“Are you sure? These look like other rooms. Let’s just keep going,” Astral said calmly, hoping to snap Sassi out of her stupor. There was a distant thud from behind them. The Chitters, or something else, apparently were trying to follow them.
“Look, Sas, we need to move!” The stallion said again. His words went unheard, the mare staring at the glass enclosure as she took a few wobbly steps forwards.
“No, this was it. I was right here,” she whispered. “I can still hear the saws. The doctors watched me on that side.”
The mare’s left forelimb rubbed her right, Sassi’s limbs shaking, the mare abruptly hyperventilating.
“I can still feel it. The injections. The blades. It was every week. Sometimes every day.”
“Sassi, we need to go!” Astral said again, the louder noise of metal screeching reaching their ears.
Sassi turned to look at him, and the visor cleared momentarily. There was nothing but all-encompassing terror in the mare’s gaze.
“I remember all of it,” she whispered, her entire body starting to shake. “It hurt so much. I screamed.” Tears ran from her wide, horrified eyes. “They never stopped!” Her limbs shook violently, Sassi’s eyes darting this way and that as if the memories were in the present. “I can’t…”
As another crash echoed through the halls, Astral let out a growl.
He was so sick of this place.
This silo. The creatures that worked and operated it. The evil that infected everything even after they were gone. And now this place dared to drag out memories to cause the mare he loved nothing but more pain?
The flamethrower snapped on.
“Then I’ll burn it all!” Astral hissed.
The flamethrower roared, the jet of fuel coating the room from top to bottom and leaving nothing untouched, his face a raging snarl behind the visor.
This whole place deserves to be burned!
He sent another stream at the experimentation table, the flames roaring. With a twist of his body, Astral adjusted his aim to the other room, coating the entire area in a wall of fire. Another jet was sent towards the security door before he shut it off, shoving Sassi forwards.
“Let’s go, Sas!”
The mare stared at the flames for a few seconds, and then she galloped after him.
“AI! Safe location route!”
‘Medium-level hazard testing floor indicates closest potential safe area. Warning. Extreme temperatures detected. Interface to doors established…success. Entrance accessible. Confirm to plot route?’
“Confirm!”
They galloped through the halls, these being more office space. The distant thud of metal reached their sensitive ears, followed by hundreds of chittering cries.
The long hallway ahead split into three forks. Behind them, a familiar, horde of nightmares tumbled over each other in their desperate attempts to get a new meal. The fire Astral sent back their way only delayed them for a few moments, the Chitter horde pushing onwards.
“Left! We go left!” Astral called, the two of them skidding as they aimed toward a massive security door. “AI! Open it!”
‘Confirmed.’
The barn-sized door slid open- and the wind nearly blew the Thestrals over. A wall of white cascaded out, the snow billowing about them. Not having any other choice, they pushed forwards, the door closing behind them with a dull *thud*.
The Chitters attacks on the door didn’t even make it shake. Then again, it was nearly as thick as a carriage. While that was comforting, it didn’t bode well as to what was inside with them.
Pushing above the snowbank, the two Thestrals looked out to a scene of white, distant domed walls looming above them in an otherwise barren landscape. Random ice pillars and shapes dotted the area, and the artificial wind made the constant snow blast this way and that. A dim red light shone above them in the rough center of the domed ceiling.
“What is this p-place?” Astral asked, a chill entering the suit as it hummed.
‘Environmental and adaptive testing area 2-1. Warning. Seek shelter. The wind-chill temperature will exceed limits of RASP suit compensation within two minutes.’
“Shelter?! Where?!” he hissed, looking over to his marefriend. “Sassi? You with me?”
Confusion was the only thing present in their link, but she nodded.
“Down. Snow cave,” she whispered.
“Right. That’d do it…wait.”
Abruptly, a green light flashed above them like a small sun. The wind abruptly stopped. Yet the ice began to move.
The two Thestrals stood as still as the snow on the ground as one of the ice formations, easily twice the size of an Alicorn began to move. Two legs propelled the bipedal creatures, a rough, hexagonal head swaying this way and that. Two arms tipped with massive claws hung at its side as it walked this way and that, surveying the scene.
Its view passed right over the two Thestrals and continued. Its blocky feet somehow stayed on top of the snow as it lumbered this way and that.
With a flash, the green light switched to red. The creature stopped moving as the winds picked up again, and Astral nearly screamed in frustration.
Red light, green light?!
Of the things he needed, a sick sense of humor from this place wasn’t one of them.
“Let’s dig. Quickly!” he whispered, thankful that the creature was looking away from them. “Wait. Hold on, let me get it started.”
A blast from the flamethrower at first didn’t do anything, but eventually, it created a nice, hardened depression they could start digging from. The snow continued to fall, but the icy entrance provided a bit of structure as the Thestrals pushed deeper underneath the drifts.
“How deep is this?!” Astral muttered.
‘Scanning. The floor is approximately five standard Equestrian stories beneath this location.’
That was a lot of snow.
The two kept digging, the fact Sassi was staying quiet eating away at Astral. He just hoped she was ok.
The room flashed green.
The two Thestrals heard the crunching footsteps but didn’t dare poke their heads up to see where the creature was. Unfortunately, that question was answered as it lumbered just past their location.
It turned away and the red light flashed again. They dug with renewed speed, the suits allowing a great deal of snow to be shoveled out. A few blasts from the flamethrower allowed the entrance to harden, and it was a simple blessing the snow was a decent consistency. Within a rather short time, they had dug down nearly halfway to the floor, then dug upwards to scoop out the actual ‘cave’ portion of their shelter. Two air holes were made and blasted with the flamethrower to harden them, a few blocks of snow being placed in front of the entrance.
By the time the next red light flashed, the two Thestrals were curled up in their cave, the two of them not saying anything for a bit.
“Sassi? Are you ok?” Astral whispered, reaching out a hoof towards her. He didn’t want to initiate anything, not if she was still battling her demons.
She gripped his hoof with a squeeze, slowly nodding.
“I’m doing a bit better,” she finally said. “But I guess we’re stuck here for a bit.”
“Not a great place to shut off the reactor. AI, what are the heating options when the reactor is powered down?”
‘Calculating. Recommendation: Snow shelter temperatures appear adequate for complete armor removal, which is recommended for full-reactor shutdown and calibration. Utilizing emergency blankets, radiant-heat generators from secondary armor batteries, and body heat, ambient temperature projected to be within a comfortable range.’
Astral blinked at that.
Get out of the armor? Completely?
Sassi spread out a simple expandable foam mat, an item that took up very little room but had been snagged ‘just in case’.
At least their fur wouldn’t freeze to the icy ground.
“Let’s get the reactor shut off,” Astral finally said. “AI, power it all down and do whatever you need to do to get the armor off me.”
‘Confirmed. Bodysuit will be removed with armor segments for comfort. Self-diagnostic and repair systems initiated. Recommend the second user remove armor for the radiant heat panels.’
The reactor powered down, and Sassi visibly relaxed.
“Wow, that’s weird,” she muttered. “I feel lighter somehow. I don’t like having to be out of the armor with that thing around, but it’s that or freeze to death.”
The mare didn’t say much more as she helped Astral out of the suit. Thankfully, whatever they put inside the body suit was a remarkable odor-reducer.
Or, more likely, Astral’s nose was too frozen to pick it up.
Sassi kept one of the guns within reach, shrugging out of her armor. Placing a few of the inner panels around them, the batteries activated the heating elements with a soft hum.
While the temperature remained around freezing, it was a far cry from the triple-digit negative wind chill numbers above ground.
Curling up on the foam mat, Astral fished out one of the foil emergency blankets, Sassi settling down next to him. His teeth abruptly began to chatter, and the stallion vomited up a ball of black tar.
“W-well, here we go,” he hissed, turning to look at Sassi. “Sas, are you really ok? I-”
The stallion’s words were cut off as she pushed forwards, wrapping the stallion up in a tight, fierce hug.
He forgot how incredible it had felt to have a simple hug outside of the armor, Sassi’s chest rising and falling against his own. He could feel her heartbeat against his, the mare’s breath on his nose. A soft, fuzzy warmth pushed aside the biting cold as she reached over to nuzzle his cheek, the mare giving Astral a long gentle kiss before meeting his gaze.
“Thanks to you, Astral. I’m ok,” she said with a tentative smile. “I was…” the mare paused, sniffling softly as tears welled up in her eyes. “You saved me again.”