"I admire it's purity.... a survivor."
Perfection.
Perfection is something many of us desire, we want to be the best at anything, we want to be better than anyone else, to be the very best.
But if there's one thing I learned about perfection, it is dangerous, and in some cases, it is evil.
I've seen what some would call perfection in the form of Red Eye's fortress in Fillydelphia, everyone worked with no pay or care, as well as being beaten for working too slow, insane slaves beat each other to the death in the Pit, and disobedience was met with a shot from a laser that would disintegrate you and turn you into nothing but goop.
And what my friends and I were about to see would be so horrifying, I'd be glad I wasn't "perfect"...
---------->
We trotted about slowly through the halls of the Star Forge, our weapons at the ready and our alicorn escorts keeping watch for patrols. We'd strangely found no resistance within the massive structure yet, either this whole place was left unguarded save for wherever Red Eye was, or we were in a not-so-secure area of the station. I didn't know which, but we'd made it through about six hallways with no trouble so far, and I hoped it would stay that way.
Oh, how I hoped...
As we turned a corner to a hallway on our left, we saw a door, a bar that read in a strange text I couldn't translate. As Steelhooves took a scan of the writing, he took a moment before he spoke up.
"It says "Research"." My friend said as Velvet spoke up curiously.
"What do you think they're researching in there?" I looked to her as my own curiosity grabbed hold of me.
"I don't know, but the Alliance might need to know." I said as I stopped in front of the research room, taking a look through the transparent doors as I saw no enemies. I looked to my friends as I warned them. "Keep your guard up, we don't know who or what we'll find in here." They all nodded as we walked in, several roars and screeches sounding from our left. We all turned to look at the different cells, each sealed by a force field that held a strange lifeform.
As I looked to the first one, I stood frozen as it screeched at me, digging it's legs at the force field in a failed attempt to attack. It was a large bug-like creature with a large jaw and four legs, yellow marks of some kind bore all over its body.
I looked to Steelhooves after recovering, the Applejack's Ranger nodding as he tapped the cell's outer console before scanning it, myself and the others trotting over to the next cell. This next creature was airborne, it had a green, transparent shell with organs inside, four tooth-like mandibles protruding out from under it.
As it floated around it's cell, I watched Steelhooves trot back over to us, stopping by me as he spoke. "That first one was called an Arachnid. They're from a planet in another universe called Klendathu, and they tore human soldiers apart during a war between the two sides." I looked back at the large bug in the first cell, shivering at the thought of having to fight that thing.
"Let's make sure we blow this area to ashes when we get out of here." I said to my friend in armor, the two of us turning to the second creature as it spotted us. It hovered in the air for a moment, making low screeches for a moment before hissing and launching itself towards us. If it weren't for the force field, Celestia knows what it could've done to us. Steelhooves and I jumped a little as the small creature hit the force field, ceasing its attack as it knew it couldn't reach us.
"Let me see what the console has to offer, then we'll download it." I said to Steelhooves as I tapped the console, pulling up the data logs regarding the creature. I saw a single file and tapped it, a text log appearing as we all read it.
"Specimen Log #104: Our operatives have recovered a strange creature from a planet the dominant powers of it's universe have documented as SR388, they call the creature a "Metroid". From our research, the creature is hostile to all other life forms, and sucks the life force of anything it grabs onto. It is also impervious to almost all attacks, except one: cold temperatures and ice weapons. My team are looking into how we can perfect this fault in the creature's genes and use them against Alliance ground forces and starship crews. Once we've finished, we shall breed more until they are ready for true combat!"
As we finished reading the log, we heard a hatch open, letting out a small Dewan Epohh onto the ground. It was a cute little creature with four legs and two antennae.
Our expressions grew with horror as the Metroid sped towards the Epohh, latching onto the cute little animal and sucking it's life away, letting out screeches of pain as we watched.
"NO! I CAN'T WATCH!" Velvet cried out in fear as she held Calamity, crying as the Epohh ceased its resistance. As the Metroid let go and lifted into the air again, the Epohh was still as stone, falling apart into nothing but dust a few seconds later.
I stood, frozen by the horrifying sight of the Metroid feasting on the Epohh. I wanted to kill that fucking thing so much, but I knew we had no ice weapons of any kind, except....
I tapped the console, lowering the room temperature as the Metroid froze, turning into an ice sculpture of itself. I watched it fall from the ceiling, hitting the ground and breaking into several pieces before taking a breath, looking to my friend.
"It's okay, Velvet, I killed it." Velvet nodded in approval as I looked to Steelhooves, who was scanning the console to download the logs. As his visor stopped glowing, we walked over to the third and final cell, a single creature inside. It was black with a overly long cranium, no eyes, and a long, sharp tail protruding from it's back.
The thing sped towards us, slowing as it was right next to the force field. Xenith stood face to face with the creature, which drooled and hissed as it opened it's mouth, a second mouth revealed inside. We all jumped as the second mouth shot out, hitting the force field as it jumped back, going back to its initial resting spot.
As I walked up to the console, I heard Xenith say something. "I fear no pony, but that creature.... it scares me." Her face was deprived of color as she observed the creature, sitting as it watched us. If Xenith was afraid of this creature, then we'd best not fight one of them anytime soon.
I looked back to the console, tapping it as I pulled up another data log. As the log popped up, I heard the monster hiss again, but it did not move from its spot.
"Specimen Log #105: Our operatives have found a new life form from another universe on a planet commonly called LV426. From what our intel has revealed, the creature is known as a Xenomorph, it is a ferocious creature that has acidic blood and has shown a high degree of intelligence despite its inability to speak. I have heard many of my researchers call it "The Perfect Organism", though I have yet to witness it become fitting of the title. We have a few prisoners from our recent missions and battles before the creatures acquisition, we'll split them all into two groups, one for breeding more of them and one for testing the Xenomorph against living prey. If this works out, we'll have the chance to take the Alliance down with just these little animals in no time!"
As we stopped reading the log, Calamity spoke up. "Acid fer blood? Well that rules out usin' bullets."
"Also, a group of prisoners for breeding purposes? Don't tell me they actually had people mate with that thing!" Velvet said as our green alicorn responded to the comment.
"That is the last thing I'd want to have offspring with." As we looked at the thing one last time, it hissed again, staying at its spot as we turned away. After Steelhooves downloaded the logs on the third cell, we saw a door on the right wall aligned with the third cell. We looked at each other with worry before entering it, the doors opening to reveal several unconscious people lying on tables in one side of the room, and in the other several eggs. They looked slimy.
As we all stood inside the room, I scanned the people on the tables, they we're all alive, but for some of them, I saw something wrong.
"What is this?" I asked as Steelhooves trotted over, looking at the small embryo inside one of the people I scanned.
"I don't know. Perhaps it's some kind of egg?" My armored friend said as we saw Velvet trot up to one of the people, observing the unconscious human female. We all jumped in surprise as the human woke up, fear in her eyes as she spoke.
"Wh-who are you? What a-are you doing here?" She said as we steadied ourselves, Velvet answering her.
"We're here to destroy this place, but first we have to get you to safety."
"No." She said, our faces frozen with surprise, then with fear as she begged, "Please... kill me."
"What?!" Velvet shrieked as she heard the woman, who pleaded once more.
"Please, I don't have much lo-" She grunted loudly as we heard a sickening crunch, all of us gasping as she started screaming. "Oh-oh my fucking God, it's coming ou-AAGGHH!! PLEASE! KILL ME!!!" She screamed and thrashed as her chest started to burst open, all of us screaming in horror as blood splattered all over the room, a good bit of it on Velvet.
The woman's screaming ceased as her body went limp, a small creature moving around her punctured chest. We all sat on our flanks, frozen with fear as the small creature looked at us, taking in its surroundings.
The silence was broken when Calamity shrieked, "KILL THAT FUCKIN' THING!!" I snapped out of my stupor as the thing jumped, speeding around the floor until I caught it with my magic, one magic bolt from Little Macintosh disintegrating the little bastard.
After steadying myself, I walked over to Velvet, who sat on the floor unmoving. We would all be having nightmares after today, not to mention Velvet, who must've been traumatized by the sight of what we just saw. As I put a hoof on her, she grabbed me and held me tight, crying into my shoulder as she wailed. "WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD CREATE SUCH A HORRIBLE MONSTER?!" My friend sobbed for a few minutes, Calamity trotting over to help her calm down as he spoke.
"Yer right, Lil'Pip, we need t' blow t'is Goddess-damned place t' hell the moment we set hoof outta here!" I nodded as we looked at the other people on the tables, looking to Steelhooves before speaking to him.
"Steelhooves, sc-scan the people and see if there's anyone we can save." My friend nodded as he stood in front of the other people, his visor glowing as a field of energy passed over them all. After a moment, Steelhooves spoke.
"There are four of them who are not impregnated, Littlepip. The question is, how do we get them out?" I sunk my head down as I thought, we couldn't beam out thanks to the shield outside the Star Forge, so how would we get them out to safety?
As I thought back to the Lukara, I remembered something. "Yes! I know what we can do!" I said with glee as I pulled out the four emergency transport units I still had from my mission to the Lukara. "When Blackjack decided to help me with my mission, she saved me four of these, just enough for the survivors!"
My friends all gave hopeful smiles as I put the ETUs on each of the survivors, Xenith raising an eyebrow as she asked, "But Littlepip, we can't use transporters, remember?"
"These ones are specially modified." I said as I put the last ETU on another human female, she had a name tag of some kind that read, "E. Ripley."
As they started to beam away to the Harmony, I tapped my communicator before speaking. "Littlepip to Harmony, I hope you don't mind, but we've sent survivors to your ship, I still had some of the ETUs from my trip to J'ula's ship, so I've sent them to your ship to help them out!"
"Nice thinking there, 'Pip. We'll take them to sickbay to help them out." Twilight said as I replied.
"Good, we'll be on our way to the core now, Littlepip out." As my combadge's signal died out, I looked to my friends as I said, "Well, with that out of the way, how do we blow this place up?"
"Ah, I'd forgotten to tell you all," Steelhooves said as one of his missile launchers opened, a small bomb with a ring around it popping out of it.
"I hadn't shown you all of the upgrades yet. This here's a power bomb, it'll vaporize anything and everything within a good fifteen meters. This one will go off remotely, just set it down, get a good distance away and then blow everything to hell." I smirked as he said that, now we could get rid of those things and continue on our way towards the Star Forge's computer core.
"Good, let's get out of this room, set the bomb down and head further into the station!" We all nodded in agreement as we trotted out of the room, the Xenomorph hissing at us again as we set the power bomb down in the middle of the room. Before we left, I tapped the console as my friends started to trot out, rigging a timed release on each of the force fields. I was going to ensure that we burned these fuckers to death one way or another.
We raced out the door a second later, heading through the long hallway to our left and stopping a good twenty-something meters before Steelhooves triggered the bomb. We felt a rumble and heard a loud boom as the power bomb went off, a burst of light coming from the research room. When we snuck by to check the room, I could see no Xenomorph or Arachnid in sight, the two having been vaporized by the blast.
After taking a deep breath, we all continued down the path we were heading when we heard several footsteps, voices muttering in Klingon as they came closer. I looked to my alicorn companions, who nodded as they produced a shield around us. When the Klingons came around, they all jumped in surprise before firing their weapons, all shots hitting the shield as we stood unscathed. After they ceased their assault, the trio of sisters sent their shield outward, the Klingons being vaporized by the dissipating shield as we looked on in shock, Velvet looking slightly impressed by the spell. The purple one gave a shrug as she answered our confusion.
"While you we're away, Littlepip, we've had some... practice with our shield spell." I nodded as I took a peek between the two other hallways, no Klingons or patrols of any kind in sight. I looked at my map and pointed left, my friends and I going down the hallway as we kept our ears and weapons high.
"Hmph, I think I'm starting to like you ladies." Steelhooves said as we walked, continuing on our path to the center of the Star Forge.