“The longer this takes,” the queen said sweetly, “the angrier we get. And the angrier we get, the worse it will be for you!”
Move. Move. Move.
But Applejack couldn’t move. Her legs had locked up in fear. It was all she could do to breathe. She’d seen that monster kill three ponies and Spike. What chance did she have? She hugged Twilight’s body close, biting her lip so tightly she tasted blood, shaking. She couldn’t do this. She might as well just walk out now, waving. It’d be easier.
The queen’s footfalls were oddly heavy for its size. It spoke again: “Did you know, this entire facility is all about moving knowledge from one of you primitive aliens to another?” The thing laughed. “As it turns out, we can receive that knowledge as easily as you! Everything your so-called neuromods were developed for — engineering, combat, language, computers, even singing and dancing, ugh! — we know all of it! Every single bit of information!” Another laugh. “Your world — Equus — will be such a joy to assimilate!”
Equus.
The earth.
The ground.
Her farm.
Something clicked in Applejack. It was a strange feeling: the taunt was supposed to encompass her whole planet, and yet she focused on one single thing. But that one single thing was hers. Her most treasured thing in the world, the thing she loved the most. Before coming to Golden Oaks, it’d been her whole life. She’d always thought she’d die on it.
Dying for it was acceptable, she supposed. If she had to die.
Taking as deep a breath as she dared, Applejack forced herself to poke her head around the corner for about a second. By some stroke of luck, the queen was still two aisles away, looking down one of them.
“Stay quiet,” Applejack muttered to Twilight. Could Twilight hear her? Was her voice too low? Was Twilight even conscious? Whatever. She hoisted Twilight across her trunk and crept down her aisle towards the far wall. There was another cross aisle on the end there that she could use to hopefully bypass the queen. What little light there was was still just enough for her to avoid rubble.
Thud thud thud. Footsteps resounded through the room as the queen moved to another aisle. Its breathing was low, a borderline hiss.
Applejack reached the cross aisle. She ducked around the corner, but rather than continue on, she waited, plastering herself and Twilight on the column between pod aisles. Even if the queen looked down, she wouldn’t be able to spot them.
“Oh, don’t make this any harder than it has to be!” laughed the queen. But something had changed in its voice. It was… angrier. “We both know this is only going to end one way!”
Maybe not.
More footfalls. The queen was coming down the aisle on Applejack’s… left. She darted into the aisle on her right and ran as fast as she dared. She heard the footsteps get louder and louder, then softer and softer as she passed the queen. A grin briefly made its way onto her face as she slowed to a walk at the end of the aisle, turned, and made for the exit right in front of her.
A low rumble echoed through the room. No, a growl. Holding her breath, Applejack picked up the pace-
-and quickly came to a halt. The pool table she’d climbed over was still blocking the hall. She couldn’t get over it without making too much sound and alerting the queen. She spun around and darted into the rec room. They could get around the debris in there.
The jostling made Twilight stir. She batted at Applejack’s side and her eyelids fluttered. “Applejack?” she mumbled. “Wha’s goin’ on?”
“Quiet!” hissed Applejack. She put a hoof to Twilight’s mouth. “It’ll hear-”
One of Applejack’s hooves caught on a piece of debris in the dark. Already unbalanced by being on three hooves, she stumbled and toppled over. She hit the ground loudly.
An instant of silence, then the queen’s screech keened from the sleeping pods. Then footfalls. Getting louder.
Biting back a curse, Applejack spared a second to raise her head and look around. There was a table not far in front of her, low to the ground. She scrambled forward, dragging herself and Twilight under it just as the footfalls reached the rec room.
Everywhere was dark, yet the queen somehow seemed darker still, a silhouette of pure black against the sooty gray of everything else. Its eyes glinted out from that black as its gaze darted around the room. In the thin space between the table, Applejack felt very trapped; she had to fight to keep from bolting. “Don’t play with us,” the queen snarled as it took a step forward. “We heard you in here.” It began doing a circuit of the room.
By luck, that circuit was not in the direction of the table. But the queen’s search was methodical and it looked beneath every table, chair, piece of furniture, and bit of debris it passed. If Applejack and Twilight didn’t move, they’d be found out sooner or later. Probably sooner.
Holding her breath, Applejack watched the queen through the gloom. It moved slowly; its gaze roved about the room, examining every inch. When it came to something that had even a chance of hiding a single pony, it rooted through quickly to dig through every corner.
So maybe…
Applejack looked at the area around her. There was a foosball table a few yards away, big and thick, but with no cover between there and here. But maybe it was close enough.
She squinted at the queen. Looking, looking, looking. It came to a halt near the remains of the entertainment center. It crouched down and lifted up what was probably the TV-
-and Applejack seized her chance. Hooking her hooves beneath Twilight’s armpits, she hastily dragged her across the floor towards the foosball table. It was barely ten feet, but it felt like a mile. All the queen had to do was turn around and they’d be in plain view. But Applejack dragged and pulled and dragged and pulled as she clenched her teeth and her heart pounded and she held her breath and she knew that she was going to-
She collapsed behind the table. A few quick breaths, and she gave another yank to Twilight, just to pull in anything sticking out. She caught the distinctive swinging of cabinet doors and a low growl; the queen hadn’t found them in the cabinets. Then: thud, thud, thud as it moved on, blissfully unaware of Applejack’s movement.
It wasn’t much. But it was something. Applejack grinned to herself.
Okay. Where was the next hiding place? Applejack poked her head around the corner. A card table, right between two couches. Perfect. Where was the queen? She couldn’t see it from her. She craned her neck over the table. The silhouetted queen was on the opposite side of the room, looking at the remains of several armchairs. Applejack knew it wouldn’t be there for long, though. It was only a matter of time before-
The queen looked right in her direction.
Applejack froze, bit her lip, and prayed. It was dark and they were far away. Maybe, if she didn’t move, it wouldn’t see her.
No movement from the queen.
No movement from Applejack.
The queen’s eyes flickered as it blinked.
Don’t see me, don’t see me, don’t see me…
The queen turned away, continuing its route. Applejack ducked back down below the table. A few deep breaths to psych herself up. She wrapped her front legs around Twilight and peeked out again. The queen was occupied; Applejack did the closest thing to a dash she could muster and pulled herself and Twilight beneath the card table. The couches shielded them from the sides.
Twilight twitched and exhaled. Applejack nearly jumped out of her skin; she’d forgotten Twilight was still awake. She awkwardly patted Twilight on the neck. “You’re doin’ fine,” she whispered in Twilight’s ear, “but y’need to stay quiet. Got it?”
Even in the dark, it was easy to see that Twilight was bleary as she looked at Applejack. But she nodded and put a hoof to her lips.
Crammed beneath the table, Applejack awkwardly kicked against the floor to pull them along, the scrape of their uniforms on the floor sounding like a buzzsaw to her, but the queen’s footfalls stayed distant. She wasn’t sure whether the trip took an eternal second or an instant hour, but both sooner and later than she expected, she’d reached the far end of the table. She squinted out. Nothing between the table and door. A longer run than the others. Did that matter? Maybe.
Okay. Deep breaths. Applejack looked around the corner of the couch. The queen was approaching where she’d first hidden. Hard to say how long it’d take to look through that area, but it was a risk Applejack would have to take. It crouched down-
Applejack bolted and scrambled for the door, somehow managing to keep a grip on Twilight while still staying quiet. They were so close, getting closer, ducked through-
A roar keened through the habitation decks, raspy and shrieky and beyond angry. “WE SEE YOU!” screeched the queen. And it started running.
Applejack gave up on being quiet and threw herself into a gallop. She didn’t know how fast the queen could move and she wanted to delay finding out as much as possible. As she panted from the exertion, she squinted in the dark, trying to-
The stairs came far more quickly than she remembered them. Before she could raise her hooves enough, she’d gotten one caught on the bottom step and tripped. She slammed her forehead into the edge of a step and Twilight slid off her back. In a panic, she rolled onto her back and raised her gun to fire blindly outward.
The queen was right behind her, already dropping into a crouch to pounce. The wild shot wasn’t quite a miss, with several pellets ripping through a shoulder even as the muzzle flash near-blinded it. Screaming, the queen quickly backpedalled. Applejack fired off another shot, but the queen had already ducked back into the rec room.
Panting, breathing in the gunsmoke, Applejack could only sit there and try to blink away the muzzle flash’s afterimage. Shock; that had been too close. She was brought back to reality when something trickled onto her nose. Blood. She’d split her forehead open when she tripped. And how many shots left? Her head swam for a moment before she remembered: two.
A series of dull thuds came from the rec room. Then those thuds became hollow — and above her. The queen was in the vents.
A quick checkup confirmed that Twilight was still breathing, although Applejack wasn’t sure whether she was also conscious. She pulled Twilight across her trunk and awkwardly climbed the stairs. The hoof she’d tripped on throbbed, giving her a slight limp.
A landing where the steps made a U-turn, then kept climbing. Applejack ducked around it, her gun up. Nothing in the darkness. Nothing she could see, anyway. Comforting.
The vents clanged above her. She whipped her gun up, but stopped herself from shooting at the last second. Might just be echoes. Right. Sure. Yeah. She adjusted Twilight’s position on her back and kept moving.
They reached the top of the stairs without incident. Back on the high-class deck, with its rows of private rooms. Still dark. From there, it was a straight shot out of the habitation decks. Just a single hallway, and they’d be out. Applejack wasn’t taken in for a moment; she knew something would go wrong the second she put a hoof in the hallway. She grit her teeth and half-ran for it.
The vents clanged, and Applejack didn’t even wait to see what would happen before ducking into one of the rooms. She just wanted cover. After a second’s thought, she tapped the lock closed. Couldn’t be too careful. She dropped down below the hallway window and snuggled up against the wall with Twilight. Without movement to distract her, she slowly became more aware of the pain in her hoof.
The queen hit the ground outside hard. Its voice was muffled by the walls, but Applejack could hear it well enough. “We are growing impatient, you little pest,” it snarled. It had gained a few high registers and didn’t sound like a pony’s voice anymore; it was too animalistic. “We give you one last chance: come on out, and we will go easy on you.”
Applejack suspected the queen’s “going easy” was still rather intense. Even if it wasn’t, there was no way she was speaking up.
“…Very well,” snarled the queen. “We know you’re still in here. Let’s see how long you can hide.” More thick, thudding footsteps, then a muffled hiss. It was one of the bedroom doors.
Applejack tried swallowing, but her throat was dry. (Hiss, went another door.) Blood trickled down her muzzle. (Hiss.) She couldn’t look out into the hallway without opening her own door and alerting the queen. (Hiss.) So all she could do was wait. (Hiss.) At least the lock would give her a little warning. (Hiss.)
“Stay quiet, Twi,” she whispered. “We’re gettin’ through this.” (Hiss.)
Twilight didn’t say anything, but she did nod weakly. (Hiss.)
Applejack’s ears twitched as she heard the queen right outside the room. Something hit the wall and she heard a negative sort of beep. A brief pause, then suddenly the window exploded inward. Shards of glass shattered against the opposite wall and small slivers rained down on Applejack and Twilight. Shielding her face with a leg, Applejack looked up. The queen looked back down at her, showing glinting fangs in a grin. “Hel-”
By now, Applejack’s gun reflexes were getting pretty good. BANG.
This time, the shot tore a chunk from the queen’s neck. It withdrew, screeching. Applejack let go of Twilight, rolled away from the window, and stood up to aim her gun out into the hallway. The queen was already gone, probably vanished into the vents again.
She unlocked the door and dragged Twilight out into the hall. Panting, she looked both ways. The lights were flickering, but there was no sign of the queen.
Clang clang clang.
On the floor. There were plenty of signs above.
The scuttling impacts in the vents above ran back and forth, back and forth, like the queen was darting to and fro to confuse Applejack. Well, it was working. As she began inching down the hall, her bad hoof twingeing with every step, Applejack snapped her gaze and her gunbarrel back and forth, trying to catch where the queen would drop down. But she didn’t hear any change, just the constant, rhythmic banging.
The door to the arboretum was forty feet away. Forty feet of debris and flickering lights. Applejack wanted to run, but that was just what the queen wanted, for her to panic and put her gun down. Her knees were knocking together and her heart was racing, but she forced herself to keep standing and walking and blinking blood out of her eyes. She could do this. She had to. And so she kept walking.
Thirty-five feet. Clang clang clang. The queen’s running was thudding into Applejack’s head, forcing other thoughts out. Whenever an idea was forming, a metallic impact would jar it to pieces. Good thing you didn’t have to think much to walk. And so she kept walking.
Thirty feet. Applejack kept alternating which way she was looking down the hall and never spent more than a few seconds in either direction. The constant, rapid spins did a number on her neck while Twilight’s shifting weight did several numbers on her back, but she ignored them. She wasn’t going to be taken by surprise. Not this close to the end. It was barely anything, really. And so she kept walking.
Twenty-five feet. Still the clanging from above continued. The queen hadn’t come down yet. Could it see from the vents? Did it know precisely where Applejack was? Or did it only know that she was in the hallway below? Applejack couldn’t see any holes in the ceiling, but with all the darkness, that didn’t mean much. Still, if there weren’t, that meant the queen wouldn’t know where she was as long as she kept walking. And so she kept walking.
Twenty feet. The clanging changed tone slightly. More distinct. Like-
There was a vent cover right above her.
The door next to her was closed, so Applejack reflexively and awkwardly threw herself through the window next to it. She did her best to shield Twilight as flying glass nicked at her face and tore at her suit and gained three or four new cuts across her face as a reward. Still, far preferable to being below the queen as it dropped from the ceiling. For drop it did, with a fractured, slavering hiss that melded with the sound of shattering glass, landing with the impact of a boulder.
Applejack rolled onto her back next to Twilight and pointed the gun at the window. She couldn’t see the queen in the dark. Gone again? Just crouching out of sight? It was impossible to say. For all its size, that thing could move.
Her leg was shaky and the gunbarrel jumped around. The adrenaline rushing through her veins didn’t care for fine-motor control. She knew she needed to run, but there was only one way out. The queen was probably waiting for them right outside. Or worse, she was-
Hiss. The door slid open.
Applejack instinctively jerked her gun over and fired out the door. At nothing. The queen wasn’t there and Applejack had wasted a shot.
The thing’s head slid into view, then almost immediately jerked back. But in her panic, Applejack tried to fire at it.
Click.
Empty chamber.
That fact had barely registered in Applejack’s mind when the queen burst out laughing. “Oh, that is rich!” It sidled into the doorframe, ducking to fit inside. In the cramped space, it felt even larger than before. Its mouth was technically in the position of a smile, but somehow, all Applejack could think of was that it was showing its teeth. “Is your one weapon out of ammo, hmm? Well…” A deep chuckle. “We have no such problems.”
Applejack didn’t say anything. She was too tired. She just panted and stared at the queen. Up close, it looked less like a pony and more like clay molded into an equine shape by someone who’d only had ponies described to them. Its legs and body were too thin, its neck too long, its head too angular, other things Applejack didn’t have words for. It was… wrong. That was the best way to put it. Wrong.
Not that that mattered anymore.
“So!” the queen said. “We have one question for you.” Its smile vanished. “What would you like your last words to be?” it snarled. “Because you won’t be able to speak once we start on you.”
Applejack still didn’t say anything, but Twilight’s eye cracked open. It focused on the queen. “Oh,” she mumbled. “It’s you.”
And suddenly the queen was thrown across the hallway by a magic blast so potent Applejack was sure she smelled lightning. It slammed into the opposite wall so hard it crumpled like goo, completely bonelessly.
“Keep running,” Twilight mumbled. “She won’t stay down long.” She wiggled against Applejack. Eventually, Applejack realized Twilight was trying to push her. She got to her hooves, draped Twilight over her trunk, shuffled into the hall, and staggered out of the habitation decks and into the arboretum.
The air smelled wonderful and the light was bright, but Applejack didn’t bother enjoying them. She didn’t want to stop for anything. As they stumbled down the hill, she asked, “How’re you doin’?”
“Been…” Twilight coughed. No blood. “Been better,” she wheezed. “Been worse, too.”
“How-? Never mind. Long story, right?”
“Yeah. I’ll-” Several deep, hacking coughs. “I’ll live.”
Privately, although she didn’t want to, Applejack doubted that. But there was no point in worrying about that now.
The GUTS wasn’t far. Applejack managed to carry them both across the entire arboretum without anything else jumping out. Whatever Twilight had done to the queen, it was effective; no crazed monsters burst from the habitation decks to chase them down. Applejack didn’t let her guard down, though. She didn’t have a gun to fall back on anymore.
Yet they made it to the GUTS bay without a hassle. Applejack felt goosebumps. Something was wrong here. Wouldn’t the queen have other changelings around her?
Before entering the bay, Applejack opened the door and looked around. Same deal as before: covered in changeling ichor, boxes pushed aside. Were they in the same places? Maybe. Maybe not. Any suspicious duplicated objects? No. A second look, still no. Seemed safe. She took a step inside. Nothing. Another. Still nothing. Two more. Nope. Anoth-
She felt the tripwire through her uniform half a second before there was a hum and the world turned over.
The sensation wasn’t like anything Applejack had felt before, a strange emptiness, like she was missing something she never knew she had. There was a space in her awareness where something needed to be, she knew, but she didn’t know what that could be. She was unmoored, her head swimming with something that wasn’t quite nausea. At her side, Twilight moaned and coughed. Gasping for air to clear her head, Applejack collapsed onto the damp floor. Her exhaustion — physical and emotional both — had finally gained a foothold. She could get up in a moment, but for now, she had to-
“Oh, you’ve gotta be kidding me.”
A voice pierced through Applejack’s tinnitus. Why was that voice familiar? Someone came walking out from behind a box, crouched down, and squinted at Applejack. “How in Celestia’s pus-stained mane are you still alive?” asked a befuddled Lightning Dust.