Sassi scanned the walls, biting back a frustrated hiss. Her search was taking far too long. And it was all the same area!
Hours of looking over the same circular hallways and fleshy growths. It blended together, and it didn’t help that the mutated creatures occasionally tried to attack her. Yet they still never sent more than a few at a time.
The mare’s worries were now solely focused on Astral. She was fine; the whispers over the hours of searching hadn’t gotten worse. Her body was built for far worse toxins than the air now held.
But Astral…
The stallion had clearly been struggling after their break. Without time to heal, the strengths of the modification weren’t in full effect. For all she knew the gas had put him to sleep.
He’d have found a place to hide first. He’s a smart guy.
In the end though, Astral was still a pony. A modified pony who would eventually be on her physical level, but he didn’t have the brutal training, mentally or physically. There was only so much that raw willpower could do when your own body refused to respond.
Sassi’s training had been nearly all-encompassing. Dealing with a decreased mental state including hallucinations had actually been part of it. There were plenty of ways such a thing could happen- so you had to learn to ignore it and focus on the mission. They had been given mild hallucinogens and then told to complete various tasks.
Aside from feeling higher than a kite, Sassi had performed above and beyond everyone else.
Ignore and focus. That’s a great thing in some situations. Horrible in others.
Her special somepony, however, had no such training. He was just a pony, but at the same time, so much more.
He had fought a Silo of creatures just to get to her. Even that thought made Sassi’s chest glow with warmth. Astral was so much more than he gave himself credit for. But in that same vein, Sassi had to recognize the poor stallion had limits, both physical and mental. She wasn’t sure where his breaking point was.
I just want to be there to help you when you can’t give anymore.
The map changed, and Sassi showed her fangs with a grin.
Bingo.
The body of a bloated squirmy sagged against a wall, Sassi pushing it aside. Behind it, a door was visible.
Pure, dumb luck. She had killed the mutant during one of her first passes of the hallway, needing to backtrack after another one showed up, and completely missed the door. Completely flush against the wall, it was, oddly, devoid of the fleshy material, but covered in mutant blood that made it blend into the fleshy hive walls with the corpse covering it. The door slid open with a rather disgusting squish, however, indicating that perhaps the growths would make their way inside sooner rather than later.
It was a standard monitoring room for a testing location. Various monitors, controls, and consoles were set up across one wall. Some filing cabinets and desks occupied the opposite wall, doors opening to both the right and the left of the viewing area.
“Mental Resiliency and Liminal Space evaluation. Status: Condemned,” Sassi muttered. “Oh, and of course, they’d add a monster into there. Whoever designed this was watching too many horror films. No wonder it was shut down.”
Officially condemned and put offline. But unofficially kept clean for occasional use. I hate this company.
Sassi examined the various readouts. Apparently the ‘testing incentive’ was loose, and the restraining collars were inactive.
Naturally.
“So, how do I shut you off? There’s no control for the dampening field.”
There wasn’t any sign of Astral on the monitors, but almost all of them were offline, so that wasn’t terribly surprising.
“Hang on, Astral,” Sassi muttered as she delved into the controls. “Let’s shut down the random maze garbage and get you out of there. Just give me a bit.”
She managed to navigate through a few of the subsystems, and the mare almost let out a groan at seeing a warning flash on the monitor.
“So, you were experimenting with hallucinogens here? But there’s not nearly enough to have done anything,” she muttered. “Wait...oh. Naturally, there’s a biohazard alert.”
If the mare had to guess, the fleshy hive structure had gotten a sample of the gas somehow.
Use that as a template to develop a defense mechanism. Or maybe it just tapped into a larger reserve of the existing stuff. Who knows.
Finding the correct set of commands, Sassi typed them into the console, letting out a frustrated groan as a text scrolled across the screen.
‘Command accepted. Warning. Time-delay commands are active due to insufficient processing power. Processing shut-off command and exit protocol. T-minus ten minutes.’
“I hate this place.”
Astral leaned against the wall, shutting his eyes as Gabbro’s gory face leered at him. It was a constant battle to move just a few steps. His limbs were leaden, and the stallion’s mind was clouded and utterly spent.
He wasn’t sure if there were any more tears to shed. There certainly were no more spikes of adrenaline, despite the horrific sights. There was just a slog through the nightmares that refused to let him be.
After another two turns on shaking limbs, Astral was faced with an oddly square section of the wall that protruded like a sealed-off room. That was new.
Was it?
A door opened, and a familiar, armored mare hopped out, dashing over to the stallion and looking him over.
“Astral! Let’s go!” she said, voice crackling over the radio. “We need to move. You okay?”
Wait. Was it over the radio? The HUD registered audio, oddly matching up with what he was seeing.
“Are you real?” Astral muttered, his eyelids and thoughts heavy.
The yank on his armor seemed a bit firmer than the other hallucinations, Sassi actually managing to drag him into the room, then sealing the door behind them.
“Stars, Astral, your vitals are…what’s going on?! Are you okay?” Sassi asked, tapping the exterior control on the helmet to raise the visor.
This is different.
On seeing his bleary eyes and tear-stained face, Sassi simply reached over and wrapped him up into a tight hug.
“Astral, come on. Talk to me. The suppression field is still active. I can’t tell what’s going on.”
“N-not sure if this is real,” Astral managed to say, his voice cracking every few words. “Are you really here?”
“I’m very real. The gas is making you see things, right?”
He nodded, leaning into Sassi’s embrace. The mare tightened her hold on him as she felt the stallion’s limbs trembling, even with the armor.
“Lots of stuff. Horrid. I can’t…”
“Just focus on me. I’m here. The gas isn’t affecting me as much. That said, we’ve got to get to clean air,” she explained. “I don’t know the long-term impacts of this stuff and…Astral?”
The stallion stared, his legs giving out. Astral then let himself cry, tears burning from his eyes as he held onto Sassi tightly.
She’s real.
Yet the bloodied face of the mare refused to leave as the emergency alarm sounded once again in Astral’s mind.