounced down the corridors. Then silence again.

Was it all a dream? I asked myself as I steadily made my way down the disquieted hall. Did I conjure up all those events in my head? Perhaps that was a response to what Whiskey had done to Clover. Dawn always said I had an active imagination when I was very young, which I thought I had outgrown after a few years. Perhaps I did not, however…

I still had my saddlebags and all their meager contents. I even had Conviction hung by my side by its leather strap. No, it was no dream, all of those things happened… so what was this?

I sighed and bent my head low, desperately wishing for answers. “Hello…?” I meekly called again. Now I feared whatever I might find here in my long-lost home.

After what felt like hours, I eventually found myself in front of the grand doors to the Cathedral of the Goddesses, the gateway completely shut… and with the oh-so recognizable graffiti of raiders on its polished oak. I winced and shook my head in denial. The thought that Bracket had found more of his friends and went after my home when he could not find me darkened every corner of my thoughts.

“No, no no no no, please don’t let it be!” The door swung open with magic and hooves and I gasped.

The grand cathedral had been desecrated horribly. The twin marble statues of Celestia and Luna were intact but marred by innumerable cracks and rounded dents, like somepony had taken a sledgehammer to break them and eventually gave up. Many of the wooden pews were smashed into splinters while the elegant red tapestries were torn, disheveled and dirty, like they had not seen any maintenance for the better part of years. But to my relief, there was no raider graffiti or any mutilated bodies.

I sighed in hesitant relief. For a moment I believed that I would find mounds of corpses, all of them my friends and peers from Stable 46. Raiders clearly wrote on the great door, but somepony else must have defiled the actual chamber. So who…?

A fluffy gray speck landed on my nose and I went cross-eyed trying to look at it. “Huh…?” I swiped it off and saw that it looked similarly to a fleck of snow, but it was a lightish gray instead.

I looked back up as more landed around my hooves. It was snowing? Inside my stable? How the…? When I looked back up, the cathedral insides were suddenly engulfed in the stuff, piled on every surface like it had been doing so for hours on end instead of mere moments.

I blinked, even more confused, and left with a very disturbed, unknown tightness in my breast. I lit my horn and brought up Conviction, ignoring the outcries of heresy from a disgusted little pony in my head, just to be safe. Something was terribly wrong here.

I sucked in a breath, ready to search the entire stable to find out who was responsible, and that turned out to be a big mistake as one of the little gray flecks darted into my throat. I coughed and hacked in the most undignified manner, heat gathering in my cheeks, and for once I was glad to have been alone.

With watery eyes I wiped away at my muzzle and surveyed another little gray speck. In that moment I frowned as a missed detail rang true. The snowflake did not melt at my touch, unlike the first ones I had seen in the cave entrance.

“It almost feels like…” I pondered while rubbing the fleck around. “It feels… like…”

The terrible knowledge passed through me like the swipe of an icey dagger. And that cascaded into a horrible realization as a most unwelcome and painfully familiar sensation danced over my coat.

Ashes. I was surrounded by and the cathedral was buried in ashes.

I screamed, rage and terror surging in my chest, and backed out of the gate as fast as my legs would take me. My telekinetic grip on Conviction wavered and popped, dropping the goddesses-damned weapon to the floor. It shattered to pieces and then those pieces disintegrated into a further pile of gray ash.

“No!!” I yelled, hot tears pouring down my teeth as I snarled in despair and anger. “Who!?” I turned this way and that, ready to kill the next stallion I saw, convinced that Whiskey or Bracket or some other unknown perpetrator was nearby to face my wrath.

I was met with utter silence after my echoes had ceased. It took a second for me to recognize that my surroundings had changed. The walls were no longer clean and pristine, instead they wore the red of rust and that of freshly splattered blood, as if somepony had filled balloons with the stuff and went on a morbid spree. Bullet holes, pockmarks and burns lined every panel of every wall down the three hallways, and the floor was covered in bloodied pony bones and entrails. Even in the now-failing and flickering lights, the scene was horrendous. Rage mixed with nausea and I threw up, the sickness rising to my throat with astounding speed.

Low chuckling reached my ears.

It nearly snuffed my rage, but instead it mixed with terror. “You’re responsible for this! Aren’t you!!” I bellowed down the halls, convinced that it was Whiskey or Bracket.

The laughter grew and I could even pick out the snide remarks of ponies I knew;

“They never saw it coming…” That was the cold and dark tone of Ghost. I narrowed my watering eyes. “Nopony ever sees it coming…”

“Ee’yup. Told ya this would be a quick job! Easy caps.” Blaster followed, his voice reeked of greed-laced satisfaction. I grit my teeth so hard my jaw threatened to crack.

“Told ya they was stupid.” Now Whiskey Tango mocked my dead ponies. I burned with rage.

“Too bad we couldn’t spare some of them, I wanted to have my way with a few.” This one sounded weird. It was like a merger of Scarlett and Shank.

“That’s my fetish!” came Cleaver’s most unpleasant sultry. I screamed.

“BY THE GODDESSES NAME I WILL FUCKING KILL YOU ALL!!” I bellowed back the death threats of a broken heart, any creed of mine forgotten by the sight of my murdered stable as I saw red and the faces of every pony that I dearly wanted to shoot in kind. Somehow Conviction was back at my side. I did not question how, as all I wanted to do was put down some fucking evil ponies!

Before I could pick a direction and charge, the darkness enveloped each hallway into an impassable wall of black. Moments later, sinister pairs of red eyes and fang-filled smiles watched me as the laughter continued.

I started shooting.

Pzzat! Pzzat! Pzzat-pzzat!

Lance after lance of deadly purple energy shot down each of the three halls, only to disappear into the black and seem to do absolutely nothing. The laughter continued, mocking my efforts to avenge my Stable. No, they were amused and it only pissed me off even more.

Pzzat! Pzzat-pzzat! Click, click…

The battery pack went dead, exhausted of its energy.

Every maw down every hallway stretched impossible wide, and in the voiced of Dawn, Harmonics, and everypony else, “FAILURE!!” they screeched. “YOU FAILED US ALL!! LED THEM HERE!! YOU FAILED!!”

Moments later a torrent of blood shot from each fanged mouth like a hellish geyser.

The gate to the cathedral slammed shut of its own accord, denying me any avenue of escape. The red blood surged, carrying bones and entrails with it. Instantly I was swept away, tumbling and turning, gasping for air only to receive great lungfuls of hot and sticky copper. The currents washed me this way and that, showing me no mercy as it slammed me into corners, rails, the ceiling, as if the blood and stable itself worked to drown and bludgeon me to death.

I woke with a soundless start, every bone in my beaten and battered body ached. Silence stretched on around me, along with impenetrable darkness. The cold of what felt like damp stone pressed against my side and cheek. Gone was the nightmarish vision of my home, replaced by vague shadows and blackness.

The memory jolted back into my head like someone had poured molten metal into brain. Goddesses, we fell! Down a damned elevator shaft! Any cobweb of drowsiness left me, nerves wrestled inside, telling me I was alive while a panicking little pony in my head insisted that I was dead.

I curled up in a ball, hugging my hind legs to my chest as whimpering sobs wracked me. “I’m dead! Go-goddesses above, I’m dead! I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m DEAD!” Darkness surrounded me, impervious to light and unyielding in its totality. Was this the afterlife? Was this the next step of my torturous purgatory after such a nightmarish version of my home? “I’m dead, I’m dead, I’m dead!”

Bzzzzat.

“AAAAAAAH!!” The sudden light made me convulse, even though it was brief and sudden. A thousand questions raced as my eyes, now cursed with blurry embers avoiding my direct gaze, darted about the darkness.

Distracted from my dead-ness, I waited, watched and listened in stark silence.

Bzzzzzat.

There it was again. This time I merely jumped, successful in biting back the shriek of terror that wanted to leap from my throat. My sluggishly panicked mind identified the phenomena; it was some kind of severed electricity cable, sparking every so often as it tried to deliver current to wherever it was supposed to.

And this time I made out a few shapes in the brief light, but could not identify them.

Bzzzat.

Another shower of sparks illuminated the area. Reasonably assured that I was not dead, I activated my pipbuck lamp spell and light peeled back the darkness. We were at the bottom of the elevator shaft and I was several yards away from the mass of random, smashed junk and the now-ruined elevator platform. Laying atop the wreckage was Ghost and Blaster, Scarlett was draped over an old Stable-tech crate, and Whiteout was at the base of the debris. I could not really tell if anypony was dead or not, as I myself fought off a brooding headache. I was assuredly bruised as I yelped from trying to sit myself up. Conviction was only a couple feet away from me.

Joy overflowed and I laughed, long and giggly and unnaturally happy. I’m not dead, I’m alive! Goddesses above thank you, thank you, thank you!!

“Is everypony….” I coughed after my giggling fits. “Anypony alive…?”

For long and terrible moments there was silence, as if no life remained. But just before I called again without a hope, “Y-yeah. Goddesses, girl… it sounded like you enjoyed that fall. You secretly an adrenaline junky or somethin’?” It was Blaster. Thank the Goddesses, I’m not alone! And yet...

“Holy mother-fucking-- what the hell fucking happened!?” Looks like Scarlett is awake, too. Soon after, I saw Whiteout and Ghost moving.

Blaster looked up and down the small mountain of debris that he was on. “Criminy. Who done blocked the elevator shaft with all this shit?” He slowly stood and popped his back with a sickening crack. “Ah mean, ain’t these Stable ponies heard of no-load zones…?”

“It was moved here on purpose.” Ghost slowly stood and then hopped down. “Look at the bottom.” We did. “All of this was cargo from around here and hastily placed in the shaft.”

“So the elevator…?” Whiteout trailed off.

“Malfunctioned,” Ghost finished my thought process. “Failsafes likely gave in when Scarlett tried to start the thing.” I was glad the lights were off enough to hide my glaring. The words of my dream still echoed. Okay, Silver… get a hold of yourself; the mocking laughter and comments from my dream persisted despite the fact that I was awake now. I took a deep breath and refocused on the situation.

I frowned. This was highly unusual. Why would the Stable’s High Priestess allow her subjects to clog the elevator shaft like this? Why was it in such disrepair to begin with?

“How are we, you know…” Scarlett gestured between all five of us. “Not squashed and flattened into fucking pancakes?”

Ghost hummed and studied the wreckage. He pointed at something. “That’s probably why.” His hoof pointed out a few fading blue glows just inside the elevator shaft.

“Oh!” I knew what those were. “Talismans? I’m guessing enchanted to make the elevator safe. Well, safer. I remember one in Stable 46 being down for maintenance, and Wrench mentioned that the talismans needed replacing. I remember because it meant a week of trudging up and down flights of stairs.”

Blaster nodded with a smile. “Sounds fun.”

“It wasn’t.” I deadpanned. Though I had to admit, I would much rather trudge down stairs to get down here than the way we came. “If the elevator breaks, these talismans negate the falling momentum of living ponies to prevent injury.”

“Well, they did a half-assed job…” Blaster groaned while rubbing his side.

I trotted up to him. “Let me see.” After he took some of his armor off, I saw the bruise; it was as large as my hoof along his ribs. I took out some healing bandages and concocted a square, held in place with medical tape. At the same time I scanned his side. “Well, no broken or cracked ribs, but you’re going to have a hard time breathing for a while.” I grimaced with a small sigh, biting back the feelings of disgust that I had towards him.

Blaster nodded, but apparently my efforts were not as good as they needed to be. “You all right?”

Come on, Silver… get a hold of yourself! It was a dream, nothing more. “Yes, thank you.” I tried a smile and after a moment he nodded. Seems I was off the hook for the time being.

Ghost tilted his head up and sighed. “We will need to find another way out. I almost asked why, but upon seeing the absolutely destroyed elevator, that would have definitely been a stupid question.

“I’m sure we’ll find another way.” I tried to encourage even as I got over my panic little by little. Not to mention the sheer unease.

Though, I could not help but notice how unusually tense Ghost was. His entire posture had changed; even in this short time we had been traveling together, he always seemed relaxed but alert, as if he was always aware and nothing could take him by surprise. Truthfully nothing had taken him in such a way, that was mostly me. But now? Now he seemed anxious, even his entire tone had shifted and that had me worried. Suddenly his behavior the day before made a little more sense, even if it raised further questions.

He was not the only one either, as I took in our motley group. Blaster shifted uneasily, even as he played the part of the strong and stoic type (probably to impress Scarlett) and his previous bravado and cap-mongering was gone. Speaking of, the raider mare kept up a facade, but I could read the guilt in her eyes as she probably blamed herself for the elevator malfunction. Whiteout suppressed some slightly noticeable quivers in her hind legs.

And me? Well…

Let’s just say I was happy that Conviction remained in one piece.

The room was not all that big. It was actually smaller than the loading area we had fallen from and had even fewer crates and barrels (most assuredly due to most of them being squashed under the elevator platform). Blaster and I were the main source of light as Ghost’s torch had broken in the fall, so we lead the way forward.

“So…” Blaster asked quietly, trying to stir up conversation as we walked in silence. “Is this anything like your place, Silver?”

Crap. “I, um… well, no.” I blinked, then remembered the area just outside the Great Seal-- er, Stable door. “Kind of? There wasn’t anything like these boxes or barrels. Or this room.” Heat gathered in my face and I turned away towards the darkness, feigning like I was keeping an eye out - which was kind of true.

A sudden metallic clack caught our attention and we froze. The fact that we had seen nopony and heard nothing since we started moving made the sound much louder than it actually was.

“What the…” Whiteout questioned and her horn lit. She picked up a piece of round brass that looked like a bullet casing. “It looks like someone took a shot down here.”

That had our attention and everypony checked weapons, except for me. I frowned and shook my head. “Really, everypony calm down. We’re in a Stable and there will not be a shot fired.” I was not going to have another Clover incident. Not again. I won’t let the blood-covered nightmare pony stable become a real thing.

Though it seems I was ignored. Everypony kept their weapons up and I was about to make my demand more clear when Blaster spoke up. “Whoa…”

My reply died in my throat when I turned to see what he saw.

It started off as a few, then dozens, and hundreds and finally there were so many that they covered the floor like a carpet. Spent bullet casings. My eyebrows shot up. “Looks like somepony took a whole lot of shots down here.” Blaster leaned closer to the ground as he spotted something else. “There’s blood too, dried under the casings.”

We all squinted and found more splatters of long-dried blood, but…

“Then where are the bodies?” Scarlett asked the unsettling question that we were all undoubtedly thinking. A chill ran down my spine.

I was caught between anguish and rage as I moved forward.

“Fuck!” Ghost hissed. “Wait, damn it!”

I stopped and whirled on him. “Wait? Wait for what?! Someone attacked this stable, there may yet be survivors!”

“Or…” He hissed through clenched teeth. “You might draw whatever did this to us!”

I huffed. “Aren’t you a ‘Reaper’?” Aren’t you supposed to be the fearless ‘Ghost’ of Stalliongrad?” I mocked him openly. “A super-deadly death pony that has no compunction about murdering others for something as simple as bottlcaps!? And you’re scared of a little blood and bullet shells?” The truth was that I was scared too, but I did not want us to delay. Any hold up might doom any survivors, not to mention put our lives in danger for longer than necessary.

I did not wait for a reply as I turned back around and moved forward. “Besides, we won’t find a way up if we -- oh, Goddesses…” I stopped dead in my tracks.

Entering the wan glow of my pipbuck lamp was the massive toothed gear of the Stable door, bearing the number ‘68’ as it should have. The door was still sealed shut, and yet… it was open. A massive hole had been melted straight through the thick metal; some parts were melted, others were shorn straight through the opening, creating a row of outwardly bent, jagged metal teeth. All around that hole was the speckling of tiny divots that marked the impacts of bullets fired at the hole.

The scene was so terrifying I did not even hear the others move beside me.

“Holy hell…” Blaster whispered his blasphemy, yet I did not have the presence of mind to scold him for it.

“What the hell can do that to a Stable door?” Whiteout asked with no small amount of awed fear.

“Dunno, but I ain’t so sure I wanna find out.”

“Could it have been a magic energy weapon?” I asked Ghost, pointing at the slag. “Maybe a bigger version of my weapon?”

Ghost stared at the same scene with us. “Don’t know. But even if it did, that doesn’t explain the jagged tears in the metal.” I soundly gulped. The lack of answers to the scenery before us was the most unsettling as it just added more questions.

“W-well?” I wanted to take a step forward, but simply could not. “We still n-need to go in there.”

“Ladies first.”

“No way!”

“Um, I would prefer not to…”

Ghost said nothing.

I rolled my eyes and groaned. “Very well, then…” I wanted to say something snappy, something to point out their cowardice. But all I could focus on was how much I did not want to go inside now, survivors or not.

Swallowing the trembling butterflies in my stomach, I urged myself forward one hoof at a time. The closer I got, the more I expected something to lash out and strike me down. The entrance was definitely wide enough, I didn't even have to worry about the jagged strips of metal snagging my robes or saddlebags. The door was thick, enough that my entire length would be concealed by cold metal had the hole not been there. Just beyond in the pale-lit darkness I saw what seemed to be some kind of lobby. Long rows of old chairs and small tables.

Even so, it took every fiber of my being not to back out immediately. Every second I was in here, I expected a demon or something else to swiftly lop my head off, grab and drag me into the foreboding darkness, devour my soul or--

“AAAAAAHHHH!” I screamed and jumped forward as something poked my flank. In a second I whirled around, Conviction up and ready to fire--

Only to find a very surprised Blaster staring back at me with a hoof raised. I blinked, hyperventilating as my scrambled brain tried to put two and two together. “Don’t. Do. That! Damn it!!” I yelled back, glaring daggers at him. I was so very tempted to shoot him anyway.

“Sorry,” he whispered with a sheepish grin. “I couldn’t help myself?” Oh, he’s trying to be funny...

“Not so loud, stupid.” Ghost poked his head in and gave me that flat stare.

My face flushed and I hissed back. “You try not to scream when somepony pokes you in the flank when you’re expecting death from nowhere!!” My blood ran cold as I remembered I was in the room. And had screamed. I turned and looked around the room carefully, and sent up a small prayer of thanks that it had been deserted.

There was nothing but silence as the dusty air wafted slowly in my pipbuck’s light. Now that I was not scared out of my coat, I had a proper look around as the others came through.

As I had seen before, this room was some kind of lobby. Rows of small and simple chairs lined the closest walls while a glass-encased security booth, so dirty I could not see the area behind it, stood vigil at the other end of the hall. Next to it would have been the door that led into Stable 68 proper, but it had been ripped to shreds even worse than the blast door we just passed through. Dirty refuse such as paper, cans and other trash lay in small piles, the stale and stuffy air reeked of ancient death.

“Ya know,” Blaster commented as he took in the sight. “If your stable is ‘as nice’ as this one, I think I’ll pass.”

I rolled my eyes and felt myself indignantly comment, “My stable is much nicer than this, thank you very much.” While it was definitely true, I found that comparison to be completely irrelevant to our situation. “My stable is of the Goddesses’ design.”

“More blood stains.” Scarlett moved across the hall and gestured downward.

“And here.” Ghost was by the security booth. What I thought was simply dirt caked on the glass turned out to be a massive splattering of some unfortunate pony’s blood.

“Here too.” Whiteout was by the bent open door, the pointed corners of which had dried crimson as well.

My mind swam as I processed just how much death must have transpired in only this room and the one before us. “What happened here…?” I whispered, the ominous situation screamed danger.

“I told ya,” Blaster said quietly. “These stables are fucked up places to be. Most turned out to be these odd social experiments. Scarlett and I once found a stable that had this weirdo election setup.”

Scarlett shivered. I quirked an eyebrow. “Election?”

“Ya. The whole stable would vote on who was to be the next Overmare.”

My eye twitched. “What? No, that can’t be right.” I moved over to the door to take a peek while keeping my voice down. I was greeted by a long and somewhat lit hallway with intersections every several yards. “High Priestesses are passed by lineage and holy birthright, it’s not an election.”

“Well, that stable was, sweetheart. Only they elected their leader to be sacrificed.” I gave him a flat stare. “Hey honey, it’s the truth.”

I sighed heavily and did not answer. “Let’s just get out of he--”

The room suddenly lit up, yellow lights strobed as the ceiling lights winked off. A hellishly loud klaxon filled the room, bending our ears back in discomfort.

“What is this!?” Scarlett yelled, cupping her head with her forehooves.

“Some kind of alarm!” Ghost shouted above the din. “Someone find the fucking console and turn it off!”

“Warning! Warning!” came a synthetic mare’s voice over the PA system. “Quarantine alert in Stable Entrance registration. Lockdown initiated. Please remain calm while the appropriate authorities arrive and do not attempt to leave.” The message repeated once more.

“Screw you, lady!” Blaster aimed his shotgun up at the ceiling and scrapped the speaker, squelching the synthetic voice. Regardless, the klaxon still whined and the lights continued to strobe. Scarlett moved over to the security booth, looking for a way in.

I blinked and furrowed my brow. There, just behind the thin veil of dried blood, a vague pony shape. That had to be Scarlett’s shadow, right? I snapped on my Eyes Forward Sparkle and saw a red pip right next to a blue one.

My eyes widened. “Scarlett!”

At just that moment the room was then filled with the shattering of glass and the disgusting gurgling-roar of… something.

In my heart I knew it could only be one thing; a demon. It was grotesque beyond anything I had ever seen, far more horrifying than the giant radscorpion, and yet it was absolutely familiar. It was a pony, marred almost beyond recognition, like a dead and decaying corpse. Its coat was probably some kind of light brown, yet stained with old and dried blood that gushed from horrifically gaping wounds in its side. Its eyes were angry yellow pinpricks in seas of blood red while the muzzle snapped open and closed with a split lip and dozens of sharp teeth that no equine should have. The intestines, visible through what seemed like an act of raider design, spilled from its abdomen with drips and gushes. From that mess of entrails two spindly limbs erupted. Two more such limbs jutted from the thing’s back and ended in razor sharp spears.

It had Scarlett pinned, its abdominal limbs grabbing and scratching at her as she screamed and tried to buck the thing off of her.

Ghost was the first to act as he brought up his hunting revolver.

BLAM!! BLAM!!

The gun’s thunderous report echoed off the walls as two shots tore gaping holes in the creature’s torso, yet it did not even take notice! Blaster stepped up. “Ah’ll save ya! Hold on!” Two thunderous roars and great flashes from his mounted shotguns further tore into the thing.

I gasped in shock as it looked up, those two angry red and yellow eyes now distracted. Scarlett forgotten, it charged at me, limbs flailing madly and jaws snapping with a hungry fervor.

“AAaaah!!” I backpedalled right over a bench, falling to the floor. Conviction clattered nearby and I brought the weapon up to fire--

I was too late. I looked up, the thing was moments from pouncing me!

“Nuh-uh!” Blaster’s shotgun roared again, the twin buckshot slamming into the creature’s side and flinging it across the room, where it smashed with a wet slap into a wooden box, splintering its body.

“What the fuck is that thing!?”

“Very fuckin’ pissed off! Holy shit, it’s getting back up!”

“What!? Then how do we kill it!”

The three mercenaries mirrored my thoughts. It seemed that no matter what we threw at it, nothing worked…

In the dim klaxon light, I noticed the wounds. No normal pony could survive that, but whatever this thing was, it certainly could. Massive gaping wounds in its side, then a pair of holes in its skull, probably from Ghost. Then it hit me.

“Everypony! Concentrate your fire!” The thing was about to charge again. “Hurry!”

Moments later the room filled with the irregular staccato gunfire and the one energy weapon. Lances of purple energy and tracer rounds impacted the thing, sending it into a sprawl as more and more horrific damage stacked endlessly onto our target. One by one the gunfire gave out. Ghost went empty, then Blaster, followed by Whiteout, and lastly Scarlett until only I was left.

The last purple lance screamed across the room, striking the beast in its mangled shoulder, held in place by one sinewy strand of rotting musculature.

Click, click.

“Quick, reload!” Ghost ordered.

“No, no. Wait.” I held a hoof out.

Everypony paused and watched as the creature began to glow, starting at where the last shot from Conviction has struck. It quickly grew, enveloping the horrid creature’s entire being before darkening to ash and collapsing.

At that moment the klaxons went silent and the lights returned to normal. I frowned.

“What the fuck!?” Blaster stared at the ash, then ran over to Scarlett. “You okay? Didn’t bite, did it?”

“Not for lack of fucking trying!!” She hissed back, shaking and with a hoof to her chest. I didn’t have to imagine how hard or fast her heart must have been going, for mine was doing the same.

Whiteout cautiously poked at the ash pile with her weapon. “What was it? Have either of you seen anything like this before?”

Ghost and I shook our heads. “Whatever it is, it’s incredibly dangerous. That kind of fire would have been enough to down a Hellhound.” Ghost reloaded his revolver as he watched the security booth where the thing had come from.

Blaster was still trying to calm Scarlett down. “Screw the contract, I vote we leave ASAP.” Scarlett nodded with him and Whiteout agreed.

Ghost sighed. “We can’t.” From his tone, he did not like the implications and neither did I.

Scarlett rounded and glared at him, apparently over her shock and now quite agitated. “Say what? You see that fucking thing and how much of a beating it took!? Well fuck you, we’re leaving!”

“I think he means we can’t leave,” I interjected before she could go on. “Unless you can climb an elevator shaft.” Scarlett’s words died in her throat.

“So, what do we do?” Whiteout whispered.

“Well,” I said, then peered down the long hallway. “We have two options. We can go back and maybe try to fix the lift, or we press on and find another way out of here.”

Scarlett scoffed. “Another way? Are you nuts? This is a stable, they only have one way in or out and that’s it!” She jutted her hoof back through the ruined door and to the equally destroyed lift.

“That’s not necessarily true.” I rubbed my chin in thought. Whiskey Tango managed to get into Stable 46 through other means, so there should be some way out somewhere else. Right? I relayed my thoughts to the others.

“Either way we need to get going.” Ghost cut further discussion short. “You hear that?”

We all fell silent and listened to the eerie silence. From down the long stretch of hallway, through the shredded door, distant moans and groans reached our ears. I turned my eyes forward sparkle on and saw nothing at first, but then a red tick flicked into existence. Then another. And another and another.

I stiffened. “Okay, yes, going would be a fabulous idea right now!”

Level Up!

New Perk: Astute Observer: While indoors, you gain +1 to Perception and will sometimes find exactly what you need in containers.