"Don't underestimate what a terrible thing loneliness is. It can do...awful things to a pony's mind."
The cool air against his face. The wind beneath his wings. Looking down at the landscape in a way that only a select few could. Memories of Rainbow Dash. Of the Wonderbolts. Pretending to be the ideal you strive to be. This was the feeling of flying. Nox had only felt it for such a brief time.
Then he remembered a bright flash, the ear splitting siren's wail, and then...something big was rushing straight at him. Panic, instinctual movement. So much chaos, didn't even know which way was up or down. And then...the death spiral.
Crack!
Nox woke up just before he'd hit the ground. Panting as if he'd just ran a mile, and drenched in cold sweat. "A drink." He needed something to drink. While still dazed and disoriented, he moved to stand up but felt something cold and mettalic against his hooves. He looked down to see that he had a pair of metal gryphon claws attached his hooves. "Wh-Oh...right." It was all coming back to him now. He wasn't in the warm room that was his home in Vanhoover; he was in the cold, rundown employee lounge of the Crystal Empire central hub for lost travelers.
He tried to turn the knob on the sink, instead of clean water...there was a creaking noise, and then dirty brown sludge. The look of which, made him think he'd probably keel over and DIE before quenching his thirst. "Figures..." Maybe there was a water bottle in the secret fridge?
'Why would a lounge need a secret fridge anyways?'
After some...rather interesting feats of dexterity, he did manage to open the water bottle (which of course, needed a unicorn's finer manipulation to open...good thing he had a gryphon claw). While chugging down the ice cold liquid, he glanced over to the purple mare resting in a bubble by the couch. Paranoid that Nox would try to hurt her in or sleep? Or just a natural part of life in this place? He couldn't be sure.
He noticed a sheet of parchment sticking out between Aurora's resting hooves. The part of his brain that told him, "I like being alive" was curiously absent as he tried to get a better angle so he could properly see it (he wouldn't DARE risk trying to break the bubble). "That...kind of looks like-"
SUDDENLY THERE WAS VERY LOUD HEARTH WARMING EVE MUSIC ASSAULTING HIS EARS!
Nox folded his ears against his head as he backed away, "Sally! Sally! Shut it off, SHUT IT OFF!" It took some time, but eventually the room quieted down.
The loud noise had rudely woken Aurora from her slumber, her telekinetic grip grabbed the couch, table, and several objects around her. Having lifted them in the air (a few of them now lay broken). She did not look calm at all.
Nox very carefully approached her, "Aurora! Aurora, it's okay! It's okay! Just...just calm down alright? It's all over now...everything's fine now."
Aurora's panic stricken face started to slowly soften at Nox's words; as her breathing normalized, she put the remaining objects back down. " * ** ****. " Aurora looked off to one side, her horn glowed as a little transparent pony appeared in front of her. Was she...trying to use charades? Well either way, it was obvious that she was saying: "I am fine."
One of these days, they'd have to find some way to communicate with each other than-
His thoughts were interrupted when VA-381's hologram appeared on the (now ruined) table. "Good evening, guests! And w-w-w-elcome to our bzzztnd annual Hearth Warming Eve party!"
"Yesterday was Hearth Warming Eve." Nox corrected, then again...he was probably wrong about that as well.
"...." If it could understand him, it didn't show it. Just repeated the same lines several times, each one getting more and more broken.
Nox had had enough of this, "Sally, can you mute him?"
"Understood."
"......." His mouth was moving, but no words were coming out.
"Okay then, now..." Nox turned his attention back to the confused Aurora. Charades. "Sally, I need some help."
"Yes, user?"
"Can you try and illustrate what I'm saying?"
"...This one...will try."
"Okay. I want to ask her if she wants to come with us to the Crystal Empire. Can you communicate that?"
"...." Two holographic ponies appeared in the air between them standing on opposite ends. They looked a bit like Nox and Aurora, the Nox hologram pointed to an image of the crystal empire. It started walking towards it, then looked back to the Aurora hologram. It pointed at her and then the empire. The scene ended with the two ponies walking together to the crystal empire.
"...." Aurora tilted her head, trying to make sense of the images. Whether she understood or not would have to wait for later.
THE HEARTH WARMING MUSIC WAS BACK AGAIN! Luckily, it didn't last long this time.
"Okay, Sally, what's going on? I thought you muted him."
"..." Nothing but silence.
"Sally?"
"Welcome guests, to our annual-"
"I'VE HEARD THIS ALREADY!" Nox stomped his hoof on the ground, "Alright, ya know what let's just go." He trotted towards the door, looking back to the confused Aurora and motioning his head to the doorway.
"G-g-g-guests! Welcome-welcome-welcome-w-w-welcome to the p-p-p-party! Please present your invitations to the nearest official."
"Invitations?" That was a new one. "We...don't have any?" Why was he still talking to it?
A light from one of the nearby cameras scanned him. "You do not appear to have an invitation. Identification unknown. Scanning..scanning...scanning..." All the cameras were now showering the two of them in various lights. Lights that Aurora seemed to be very uncomfortable with.
"Extrapolation: Intruder alert. Switching to security sub-routine. Deploying s-s-s-security personnelllllll......B-B-B-Beginning H-H-H-Hearth Warming Eve decorations."
"Oh...that can't be good." He bumped flanks with Aurora, "Alright, double time. We gotta go, like now!" He said while he urgently gathered up his belongings in Sally's saddlebag.
"?" Aurora just stood there, a confused look on her face.
Nox face hoofed, "Now is not the time for...go! Go! Run!" Nox stepped into the dirty chrome hallway and then saw movement out of the corner of his eye. Down the hall were a pair of large...machines. Their bottom halves were essentially two sets of treads and their upper halves vaguely reminded him of the body structure of a minotaur with a dome shaped head. It's body was completely metallic and covered in...festive decorations. The alternating red and green lights from (where he assumed) was their eyes turned in his direction.
"Intruder! Decorating material! Intruder! Decorating material! Apprehend! Fabulous!"
"Oh crap. We have to go, now! Aurora! Let's. Go. Go!" Nox pointed down the hallway as the purple mare shoved past him, leaving him behind. "Oh sure, that you understand."
"In here!" Nox and Aurora ducked into a nearby room, listening in as the treads outside the door got further away. "Phew." Nox sighed in relief, thinking the worst part was over. "Just need some light." He felt around the wall with his tail. This was familiar to him. "Light, light. Need some light."
As if on cue, Aurora's horn started to glow a faint purple light.
"Thanks for that Aurora." Is what Nox WOULD HAVE said if he wasn't stunned for silence at the sight around him: "Oh...sweet Celestia..." he said in a hushed tone. The room they'd ducked into had been redecorated with the dead bodies of ponies who'd come through here. Most were just bones now...most of them. They'd all been used for...holiday decorations. It was just a sick sight to behold. While Nox dry heaved in the corner; Aurora seemed remarkably fine. As if sights like these were just common place.
"User. User!" Sally's voice came up on the intercom.
"Sally!" Nox was relieved to hear her monotone, mechanical voice. "What is going on with 381?"
"It is...experiencing errors in its programming."
"Yeah, I can tell!" Nox almost shouted that line while gesturing to the skeletal pony decorations adorning the walls and...that pile over there was being used as a TREE! With bells and lights hanging on it. Nox didn't want to look at it anymore, he just wanted to get out of the room. "Calm down, calm down..." He tried to tell himself, shutting his eyes and thinking of what Rainbow Dash would do.
. . . .
And then doing the exact opposite of that, because he couldn't fight his way out of a paper bag, let alone big, metal robot bad guys.
"We need to get outta here."
"It is unwise to go outside. VA-381 has deployed the security-bots to the entrances. In addition to that, the blizzard outside has only gotten worse."
"Perfect. And we're definitely not going back down into the tunnels. What other options do we have?"
"User, an underground tram has previously been mentioned. There is a 65.79% chance that it will still be there."
"An underground tram? Yeah...that might work. Wait. Do you know how to operate it? CAN you operate it?"
"...That should be within this one's capabilities. However, this one would request that you keep the previous vessel safe as this one will need to download into it. Otherwise...this one will be unable to escape from the facility's main systems."
"Okay so, get the underground tram. Take the saddlebag to a..."
"....There is a working computer down there, in the operator's office. Bring the vessel there, and this one will take care of the rest."
"Alright, alright. So, underground tram, operator's office, saddlebag, download you into the bag, get on the tram, get the hay outta here. Simple enough. Alright let's go." He was about to open the door and leave the horrible place behind but...stopped. "Wait, wait. VA-381 is going to be a huge problem. How're we going to deal with him?"
"This one has been locked out of many of the facility's functions however..."
Sally stood before the mountain of security and firewalls before her. Somewhere inside there, was VA-381's central programming.
"This unit's programming far exceeds that of a Virtual Intelligence."
The second the two ponies stepped out of the room, they saw a security robot rushing at them brandishing a pair of holiday lights. And then it was swiftly crushed when an emergency sealing door fell on top of it. "Okay, we can do this."