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// Chapter 20-3: The Scavenging 
// Story: Spikenautica 
// by PhysicistBrony 
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After Speedy and Swift got over the shock of Spike being the savior to an entire empire, they quickly began to overwhelm him with questions about what the empire was like, as well asking for further details about how he had managed to save the Crystal Empire. They each got about three questions out before Spike told them to wait until they got back to their base. "In case you all forgot, we are literally standing in the burning wreckage of the largest ship ever commissioned by Celestia for interstellar travel. Besides, there's something else I want to check out." Spike then told them about the other hallway that led to the Locker Room.

Everypony was ok with going through to explore, Fluttershy still had some reservations about going. "I don't want to set a hoof in this water, not after that fish bit me," Fluttershy said, determination on her face. Spike was about to try to convince Fluttershy to come with, when he suddenly face-clawed after remembering a very important detail about Fluttershy's body.

"Can't you just fly over the water until we reach the locker room?" Spike said. Fluttershy suddenly stopped moving, then she slowly turned to the left to look at her wings. She then turned back to Spike and the others with a sheepish grin. "Well, that settles it. You can now come with us. You'll only have to be in the water for a little while so we can travel through the Locker Room, then you'll be fine to stay out of the water." Fluttershy sighed and agreed to fly over the water until they reached the Locker Room.

Everypony began moving towards the Locker Room door with Spike in the lead. Soon enough, everypony was in the water with masks and oxygen tanks active and trying to figure out how to go through the door. "From the looks of it," Speedy began, "We won't be able to just repair a panel and open the door. We might just need to blast our way through this thing." Everypony else looked at Speedy like she was crazy, curious about where she would get explosives. Not only were explosives hard to obtain in Equestria, but the doors were designed to withstand minor explosions and stray spells.

"Blast our way through? And just how would we do that?" Swift asked. Speedy chuckled and motioned Spike to move away from the door. She then brushed her purple and blue mane to the side and started to charge a spell and lowered her horn to the door. It slowly started to get red hot where her horn was touching and the redness slowly began spreading across the door, releasing huge amounts of bubbles towards the surface. After a minute or so, the entire door just started melting and Speedy had to keep moving and brushing her mane aside as the door melted down and started cooling. After another minute or so, Speedy had completely melted the door into a pile of cooling metal on the other side of the door.

Everypony went back temporarily to refill their tanks. "How did you do that!?" Spike asked, his voice filled with amazement. Speedy chuckled and explained how all unicorn technicians were taught a heating spell to get through broken doors, and to do emergency welding. Fluttershy was curious why they didn't give out tools for that.

"Well, what do you think the repair tool and laser cutter are for? They teach unicorns the spell, so that way we can do that stuff without the use of tools. Sadly, I think pegasi are just out of luck. I think it's possible an earth pony could kick through the door, but it would be very, very difficult." Spike, Swift, and Fluttershy were appalled at the idea that a pegasus could get trapped in a room and have no way out.

They decided that was a good time to cut the conversation and continue onward, so they pulled their masks on and swam through the door. As they were swimming through, Fluttershy stopped and stared at one of the lockers. When Spike swam over to it, he saw "FLUTTERSHY" printed on the door. "Do you want to grab anything from inside?" The purple dragon asked, almost hoping there would be something helpful inside.

"Yes, but only one thing." Fluttershy said, proceeding to open the locker and pull out a cracked picture frame. Upon closer inspection, Spike saw the picture of a particularly evil and cute bunny. "The only thing worth taking is my picture of Angel, to remind me of why we need to get home." The rest of the crew was happy that Fluttershy had a defined purpose for continuing on. 

After a couple of minutes of going through lockers and grabbing essential supplies, they gathered up four water bottles, three batteries, and an extra repair tool; courtesy of Speedy Screwdriver's locker. They then swam into the next area, which was a small hallway leading left towards a door on the right side of the hall. As they approached the door, Speedy readied a repair tool to fix the wall panel and open the door. It only took a minute before the door opened and the crew had access to the PRAWN Suit Bay.

The moment they stepped into the PRAWN Suit Bay, Spike was glad he was a dragon. He could feel a little warmth, but he was sure the fires in there were making everypony else sweat. Spike got that confirmed when Speedy said, "Let's hurry up in here and get out. I feel like I'm being baked alive right now." Spike took out his scanner and began scanning some of the PRAWN suits that were laying around.

Fluttershy and Swift decided to try going to the upper levels, which was fine with Fluttershy, but Swift had to walk all the way across the room to reach a ramp he could go up. Once they reached the upper levels, they went into a hallway leading further into the ship. Once they were making their way through the hall, Fluttershy stopped and almost cried.

Standing off to her left was a gingerbread house-like room with a sign half hanging off with only " UG RC  B   C FE" visible on it. "No…not Pinkies cafe…I didn't even get to say goodbye…" Fluttershy trailed off and began sobbing. Swift walked over and sat down next to her, holding her in a tight hug in an attempt to comfort her.

It was about ten minutes later that Spike and Speedy had finished exploring the PRAWN Suit Bay and decided to follow Fluttershy and Swift. As they got to the second level and entered the hall, they found Fluttershy sobbing in front of a cafeteria while Swift hugged her. Spike ran up and Swift backed up a little to give Spike room to comfort Fluttershy. "Fluttershy, what's wrong? Did something happen?" Spike asked with worry evident in his voice. Fluttershy merely pointed a hoof at the sign and curled into a sobbing mass of yellow and pink.

Spike looked in the direction and saw the dilapidated sign and his heart sank. He didn't look at it long, for the tears in his eyes made it very hard to see at all. "No…" was all Spike managed to whisper before he sank to the ground and wrapped Fluttershy in a hug, unsure if it was to comfort her or himself. Swift and Speedy decided that Fluttershy and Spike had obviously personally known the baker of Sugarcube Cafe, so they let Spike and Fluttershy mourn their death.

"Ok, this has gone on long enough!" Speedy shouted, startling everypony. "We have been sitting here for almost an hour now. Unless you two forgot, this is a very dangerous place. Everything is on fire, many parts of the ship are falling apart, and there are carnivorous spider things onboard that want to eat us. If you two want, we can build a shrine or something to dedicate the lives that were lost in the crash, we can, but we need to get moving now." Everypony stared at Speedy in stunned silence as she marched into the Cafe.

Swift then apologized to Spike and Fluttershy about Speedy's behavior. "She doesn't like to sit still and wait, so I think it was making her angry that she was waiting and unable to do anything about it. I'm sure she'll apologize later." Speedy then walked out of the Cafe with a few bottles of water and instant cake mix. She looked at Fluttershy, then turned towards Spike.

"Let's keep moving," was all she said. The group then continued down the hall, passing busted and scorched walls with burning support beams over their heads, until they reached the Personal Cabins of the higher ups, such as captains and navigators. Spike perked up when they reached a door with a design made from a compass encased in a four-pointed star, but quickly deflated when he realized he'd forgotten the code.

"I'm sorry, I used to know the password to Captain North Star's room, but I only remember the code to the room Twilight and I shared. Hopefully there will be something useful inside." Everypony decided it would be a good idea to search through Twilight's room and the other open Cabins. Spike walked over to the door with Twilight Sparkle's cutie mark and entered the numbers 2-0-1-0, causing the door to slide open and reveal a very disorganized room. Spike subconsciously thought about how crazy Twilight would act if she saw the mess.

Spike and the others walked into the room, with Fluttershy hesitant to invade her friend's personal space. Dead or alive, it was still Twilight's stuff. The thought that she would never see Twilight again weighed heavily on her. She decided she would wait outside the room and explained her reasoning if anypony asked.

Spike knew the room well enough that he could have navigated it with his eyes closed. That is, if the room didn't look like a tornado had ripped through it. He started sorting the stuff on the floor into three piles, the first pile for important stuff they couldn't grab, like books; the second pile for important stuff they could grab, like pictures and spare batteries; and the third pile for useless items, such as broken lab equipment.

Swift, Spike, and Speedy spent about 10 minutes carefully sorting the stuff on the floor and another five for the stuff on the desk and beds. After the room was thoroughly searched and sorted, Spike began going through everything to see what they could grab. He made his way through most of the second pile until he finally reached a picture frame. He slowly picked it up and began tearing up at what was in the frame. The picture was of Twilight surrounded by all of their friends, including himself.

Spike began sobbing again, which drew Fluttershy into the room. Upon reaching Spike, Fluttershy saw the picture and began to weep against Spike. Spike and Fluttershy hugged each other tightly, soon feeling another pony begin hugging them. Swift could understand the pain they were experiencing and decided they needed a lot of support to get through their tragedy.

Speedy wasn't one much for emotional support, so she decided to begin scavenging the rest of the cabins while Swift comforted them. She moved from cabin to cabin, tearing through lockers and drawers, leaving big messes in her wake. She was on a mission to find as many useful things as possible in the shortest amount of time. She had accumulated quite a few water bottles, some various sealed packets, a lot of batteries, and other various items. It was more than she expected to find, but she was happy with what she did find.

Speedy eventually made her way back to the cabin where she left the others, and found them napping in a pile on the floor. She almost shouted in outrage, but could feel herself getting more and more tired by the second. The day’s physical activities, and emotional roller coaster having taken their toll, even on her. She pulled out a fire extinguisher she had found in one of the cabins, and began putting out the blazing fire outside the room to reduce the risk of them dying. She then laid down on the hard metal floor, using Swift as a pillow, and began to drift off to sleep.