//------------------------------//
// Chapter 17: Light Fuse, Run Away 
// Story: The Pony Lisa 
// by Hi World 
//------------------------------//

>Luna 1613 hours

What art we fighting for? The question rang loud in her mind. 
“Me gots a signal, Princess! Booyah!” Derpy pumped a hoof in the air. 
“The Red Horse?” 
“I’d say it was more of a grey ship than a red horse but yeah.” 
“Well done, fair Derpy. Thou hath proven yourself useful as of late. I apologise for doubting thee.” 
The Pegasus Mare grinned cheesily with a squee as Luna fiddled with a couple of dials. 

“-is the UPSC Red Horse to the Pony Lisa. Come in Pony Lisa. Anypony hear me?” 
“Discord!” Luna had been praying to speak to anypony but him. 
“Luna?! You're still alive?! Oh my! You sure know how to-” 
“-Discord; no time. I need to speaketh to my sister.” 
And yes, of course I am still alive. I am thy Princess of the Night; thou art not going to get rid of me that easily. 
“Do not interrupt, Luna.” 
"Her name is Princess!" Derpy corrected. Whether Discord heard her or not was a mystery.
For the second time, Luna demanded, “Put Celestia on!” 
“On where? The table? If you say so.” 
“Discord…” she growled, her impatience increasing every second.
“Tee-hee. Say please.” 
“Please.” 
“D’aaww, my apologies Luna, but Celestia cannot take your call right now. However, we are-” 
“-Put her on, Discord!” 
“Perhaps you didn’t hear. Celestia. Cannot. Answer. And what did I just say about inter-” 
“DISCORD! LET ME SPEAKETH TO MY SISTER IMEDIATELY!” 
The Draconequus winced with the ear-splitting volume of her trusty old royal Canterlot voice. “Ok, ok.” 

“-Luna! Is that you!?” Celestia’s voice came through urgently. 
Luna jumped for joy, butterflies forming in her stomach. “Celestia! Oh I am so glad to hear your voice!” 
“Luna, listen to me. We-” 
“-Sister! We have something more important to discuss.” She didn’t want to cut her sister off, and felt awful for it, but she wanted to lay everything down as soon as possible. 

“We hath all thy recon thou will ever need. This ship is PONI, with a certain Major Trixie Lulamoon most recently in charge. Section three sent it here to experiment with a virulent parasite called the Flood that Spartan Pony 117 encountered on Halo, although PONI may not hath known about all of Trixie’s project "enhancements." But at thy very least, they came here to secureth a sample to study, and they brought Guiney Pigs with them too. Under Trixie’s orders, they have been deliberately infecting Pony prisoners and…” She paused, unable to believe what she was saying. “… And Griffin prisoners as well. Griffins and Ponies. Our own. Infecting them, thus transforming them into these putrid abominations. These curs. And nopony told us.” 
Discord and Celestia had been hiding something for a very long time. This had to be it. 

“I know sister,” Celestia responded gravely. 
“Celestia?” 
“Major Trixie is en-route to the Red Horse in your Pelican. She has informed us of the situation.” 
Her stomach roiled and hatred crept into her boiling blood. How had the spoilt Mare even made it to the hanger? 

“Sister… sister…” she gritted her teeth, speechless. 
“Trixie did fail to mention however, that any of you had survived.” 
“Big meanie!” Shouted Derpy angrily, eyes more out of focus than ever. 
Luna placed a hoof over the grey one’s back as her exposed scar begged to be itched. 

She swallowed, and it ached. “She is a liar, and a traitor, and a war criminal!” Reduced almost to incoherence, “Everypony lost on this ship, my stars, thy crew. If not for Trixie, they would still be with us.” 
She could barely contain her rage at Trixie, nor her disappointment at herself for letting her escape. 

Resurfacing, Discord stated, “There, Trixie’s story has been verified.” 
“I’ll destroy her!” Grated Luna, a spark of rage spat from her horn. 

Celestia interviewed, “Sister, having witnessed this Flood firsthoof, what is your assessment? What if the Flood were to reach one of the colonies?” 
Grinding her teeth, she stabbed back, “I’m not paid to assess things, Commander.” 

Discord began documenting, “We have no defence against such a foe. Any planet to come into contact with the Flood would be overrun in a matter of days. A cure must be sought.” 
“A cure? A cure!? Thou cannot cure this! According to Trixie, this was never about a cure! This was about control! About creating mindless monster soldiers she could control! Who knows what Trixie was doing that is not in thy record, but a cure?! Hath thou seen what we’ve seen?” 
“We have Luna. We have,” sighed Celestia. 
What?! 

“Listen to me Luna, my… beloved sister.” Celestia squeaked, then breathed, “Our orders… are to destroy the Pony Lisa… But all is not lost, my sister. There are two escape pods… down on the lower deck… or so Discord tells me." 
"Two escape pods? But Trixie said she jettisoned all the escape pods. Why would she keep two?" Luna wondered out loud. 

Funnily enough, Celestia had an answer. "For her and the PONI operative in your squad to escape." 
"Wait; there was a PONI operative in my squad?!" She exhaled. "I knew it! Zecora!" 
"Zecora?" 
"She knew all about Nightmare Moon. She said she got the information from PONI. It must have been her. But no..." she balanced the thought. "... Trixie killed her." 
Discord admitted, "Yeah... Trixie didn't know who it was either. Only I know." 
With a tone that was quieter but all the more serious, Luna pried, "Who is it then, Discord?" 
But of course, Discord didn't do simple answers. "Well that depends: Who's alive?" 
"Just me and Derpy here." 
Astonished, the Draconequus howled, "Derpy survived?! Bwahahahaha! That's priceless!" 
The Mare in question looked down at the deck sadly. 
"Oh, well, I can asure you; it's not Derpy. Tss-ss-ss-ss-ss! You have nothing to worry about from PONI." 

Pondering whether or not to ask Discord a second time, Luna decided to chance the AI's words, and assume PONI's operative had passed on. She felt pretty sure it was Zecora anyway, whatever her purpose might have been. 

But what about Rarity and her squad? Luna never gave up on her stars. Not until they had been proved KIA, however Rarity wasn't that much of a soldier. She had Big Mac for muscle, Twilight for brains, Fleur De Lis for a mascot and Fluttershy for... something. What chances did they stand against the Flood? What if the PONI operative had been with them? What if some of them were still alive? Luna kept her hopes low, not expecting to be pleasantly surprised. She had one star, end of.

Celestia advised, "If you are planning on escaping in those pods, you must make haste, my sister. Trixie Lulamoon has brought the attention of the Griffin capitol ship upon us.” 
Celestia and Discord knew about the escape pods; why they were there, Trixie and the PONI operative. They knew a lot more than they'd told her until now. 
“You knew,” she murmured, stung by betrayal. 

A tremendous boom shook the entire ship, forcing her to grab hold of the console as Derpy toppled over onto the deck. 
“What was that?” Celestia enquired, alarmed. “Are you still there, Luna?” 
“Yes, sister. We are.” 
Her sister paused, not knowing if that was good or bad, then said, “You don’t have long, Luna. Good luck…” Then she squeaked, “I love you.” 
“Thou hath let us down, Celestia… I hate you-” 
Bang! Furiously, she bucked the console into a crinkled mess and looked at Derpy. 
“Uh, Princess? Are you alright?” 
No. 

Eyes glowing white, she beat the console in an uncontrollable frenzy, shrieking like she had been infected. Like she had been possessed. She was possessed. The white noise of Lyra and her Flood buddies banging against the door was drowned out by Luna’s synthesized screeches and the clatter of the terminal being demolished. Blackness crept up her legs and over her blue coat in a wave of what looked like plasma, but wasn’t. Her mane and tail materialised into crazy splats of sparkling purple, her black cutie mark also turning purple. 

“Princess!” Derpy cried out and lunged at the possessed Alicorn, shaking her like a doll. “Snap out of it, Princess!” Then, at the demon that was taking her over, she demanded, “Get out of my Princess you bully!” 

Light spilled from Luna’s eyes and howling mouth, and her horn glared, building up in finality. 

Out of options, Derpy squeezed the life out of her in a cuddle. Intense light built up around the two of them, and a blinding flash knocked Derpy to the ground. After a fair few seconds had passed, she shakily looked up to behold her Princess...

... Luna sat before Derpy, still blue coat, eyes, mane and tail, and still a black cutie mark. Same old Luna. Good. 

She had fought Nightmare Moon again, and damn near lost. Thank Celestia she hadn’t. No, don’t thank Celestia; it was Celestia’s fault they were even in this situation. Her and that snake in the grass, Discord. Unless the white Alicorn came to rescue them in the short time they had left, Luna would never forgive her, and she cursed her name right to the bottom of her soul. 

Panting, she asked, “Derpy… Art thou alright?” 
The derped one stood and rubbed her head under that untamed blonde mane. “Ow. Yeah, I’m alright. But what about you? Why do you keep having these derp-strikes?” 
“It’s… just something wrong with me, fair Derpy. It is nothing to be concerned about.” Meaningful fib: It most definitely was something to be concerned about.
“I was scared.” 
“So was I.” 
“Will it ever happen again?” 
“I don’t know, but I do know one thing..." she spoke as she forced herself up off the floor and towered defiantly before Derpy. "... We are getting off this sinking ship.” 

Her legs shook and started to give in for a moment. She grunted with unease and would've collapsed with exhaustion were it not for Derpy who came to her aid. The Pegasus sat Luna down gently on the floor. 
Make haste? Sure. We shall get on that soon. 

After she'd counted thirty seconds in her mind, she was ready to force herself to be ready. With a little help from Derpy, she strained to her hooves and spread her wings. 
“You and I shall get cosy in thy pods, make it back to thy Red Horse, and have a nice, long talk with my sister," she declared. 
Derpy nodded. 
"We shall report Discord for rampancy. And then we are going to find thy great and powerful Trixie, and we are going to take our time with her.” She noted the same yearning for revenge on Derpy’s face. “And then… then what?” 
Sniffling, Derpy answered, “And then comes a muffin, Princess.” 
“Erm, well… it’s actually ice cream but… ok. A muffin would be nice.” 

She levitated the muffin Derpy gave her from her saddle bag and broke it in half. She couldn’t help but think that this was the last time she’d ever eat. The last Pony she’d ever talk to. An ending. 

The Pony who wound her up to the point of exploding, was now her best friend, and possibly her only friend left in the universe. 
“To friendship,” she toasted, and chucked her half of the muffin into her mouth. 
“To friendship,” Derpy followed suite, and the two of them enjoyed a few seconds of ambient picnic. 

With the surrounding Bridge in a post-apocalyptic condition, the Flood hammering at the door, the occasional explosion from deep inside the ship, and a beautiful view of Threshold and Halo's debris; Luna knew she would remember this scene for the rest of her life. She could only hope that life wouldn't end too soon.

Wordlessly, she checked her weapon; full magazine. Ammo was dwindling, but they had grenades a-plenty. Sealing her bag, flicking the safety off her DMR and trudging over to the door controls, Luna came up short upon hearing Derpy speak up from behind.
“Princess Luna?” 
She stopped abruptly and rotated to face her little star. 

“... What happens if we don’t make it?” Derpy’s eyes twinkled. 
Voice softer than usual, she answered, “We will make it, fair Derpy. We just have to banish our fear, never give up, and have faith in me, as I do in thou.” 
“But what if we die? I don’t want to die, and I definitely don’t want to come back if I do,” the sweet Mare sniffled, a tear running down her cheek. 
Eyes glistening with Derpy's, Luna lifted the Mare's down-cast face with a hoof and wiped the tear away. 
“Now now Derpy, don’t you worry. I shall not let that happen. And thou most certainly will not come back…" Gulping, she added, "I will assure it."  She paused to see if Derpy would say something, and when she didn't, she proceeded, "I shall not leave you, but if I go down, I order thou to fly. Fly away as fast as you can. Get home safely, get to the Red Horse, and tell everypony exactly what happened.” 
Eventually, Derpy croaked, “... Ok. I just… I really want to go home. I really want to live. But I-” 
Luna wrapped her hooves around the one star she had left and held her tight for a good ten seconds. 
“We are going to live, fair Derpy. We are going to live.” 

She pulled back, still hugging, staring meaningfully into her derped eyes for a beat. Wordlessly, she let go and paced over to the one door that separated them from the Flood... 
... And hit the controls. 

>Rarity 1613 hours

Aiming down the scope of her BR85, Rarity had Rainbow Dash’s head in her sights, and debated whether or not to pull the trigger. Big Mac and Gilda lunged at her and lowered her rifle. 
“What are you, crazy? There’s too many of em dude,” susurrated the Griffin. 
Big Mac’s expression agreed with the feathery titan. 

The Flood where a choir of screeches and howls and roars in some sort of tribal celebration, as Rainbow Dash and Octavia carved a straight path through the sea of malformed bodies. 
Rainbow continued to beat at Octavia, screaming and bawling, “No! No! Please! Let me go! Put me down!” 
All the pilot’s terror and desperation echoed around the cold engine room and resonated in Rarity’s ears. The dead Octavia hauled RD up with ease and pushed her into the vast blob of mucus. And then she really started screaming. 

Rarity couldn’t take it anymore. Couldn’t watch. Ducked down and slumped against Gilda’s leg again, squeezing her eyes shut and covering her ears, but that did nothing to stop Rainbow Dash’s screams of terror from intruding her brain. She bit down hard on her lip until it was sore, stifling her sobs and failing at it, tears slicing through the grime on her face. Another good friend lost. 

She peered up at the only friends she had left; Big Mac, and a Dragon and a Griffin she’d just met. Gilda stared at her, expressionless, while Big Mac flopped his ears in sadness and kept Spike quiet.

A thunk and crackle thumped her heart as a nearby intercom sounded on. 
“-is the UPSC Red Horse to the Pony Lisa-” It was Discord. 

The Flood erupted into a rancorous wrath, spasming and spinning this way and that. 
“Why are they doing that?” Rarity whispered to the Dragon, more than a little frightened. 
Big Mac moved his hoof away from Spike’s mouth. 
“They go crazy when they hear something that might be food, they go crazy. They’ll look for where it’s coming from-” 
Big Mac shut him up again. 

Flood combat forms leaped impossibly high into the air, battering speakers off the walls with their tendrils. A glance up confirmed that there was a speaker directly above them. Not good. 
Other voices came crackling through the speaker; Celestia’s, Luna’s- 
-Oh, Luna! 
Rarity gasped with excitement, not too loud. “The Princess! She’s alive! We’re not the only ones!” 
Her remaining Stallion neither smiled nor frowned, just gazed up at the speaker with the toy Dragon in his hooves. 
One could at least show some enthusiasm. 

The four of them listened fascinatedly as her beloved Princess unlocked all the secrets of the Pony Lisa to Commander Celestia and the AI Discord, listing the many sins of PONI, who turned out to be responsible for this whole mess. 
Spike pointed to nowhere in particular and muffled something when Princess Luna mentioned the name "Major Trixie Lulamoon." 
Distastefully, Rarity commented, “I should have known. Where there’s a mystery, there is PONI.” 
Inhaling slightly, Big Mac said, “Eeyup.” 

Celestia’s voice announced, trembling a bit, “There are two escape pods… down on the lower deck…” 
Excitement coursed it's way into Rarity's veins. “Oh goody! We can escape! Did you hear that?” 
“Aw sweet!” Exclaimed Gilda. 
Spike muffled something happy behind Big Mac’s chunky hoof.

The more she thought about it, the more Rarity understood what the Flood might be doing. Shoving pilots into their sac of depression, hooked up to the engines and the trans-light drive. 
“That atrocity they just shoved Rainbow Dash into...” she began, still thinking about it, mind blown by the insanity of it all. “They must… I don’t know, but I think they’re trying to hotwire the ship’s engines without Bridge control. And even if they’re not, that engine is important to them. It must be destroyed. It must. It must!” 
Big Mac looked at her like she was a crazy Pony. Spike didn’t know what she meant either. 
Gilda shrugged and said, “Uh… I guess that’s a possibility.” 

“Alright then, but before I do this; Gilda, take Spike’s weapon,” which was actually Fluttershy’s weapon, but she didn’t want to think about that right now. 
“Aaww yeah!” Gilda cheered, snatching the rifle from Spike’s claws. “Time to kick some Flood butt!" Smiling at the Unicorn Mare, she reminded, "Huh, I thought you’d never willingly hand over a weapon to a Griffin?” 
“Hm-hm… Yes I may have said that, however that doesn’t matter. No offense Spikey Wikey, but you are a terrible shot.” 
The Dragon grunted, offended. 
Well you are… just saying. 

Crouching on hind legs and admiring her new weapon, Gilda paused and chirped, “Wait a minute... before you do what?” 
“When I give the signal; run like the wind, and everypony stay close.” This was the best decision she’d ever made in the UPSC, she figured. 

The white Unicorn Mare used her magic to open her saddle bag, pull the pins off all her grenades, and place them in very specific spots down below. Near the trans-light drive, to be exact. 

Struggling, Spike’s eyes widened, his orange jumpsuit rubbing against Big Mac. 

All at once, the grenades detonated, creating a secondary explosion from the engines that rocked the whole ship. 
“Go! Go! Go!” Signalled Rarity, bolting out of the room, Gilda soaring overhead on her wings, duel wielding her cricket bat and MA5D Assault Rifle. Must have felt like her birthday. 
Big Mac charged after her, Spike on his back. 

Rainbow Dash had stopped screaming at last.