Celestia awoke with a startled gasp upon hearing the strained sounds of whoever was cutting at her ribs this time. She grunted as another piece of flash was cut from her skeleton and thrown aside.
She didn't know how long she had been here, on the cold, hard table, laid bare for everypony to see. Like many times before, she raised her tail up to cover herself and like before, her strength failed her.
"It seems the subject has remarkable regeneration. It has survived burning, hemorrhaging, blood loss, acid and numerous other tests that out scientists have thought up."
Celestia's ears flicked at the voice, swiveling around the room to get a better idea of where it would be stalking from today. Unlike the other times though, she felt a cold finger pull at her blindfold and rip it away from her face.
Celestia's eyes burned as the bright light torched her retina, throwing stars and blurring her vision. She gritted her teeth as she felt one of her ribs crunch and snap away.
She tried moving her head to look at whoever removed her blindfold but couldn't; her hair having been tied up behind the table.
"We expect you are in some... discomfort, yes?" The being asked, stepping forwards into the light.
As Celestia's vision returned, she finally saw what race had captured and tried to massacre her ponies. "What are you?" She asked, taking in the full length of the alien.
It held itself on two legs, almost as tall as she on four and hunched over slightly. If not for it's small four arms, beady eyes and dark blue skin, it could have been mistaken for a wildling, a creature native to the griffin forests.
"We are Nazzrul, you have met Fadsl," It replied, placing a hand on it's chest before motioning to another of it's kind digging around in Celestia's chest cavity. "We have come for a proposition."
Celestia
Celestia's eye twitched as she felt her nerves being played with. "I have nothing to discuss with, ugh, you." She let out a small, almost indistinguishable chuckle, which left her almost breathless, "You must need something from me..."
"We offer you your freedom."
Celestia held her stare at the being and watched as it picked up a small device off a nearby tray. It was then that she took a look at the room she was in.
White tiles filled each wall, slowly fading to become crimson. Three other upright metal tables lined the room with various instruments placed around them, ready for anything unlucky enough to be brought in.
The floor was littered with various parts of herself. Feathers, skin and blood surrounded her and gave the impression that nopony had cleaned the room in quite a while.
Celestia!
Celestia let out a grunt and closed her eyes for a second when she felt a small prickling sensation enter her head. She opened her eyes and glanced to the alien that was now sitting at a metal chair on front of her.
It held the small device and had it's thumb on the trigger. Each slight movement brought a new round of pain for the Princess, each worse than before.
"Celestia!" Tetra cried as their link was reformed, "Answer me!"
"T-Tetra..." Celestia answered, gaining the aliens attention.
"Who?" It asked, nearing her. When Celestia blinked without an answer, it slammed it's thumb on the trigger, causing Celestia to shake and sputter in pain as her brains pain center was assulted with five hundred thousand volts.
"Celestia, let me help!" Tetra shouted, shielding herself, poorly, from the pain.
Celestia didn't have to reply to allow her to help. Tetra would have forced herself to take over anyway, she wouldn't let her only friend stay on the enemy ship.
Celestia felt her consciousness slip away as her vision was dragged back into her own head. She could see, smell and feel everything that was going on, but she wasn't in control of her body. "Tetra, what are you doing?!" She shouted, hearing her echo bounce around her head.
"I'm saving you before they break you."
Celestia didn't wait long before it became clear that Tetra meant business. She felt her horn charge up, breaking the inhibitor that once glanced the pearly white ridges and blew Nazzrul back into the wall, scorching his face and chest.
The alien digging around Celestia's chest pulled back with a look of horror as Celestia's magic grabbed him and tore him limb from limb. Tetra deposited the body around the room and directed her magic over the shackles holding her in place and felt them liquefy and run down her body.
Celestia moaned as she fell off the table and onto the cold, damp floor. "I'm sorry for not being here before..." Tetra said, sighing and picking Celestia's body off the blood stained floor.
She quickly gathered up all of her internal organs and stuffed them back inside, muttering, "They'll sort themselves out..." and burning the skin flaps back together with a grunt of pain.
"No, you shouldn't be apologising. I'm the one who hurt you by becoming that... that thing."
"You did what you had to." Tetra walked over to the middle of the room and flared her wings out, sighing at the state they were in. Parts of her skin were hanging off, feathers were pulled apart and out of place. Tetra retracted them and shook her head, "How long was I gone for?"
"It was hard to tell the time..." Celestia mumbled, "It could have been weeks. I kept blacking out from pain."
"Okay..." Tetra replied, looking for a door. Once found, she made her way towards it and pressed a hoof to the pad, sliding the door across with a soft, "swoo" sound. Taking one look behind her, she grinned and walked out into a dingy, rusted walkway.
Frowning, she turned around, looking down the other end and found a similar way. "Well this is strange..." she muttered, taking tentative steps down the walkway. Her hooves clattered against the metal floor, making her breathing quicken. She didn't know where any of the aliens could pop out of in this strange place.
She had made it halfway down the hallway before a loud screech echoed out behind her. Turning around, Tetra saw one of the aliens, armed with some sort of weapon that resembled a pole running at her.
Activating her magic, she ripped off a small piece of the handrail and flung it at the alien. It flew through the air at subsonic speeds and tore through the chest piece and subsequently the body of the poor creature, ripping it open. It fell to the floor, blood pouring out of the wound as it gargled.
Tetra turned around and carried on walking through the dark, metal hallways of the ship, narrowly avoiding fights with some of its inhabitants. "This place is massive..." she mumbled to Celestia.
"Yeah... The ship was bigger than ours..." she replied, as the ship shook violently. "What was that?!" she screamed, feeling herself hit the railing.
"I don't know, but it can't be good!" Tetra responded, watching hundreds of aliens rush past her corridor and down several passages.
Instantly, the area in front of them, a main walkway, was torn open as pieces of rock and metal shredded the interior, throwing Tetra back and then sucking her outwards into space.
Reaching out, she managed to grab hold of a partially intact cooling tube and let out a small groan of pain as her hoof slowly froze. Looking around, Tetra painfully and begrudgingly climbed her way back into the corridor she was in, dodging metal and shrapnel as it whizzed past, just managing to clip her.
Making it back inside, Tetra turned around to see that a massive hold had been torn out of the side of the ship, revealing the HMS Twilight hanging above them.
She gazed up at the ship before red filled her vision, then shot out towards the ship. Watching on, horrified, Celestia prayed that their shields held against the lasers. Her prayers were answered as the lasers were deflected off into space, a tiny, almost microscopic shield appearing before the ship.
"Sister!" Celestia cried while Tetra let her have control back, "She's come to save us!" Celestia ran through several corridors and found one alien not dead yet. It was running towards an escape craft as Celestia grabbed him with magic and placed her horn on him. She ignored his screams as she charged her magic up and searched through his head for any signs of where Spike could be.
She was about it give up hope when she found a small snipped of memory. It was the alien absentmindedly looking into Spike's enclosure. Celestia traced it back to the laboratories section and let the begging alien go. He scrambled off as fast as possible and shot out one of the escape crafts.
Finding her way back, Celestia walked into the laboratories and found them predictably empty. White-wash walls and floors all round, except this time they didn't have blood stains. There were several tables scattered around, upended beakers and jugs of chemicals were scattered and smashed due to the impact.
Following the memory, she walked around the chaos, to the other end of the room and took the door into the second area. This was much the same, except for one special door that has several of what she could only assume to be safety signs. Ignoring them, she tore the door off and walked inside to see Spike chained up against the wall.
Letting out a small whimper, she rushed over and placed a hoof on his chest to find that he was sleeping. "Spike!" she said, nudging him awake.
"No more!" he screamed, before laying eyes on a bloodied and bruised Celestia. He whimpered and started crying as she ripped his bonds out of the walls, letting him wrap his arms around her neck. "I didn't tell them..." she muttered, quivering against her. "I didn't tell them..."
"Shh... I know you didn't," Celestia replied, whispering into his ear. "We have to leave, Luna is going to blow this ship apart!"
"O-Okay..." Spike muttered back, emotionless.
"Celestia, we have to go..." Tetra pleaded as the pair rushed out of the containment area. "Even we can't survive their engines detonating!"
"Yeah, I'm going as fast as I can, Tetra!" She shouted back, frantically moving around the debris in the labs. "Come on, Spike!"
Spike simply smashed through the relatively flimsy tables and equipment, eager to break something as well as escape.
The pair made it back to the door and Celestia quickly formed a sphere of air around Spike's head, letting him breath for a short time. "We'll have to use one of their escape ships and fly back to ours!" she explained, rushing down and back to where she probed the alien. Finding the place deserted, the pair ran over to one of the remaining shuttles and piled in, somewhat uncomfortably.
The interior wasn't much bigger than a normal automobile and left Celestia and Spike bunched up against each other in somewhat undignified positions.
The panel nearest to Celestia's head housed the controls for the craft. It was slick and smooth with various buttons on it for a species with smaller digits.
Celestia looked over the controls and balked at the complexity. "I've never piloted one before... Especially like this... " She groaned.
Her horn lit up and Tetra slowly slivered out. "But I can... Just let me interface with it..." she said, phasing into the panel and disappearing into the complex mass of electronics. "and... There!" she muttered as the doors shut violently.
A pair of explosive bolts exploded and threw the craft into space, end over end. Tetra eventually righted the craft with a small mumble of an apology and aligned it with the HMS Twilight. "It should only take us a few minutes to get there."
The pair shifted around so that they both could view out of the doors and watched as the alien craft was bombarded with several medium sized asteroids that even their shields couldn't deflect.
Their red lasers flared to life and aimed past Luna to hit the Twilight directly, burning through the hull and vaporizing several rooms in either side of the ship.
Celestia let out a sob at the sight of her ponies dying and turned to the panel. "Faster!" she screamed, moving awkwardly around Spike to press against the door.
The shuttle narrowly missed a second laser barrage and passed into the docking Bay of the ship. The ponies in there frantically rushed out while military personnel flooded the room and aimed their weapons at the craft.
"Step out, calmly and quietly!" A familiar mare's voice shouted, while the other ponies cocked their weapons.
With a sharp hiss, the doors slid aside, letting Celestia and spike exit the craft. Tetra slivered out of the ship and back into Celestia, sighing at being back somewhere cozy and warm. Celestia carefully took a step out and smiled.
She made her way around the craft, her head high and regal as the ponies in the room stared at her. Celestia sighed and leaned against the craft and smiled at Taylor. "Come and help Spike out!" she shouted, making several ponies bow at her.
Taylor blinked and nodded. "At ease!" she shouted, "I want a medical team down here now!" Rushing down the stairs, Taylor galloped over to Celestia and smashed into her chest. She started sobbing as Celestia gently hugged her back and ran her hoof through her mane.
"Shh, I'm sorry for making you worry..." Celestia whispered and nuzzled the top of her head. She moved her back a bit and gazed down at Taylor with a forlorn expression. "I can't stay, my sister is out there...."
Celestia turned and made her way back into the craft. Tetra closed the doors before Taylor could get on and powered the craft up again. She closed her eyes, trying to block out Taylors hooves as they banged against the glass. "Go..." she whispered.
The shuttled rose into the air then shot backwards out of the docking Bay and back into space. It aligned with Luna and sped towards her, barely avoiding another laser barrage.
Luna could be seen deflecting lasers to and fro, shooting them back at the alien craft or out into space. She did very much the same thing as Celestia and stood in top of her own shuttle with her shield up and her mane waving in some unseen force.
Celestia closed her eyes and called out to Luna as her craft slowed beside her. "Sister, I am here..."[\i]
Luna turned and stared at Celestia, shock and happiness on her face. She grunted as another laser hit her shield and pushed her back a little.
It wasn't long before both sisters were standing side by side, a wing around each other. Luna affectionately nuzzled Celestia and sighed with happiness and relief.
Her thoughts turned back to the aliens and the pair of them braced themselves for another hit. It smashed upon her shields and washed them with red light. Fading, it showed various spiderweb crisscrossing the shield.
Luna wrapped a leg around her sister and charged her horn for a teleport. They reappeared in the medical ward with a crash and it took a moment to realise that Celestia needed attention. "I'll be back soon!" Luna reassured her sister then teleport up to the bridge.
She burst through the doors and into the room. "Are we ready for a jump!" she asked, sitting in the captains seat.
"Just about, Ma'am!" one of the officers reported, looking up at her. "Just say the word."
"Do it!" she ordered as everypony's vision blurred.