“They’re coming!” screamed Sandbar, his head jerking back and forth as he tried to look down three different corridors at once. “What do we do?!”
Cloudbank knew the question was directed at her, trying to fight down a rising sense of panic as she hoisted Severance into a ready position. Instead, she focused on coming up with a plan. Come on, come on, there’s got to be some way out of this! Maybe we could dig in and fight them off right here? But she knew that wouldn’t work. Even if Drafty hadn’t lost her knife when she’d been attacked, and Sandbar’s hoof wasn’t injured, their position was completely indefensible. The splashing was coming from the corridors directly to their left, right, and rear; trying to cover all three directions at once was impossible.
She shook her head. No, we have to retreat! If we can make it to the vault and seal ourselves inside like Turbo said…! But with Drafty unable to fly, that left only herself and Turbo who could make it over the water-hidden spikes in the corridor ahead. Even if the two of them were each able to carry somepony else, that would mean that someone would have to be abandoned, and that was unacceptable. Everypony here trusted me with their lives! I can’t just throw someone away like that! Maybe Severance could carry the third pony? It had just demonstrated that it was willing to be more helpful than she thought, so maybe it would again now? But if I’m wrong…
“Cloudbank! What do we do?!” C. Shell’s voice was thick with barely-repressed fear. The splashing sounded like it was almost on top of them, and Cloudbank knew there was no more time to think.
“I don’t know!” she wailed. “I don’t-”
“Severance!” yelled Drafty suddenly, her eyes widening in realization. “That’s it! Cloudy! Use Severance!”
Cloudbank gave her a look of desperate incomprehension. “Wha-”
“Fly towards the vault!” explained Drafty hurriedly. “Drag Severance under the water so that it can cut down any of the spikes in the way! Then we can make it!”
For a moment Cloudbank didn’t understand what she meant, before her eyes widened in sudden understanding. “Right!” Instantly, she flew towards the corridor where Sandbar has injured his hoof, rocketing past everypony as she beat her wings furiously, knowing there was no time to waste. Flying as low over the water as she could, she lowered Severance until she could feel its blade dragging along the ground, the sharp edge cutting through the water so easily that it barely reduced her speed at all. Almost immediately, she felt it slice through obstructions as she hurried forward, knowing that it was cutting down more spikes. It’s working!
Slowing down as she realized that she’d leave her friends in the dark if she outpaced them complately, Cloudbank glanced back at them. She could already see C. Shells helping Sandbar along, his injured leg draped over her shoulder as she helped him to run forward. Drafty was moving along behind them, her face tight with fear. And Turbo was the last to follow, walking backward with his knife held at the ready between his teeth.
He had barely moved ten feet when the ghouls arrived.
Hissing and screeching, the horde of undead ponies poured out of the darkness, immediately making their way towards the pegasus stallion. The hallway was wide enough for closest pair to immediately make their way toward Turbo, the rest scrambling over each other with snarled curses and angry hisses, snapping their jaws like wild animals as they collided and pushed off of each other, flooding the intersection. The one directly in front of Turbo threw itself at him, while the ghoul next to it also rushed forward…and then collapsed, howling as its front hooves stopped working correctly.
“The spikes!” Cloudbank heard C. Shells murmur in amazement. “They’re falling for their own trap!”
But that was cold comfort as the ghouls rushed forward, apparently too mad with hunger to care, not hesitating to climb over their fallen companion in their desire to get at the ponies. The ghoul in front of Turbo barely seemed to care as the pegasus stallion darted forward, his knife opening up a gash across the thing’s face. Instead, it lunged forward his neck, its teeth grazing his skin and managing to draw blood before he jerked backward, barely avoiding the lethal strike.
“Turbo!” screamed Drafty, and Cloudbank felt her blood turn to ice at her girlfriend’s cry, knowing why she was afraid. If Turbo became paralyzed now they wouldn’t be able to save him!
But to her relief, he kept moving, moving back and avoiding a hoofstrike from the ghoul. “I’m okay!” he yelled. “Just keep going! We have to get to the vault!”
Biting her lip, Cloudbank knew he was right. But that didn’t make it any easier for her to turn away from her friends’ peril and keep flying forward, slicing down more spikes as she dragged Severance down the corridor. Behind her, she could hear more yelling from her friends – C. Shells telling Drafty to take her knife, Sandbar almost stumbling and falling – and the horrific sounds of the ghouls hooting and splashing as they tried to overtake them. C’mon, c’mon! she chanted silently. The vault’s gotta be just ahead!
And then she was there.
With Severance’s dim light further muffled by the filthy water, she almost flew into it, barely managing to stop in time as the large steel wall with a huge round metal door suddenly came into view directly ahead of her. “We’re here!” she yelled, the words exiting her mouth in a sudden rush of hope. “The vault, we’re here!” She hurriedly dragged Severance across the submerged floor all the way to the door, just to be safe, and then turned around and flew back towards the fray, raising Severance up as she hurtled towards the mass of ghouls.
And not a moment too soon. The monsters were literally crawling on top of one another to reach them now, wriggling and writhing as they clambered over each other in a way that looked more like a mass of ants than things that had once been ponies. Worse, the overflowing mass of undead meant that the underwater spikes had ceased to be a deterrent, the ghouls on the bottom of the horde pressed onto the protrusions and serving as steppingstones for the others. Turbo was frantically trying to hold the tidal wave of rotting flesh and snapping jaws back, but it was clear that he was about to be overwhelmed, his knife making almost no difference against the slavering undead mob.
He was almost overrun when Cloudbank reached his side, swinging Severance with a scream of defiance as she bisected a ghoul that had leapt toward him. A rain of viscera fell on her, but she ignored it as more ghouls rushed toward her, undaunted by their fellow’s sudden demise. “GET IT OPEN!” she roared at the others, not turning her head away from the onrushing ghouls. “GET IT OPEN AND GET INSIDE!” Even as she spoke, two more ghouls threw themselves at her, one going low to try and grab her hooves as the other threw itself into the air in a wild attempt to grab her. Her response was to lift up her hooves and avoid the lower ghoul even as she brought Severance around in an arc that shoved the point of its blade down the upper ghoul’s throat and through the back of its head, killing it instantly.
With Severance as her only light source, the wild swings caused shadows to flicker and dance in the corridor, and it looked to Cloudbank as though the hallway was filled with undead as far as she could see. How are there so many?! she thought, filled with rage and frustration and fear. There weren’t this many of them before! Behind her, she could hear her friends’ voices, but she couldn’t focus on what they were saying. Hurry up, Drafty! Her girlfriend had gotten the combination from Piggy, she knew; now she just needed to get it open and they’d be safe! For a brief instant she wondered how they were supposed to get out after they locked themselves inside the vault, but she pushed that thought away. They’d deal with that later!
And then she heard her friends start to scream.
“You know how to open this, right?!” yelled Sandbar, looking between Drafty, the vault, and where Cloudbank was somehow managing to hold off the mass of ghouls.
“Of course I do!” replied Drafty, making her way toward the combination lock in front of the vault, thankful that Piggy had told her the numbers. “Fourteen-right! Thirty-six lef-”
“Just do it already!” panted Turbo, still winded from fighting for his life.
Drafty reached out a hoof as she reached the dial. “As soon as I unlock this I’m gonna need you to help me pull the d-”
“Yum yum yummy!”
The words, spoken in a mad fit of shrieking, came at the same time as a rotting body surged upward from the water right next to the vault, the ghoul laughing maniacally as it threw itself at Drafty. She had just enough time to realize that they’d missed one, that this ghoul must have been lying in wait, before she felt sharp teeth sink into her neck, followed by indescribable agony as it ripped its jaws – and a large portion of her throat – away.
She dimly heard screaming going on around her, but she couldn’t focus on that, couldn’t focus on anything except how hard it was to breathe all of a sudden. She tried to cough but she couldn’t seem to clear her throat, and she felt sick and nauseous and dizzy all at once, falling down. What was going on? She had to…she had to get up…had to open the vault or they’d all die…
Kara… she thought dimly. Kara, please, help me…
For a moment there was no reply, and then the goddess’s voice sounded in her mind. I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I don’t have enough access to your world to help you. Kara’s voice was filled with disappointment. I was hoping you’d make it further than this.
Drafty didn’t have a chance to reply as she felt herself being moved, and she thrashed blindly as she thought it was the ghoul coming back to finish what it had started. But as she was lifted out of the water, she saw C. Shells and Sandbar and Turbo, looking at her with horrified looks on their faces. “D-Drafty…” whimpered C. Shells, her eyes directed at her neck. Next to her, Sandbar looked like he was in shock, as though he couldn’t believe was he was seeing.
Only Turbo was able to shake off his horror, lifting one of Drafty’s hooves in his own. “Drafty! The combination! What’s the last part of the combination?!”
She could feel her consciousness starting to swim as he spoke, and she wondered why he wanted to know that. I…I want Cloudy… she thought hazily. She suddenly remembered when she’d been back in that apartment, getting sicker every day. Cloudbank had always been right there beside her the entire time, never leaving her except to go get water. She had held her hoof too, and it had made her feel better, even when she’d been scared and hurting…just knowing that Cloudy had wanted to save her so much had meant the world to her.
“Drafty!” Turbo’s voice cut through her hazy memories. “The last number! Tap it out! Tap it against my hoof!”
Go away… she thought blearily, closing her eyes. But then she heard him say it again, and felt him shake her, and she would have whimpered if she could. Maybe…maybe if she told him what he wanted to know, he’d leave and Cloudy would come back? That…something wasn’t right about that, but she…she couldn’t remember what…the number…it was the last…the third…three…number three…
She softly clopped her hoof against Turbo’s three times…and then she knew no more.
Her consciousness came back abruptly, and she thrashed as she realized she was choking. Twisting away from the ponies around her, she rolled onto her belly and coughed painfully, retching and spitting up blood before gasping heavily, pulling air into her lungs in great mouthfuls. She repeated the process several times before it felt like her throat was clear, and she slumped bonelessly to the ground.
“It worked!” she heard a familiar voice – C. Shells’ – say.
“So that’s healing magic? I had no idea...” That came from Turbo, she knew.
“Y-you did it!” And that voice was Sandbar’s. “You saved her!”
S-saved me…? Barely able to move, Thermal Draft struggled to remember what had happened. They had been…they had gone back into Vanhoover, to a bank, and then they’d gone downstairs… We were attacked, and…and one of the ghouls…they got me! Her eyes widening, she managed to move a hoof to her neck…and felt that it was whole, the skin tender but unbroken. Somepony had rescued her…
Lex.
It had to be him. He had saved her so many times before; from her illness, from those ghouls in the city, from those monsters that had attacked them…and now he’d done it again. Just the thought made her heart beat faster, and she felt the corners of her lips turn upward. A moment later she felt strong hooves on her sides, gently rolling her over, and in the dim light from where Severance was hovering near the ceiling – surrounded by shelves lined with bags of bits – she looked at the face of her savior…
Cloudbank.
“D-Drafty…” she sniffled, her eyes filled with tears and a smile on her face. “I did it this time…I saved you.” She gave a sob then, leaning down to hug the other mare as she buried her face in her mane. “I saved you…I saved you…”
For a moment Drafty was surprised, and then she smiled, weakly putting a hoof around Cloudbank. “Yeah, you did. You saved me, Cloudy.” She nuzzled her softly, feeling the other mare shudder at the words. That’s right. I have two special someponies watching over me. The thought sent a warm feeling through her chest, and despite what she’d just been through she felt serene. No matter what happened, or how bad things got, Lex wasn’t the only love of her life who’d be there to help her.
“You’re my hero.”