Forge waited quietly for Twilight to arrive, unsure of he should do in the presence of a dead body. He really wished Twilight had though to grab a comlink from the bridge before she rushed off, despite disabling the primary defence Scramblers he was still unable to establish telepathic contact with either Twilight or his primary body.
The junction area he stood in, just off the defence control substation, was littered with the detritus of the everyday lives of the crew that had lived here. Food packaging and data-pads lay in small heaps, discarded during the Hrath attack and subsequent time-shift. There was even a medical trolley tipped to one side, its load of hypo-sprays collecting dust in a corner. And there, laying in the centre of the room, was the dead pony.
Forge walked over to the cold, lifeless body. He’d decided not to disturb the body until Twilight arrived but it might be worth performing a quick autopsy. The dead pony was young, approximately 98cm tall and lacking the species distinctive flank markings, so definitely a juvenile. Morphology was indicative of female gender and Earth Pony subspecies. The filly had a gunmetal grey coat that closely matched the floor tiles starkly contrasted by a snowy white mane and tail.
The cause of death was quite obvious; the Filly’s back had a large patch of mottled skin splashed down the side, The Filly had been struck from behind by a directed energy pulse. It was a small consolation but Forge was pretty sure that they Filly would have felt no pain, the pulse had hit her directly in her spinal column and would have burnt out her brain stem instantly.
Forge twiddled his pincers as he moved round the body, there was nothing really more to be done. Was there? Nothing, but wait for Twilight to arrive.
********************************************************* ***
Twilight ran.
She ran and ran and ran.
“No.”
Twilight skidded as her hooves hit some black goo as she tried to turn a corner. The moment she hit the substance all friction went out from underneath her, she careened wildly and slammed into a science lab doorway. The door buckled under the impact but held and Twilight rebounded, hooves thundering to make up the lost momentum.
Somewhere in her mind the rational part of her brain asked, “What the heck was that?” but it was buried and ignored.
Corridors and doors blurred together as she raced through the ship. Her vision swam but it didn’t matter, guided by memory and instinct she descended closer and closer to Forges position. Closer and closer to the awful truth;
She’d failed someone.
Whoever it was she’d failed to save them.
And if she’d failed one…had she failed them all?
“No…no no no…no no please no…….please please please………”
***************** ************************** *********************
Forge straightened up and backed away from the body. Immediately he started scanning the space around him, checking every possible route of entry to the room. He’d just come to a very worrying conclusion.
He hadn’t felt the need to intensively scan the body, a visual examination had shown all the relative information needed and poking around in a dead body could be considered disrespectful and ‘not pissing off Twilight’ was still pretty high on his list of priorities. However by chance he’d glanced over at the body as he paced around the room and noticed something from the different perspective.
There was thin incision running all the way along the Filly’s spine. It started at the nape of the neck and ended just before the tail. He hadn’t noticed it initially as was pretty well hidden by the mottling and his top down perspective during the examination. Intrigued he’d performed a quick scan of the surrounding tissue, and that’s when it had hit him.
It was the decay of the cells.
Or rather; lack thereof.
It should have been obvious but he just hadn’t been looking. This could mean trouble.
The spell the mage Ember glow had devised to protect the Valkyrie was supposed to have frozen time for the ship while it lay protected in a pocket dimension, this had not quite worked quite according to plan, the principle itself was shaky and the proximity to a Chaos Star would not have helped.
Evidently from the state of the vessel some passage of time had occurred on the ship and although it was difficult to say how much, the time passed was defiantly more than enough to allow the decomposition of a corpse to take place. However the dead Filly showed next to no signs of cell decay, she had died very recently.
In addition to this Forge had discovered that mottling not the result of a directed energy blast, in fact he could find no discernible evidence of what had actually killed the young pony.
In conclusion he had a killer that operated through unknown means, a high probability that it was still in the area and body left displayed as…what a warning? A message? A trophy?
“What happened in here Twilight?” Forge thought to himself, eye flicking around. The shadows seemed that much darker now.
************* **************** *******************
Unseen something black and white twitched in anticipation, its ragged hair standing on end, black gooey saliva dripping from its tendrils. It crept towards where it knew they’d be, stick like limbs easily prizing open hatches as is slowly, stealthily worked its way forward.
Timing was everything, it was in no rush to attack. It had waited long enough for something to come along, it could wait a few more minutes for everything to fall into place.
*********************** *********************
Twilight rounded the last corner and burst into the room, her eyes locking onto the still figure laying on the floor. Forge could only watch silently as Twilight partially collapsed and began to shudder.
Through breathy, strangled sobs Twilight cried out a name, “Nocturne!”
Then the dead Filly sat up. “Twilight?” It gasped eyes snapping open and homing in on Twilight’s and for a half a second the world seemed to stand still. “AUNTIE TWILIGHT!”
There was a blur of movement as the two ponies bounded towards each other. Nocturne vanished in puff of smoke and reappeared in front of Twilight, both of them going down in a tremendous hug. Twilight tightly wrapped her hooves then her wings around Nocturne, fearing if she let go the filly would somehow evaporate away into the darkness. Twilight began crying and laughing at the same time. A series of incoherent noises escaped her throat as she rocked back and forth, clutching the chilly little pony to her chest.
Eventually Nocturne managed to wriggle free and bring her face up to Twilight’s. “I knew you’d come.” She grinned, wiping tears from Twilights face “Some ponies said it was hopeless, but I always knew you’d come for us. HA! Ten years late for the rescue but you got here in the end!”
“T-Ten years?” Twilight croaked.
“Well one year up and about, nine in Cyro-stasis but…” Nocturne froze as she caught Twilight tone, her face crumpled as the meaning sunk in. “A bit longer for you then?”
“A bit.” Twilight said wiping her face. Twilight smiled an ‘everything’s ok now’ smile down at Nocturne and finally disengaged from the embrace. Breathing heavily she looked up and saw Forge staring at them somewhat dumbfounded, his arms akimbo and twitching slightly. “OH! Forge! This is Nocturne. Yes I know there no detectable life signs or brain activity but she’s a Fell Pony, that’s normal for her.”
Forge continued to stare for a few moments before uttering, “Magic?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Nocturne replied, her expression hardening somewhat as she regarded Forge. “And you are?”
“FRGE-110972 Lambda Series Starlord. You can call me Forge.” He replied, extending an arm in a friendly gesture. Nocturne looked at his extended limb like he’d offered her a dead kipper, luckily Twilight intervened before the situation could escalate.
“Forge has been helping me track the ship down.” She explained, willing Nocturne to not freak out. “I would have died at least half a dozen times if it weren’t for him. In fact I wouldn’t have even known the ship still existed.”
Nocturne regarded Forge suspiciously for a few more moments, in which Forge detected several quick telepathic transmissions between the two ponies, before Nocturne jaw suddenly dropped and she yelped, “You fought the WCS!?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Forge replied. “Its repaired prison is currently secured within my main body.”
Nocturne sighed slightly, then faced Forge properly and said, “Thank you for helping Auntie Twilight find us. You’re pretty badass,” She hoofed bumped his outstretched arm, “for a machine.”
“Well your tactic of hiding in plain sight was pretty ingenious.” Forge replied, retracting his arm, “For a dead pony.”
Nocturne turned and began saying something to Twilight who looked away down one of the corridors, following what the filly was saying. The moment the ponies looked away from Forge he realized something was very wrong. He didn’t know what it was that tipped him off, there was nothing on sensors, but in that one moment he knew without a doubt that something had just dropped down from the roof behind him.
Forge spun, whipping out his three left arms as he did so. His legs dipped down then up again as he put all his momentum into one almighty uppercut. His arms connected with the creature which was sent flying across the room where it crashed into the abandoned medical cart. Despite the force of the impact Forges blow was completely noiseless and the creatures landing made only the barest of sounds, despite detritus being thrown everywhere.
The creature reared back up instantly from its landing, Forge had never seen anything like it. It was quadrapedal, thin bone white limbs at least three meters long, covered in a diaphanous material that wavered and melded as the creature moved. The body, small and twisted compared to the limbs, was covered mess of dirty black and white hair tangled around twin bony spikes protruding from its shoulders. What was most bizarre was its head, there was very little of its face and skull visible behind the huge swarm of tentacles that spewed from its wide maw. One of the tentacles had whipped across Forges hull plating when he punched it, leaving a furrow just as easily as a fusion cutter could have. Whatever it was it didn’t register on any of his scanners and didn’t even produce disturbances in the atmosphere when it moved
Still noiselessly the creature whipped its tentacles aggressively and charged Forge. Forge released the safeties on his on-board weapons and launched himself towards the monster. He had to keep the creature away from the ponies, its tentacles could easily damage his armour and with Twilights magic on the fritz…
Suddenly, and greatly to his surprise, Forges body was enveloped by an indigo aura which froze and dragged him back. There was a puff of smoke and Nocturne appeared in front of the creature, front hooves waving. The creature flared its tentacles and ‘roared’ but it stopped its advance.
“Easy now Umbra!” Nocturne said assertively, “Its ok! It’s all ok now. Your safe, everyone’s safe now.” The creature continued to whip its tentacles aggressively but the movements were hesitant now. “Hey you remember me don’t you? You remember you little sister don’t you Umbra? These people aren’t your enemies.” The creature was barely moving now. Twilight slowly pushed past Forge and placed herself between Forge and the creature. Nocturne continued to talk soothingly, “Look! Auntie Twilights here! It’s all ok now, it’s all ok.”
A single tentacle unfurled itself from the mass and alighted itself upon Nocturnes forehead, where it remained for a few seconds twitching slightly. The two ponies held their breath as slowly, cautiously detached itself and placed itself upon Twilights forehead. Almost the moment it made contract the tentacle immediately withdrew and the creature vegan to violently convulse.
The two ponies backed up as the creature began to make retching motions, with every convulsion the creatures limbs twisted and became shorter and thicker. In spurts the tentacles were sucked back into the creature’s mouth, despite the fact that there should have been far less room in its torso to accomdate them.
With a final set of spasms the spikes retracted and bones clicked back into position. Left standing in the creatures wake was rather dazed, snowy white, adolescent male pony with a shaggy gunmetal grey mane. The pony blinked a few times, looked around then sighted Twilight. His face lit up and he bounded over to (still silently) Twilight who smiled and wrapped him in the second gigantic hug of the day.
“Ohh Umbra!...” Twilight gushed, “Yes I’m real…No I’m not angry at you, you were just trying to protect the others… aww you big softy.”
If Forge had been confused before he was utterly bewildered now. Twilight and Umbra were defiantly communicating but the other pony was still unnaturally silent and Forge could detect no telepathic activity between them. After a few moments he eventually formed a coherent thought and turned to Nocturne. “That’s your brother?”
“Yeah.” She replied.
“Is he a Fell Pony too?”
“No, he’s an Eldritch Pony.”
“Eldritch? As in…?”
“Yes. Don’t worry about it though, he perfectly safe now. Probably.” Nocturne looked sideways at Forge and grinned slightly. “Are you ok? Not going to explode are you or something?”
“No, I’m not going to explode.” At that moment Umbra came flying through the air and wrapped his hooves around Forge. Forge staggered slightly, his eye widening at the bizarre entity gratefully hugging him. “Probably.”