The Pony Lisa

by Hi World

Chapter 16: Infinity Devil Machine

>Luna 1602 hours

What had once been Lyra chased them toward the Bridge, howling and gibbering and raising a chorus of answering snorts.

Luna and Derpy, her one remaining star, had caught a glimpse of her scratching around inside an air vent, and bolted.

Lyra's left front hoof, now a bizarre hand, claw, whatever you call it. Soldier saddle still mounted on her now bony back. The mechanical arm, still equipped with Celestia’s permanent magic, whirled around like a fourth tendril, the other tendrils sprouting from her sides and neck. The fetid brown skin of her face overextended back, revealing parts of her skull and the unseeing pupils of her odd facing eyes.

“They’re gaining!” Cried Derpy in alarm. “How many are there?”
Luna glanced back, then looked forward again, fast. “Too many! Derpy! Keep up with me!” She demanded, jumping up off her hooves and flapping her enormous wings.
Another glance back presented Derpy doing likewise with her smaller wings, and Lyra getting too close for comfort.

Hooves and hands and tentacles pounded the deck into wobbling jelly. Up ahead, the chunky security door to the Bridge was ajar. A chair in the doorway kept it from closing.
How convenient.
“Ready yourself, Derpy: This is going to be tight!” She informed over Lyra’s fragmented screams of distress.

Soaring through the dense, malodourous air, Luna scraped through the gap, hurting her wings, while Derpy crashed face first into the steel door. Luna snatched up her tail in her teeth and dragged her into the Bridge, flicking the chair out into the corridor with a front hoof, allowing the door to close; something it had been trying to do for who knows how long.

The door shuddered as Lyra made like Derpy and crumpled into it, then went about attacking it, trying to beat it open. Darn, she was strong! The door wouldn’t hold forever, but it would hold for long enough… hopefully.

Wincing with the pain in her wings, Luna urgently checked, “Art thou ok, Derpy?” Determined not to lose her last star.
“I’m fine, Princess.”
“Art thou sure?”
“Hmm, well I do feel hungry.” She gasped, “Could that be a septum of the Flood?!”
“You mean "symptom."”
“Septum?”
“Symptom.”
“Spectre?”
“Symptom!”
“Muffin?”
She gave up and shared a chuckle with the funny Pegasus. “Oh Derpy.”
“Derpy by name, Derpy by derpa-derp.”

Scanning the Bridge, Luna noted the leviathan window; a spectacular view of Threshold and Halo’s ballet dancing debris. The consoles and terminals, some working, some not working, some destroyed. Arcs of blood and drag marks decorated the walls and floor, along with a dead one of those things. Somepony had nailed a beasty before going down. Good to see. The floor was a glass platter of spaghetti as tangled wires and conduits scribbled the deck. Outside the cacophony of the Flood hammering at the door, a clattering of loose scraps of metal drew Luna’s attention.

“Is this the nav system?” Puzzled Derpy, balancing a chunk of metal containing wires and circuit boards on her nose.
Oh, right, thy nav system! She had completely forgotten, and not for the first time.
The Cole protocol was a ripple next to the whirlpool of trouble they’d gotten themselves into.

A closer inspection of the object Derpy balanced, and it was indeed the nav system. Fubar.
“Commendations are in order, fair Derpy. Nice one.”
Derpy dropped the piece of garbage and clopped her front hooves together. “Woohoo!”

Positioning her front hooves on a terminal that was in poor condition but looked like it still had life, Luna examined the array of buttons, switches, dials and screens, seeking a communications system, as did Derpy.

“Uh, Princess? It says here that only “automatic personnel” can use this stuff,” the precious Derped one chimed.
Luna peered over and read the screen Derpy was inspecting. It said, “Authorised Personnel Only,” and there was a device for swiping an identity card, along with a microphone and speaker.
“Kudos again, fair Derpy. We can use this raise the Red Horse!”
“But how? We’re not automatic, unless… are you a robot?!”

Ignoring Derpy’s non sequiturs, Luna pulled Major Trixie’s identity card from her saddle bag and waved it in Derpy’s face.
“Did I ever tell thou we can touch type?”

>Rarity 1608 hours

At last, the engine room! Now what?
Rarity and her crazy herd of a Pony, a Dragon, and a Griffin, had made it to their objective; destroy the backup nav system in the engine room. Were it so easy.

Crouching down behind the low barrier of a three story high balcony, she had a brilliant view of the pandemonium below. It was Flood central. A million Flood forms shuffled around aimlessly, some trailing the same orange prison garb Spike wore.

Stood in the middle of the hustle and bustle of tentacle abominations, was Vinyl Scratch. Impractically extensive teeth poked out through her muzzle. Those trademark glasses were shattered and had a bent frame, and perched upon her nose, failing to cover her ruptured eyes. Or eye. She only had one left, swollen and veined. The eye socket that had once been home to her other eye had vanished, replaced by the stained, decaying skin of her face. Her neon blue mane and tail had been reduced to untidy clumps that clung to her disproportionate head and hind quarters.

The plague-ridden DJ began walking, dragging a horrendous, fat tentacle behind her where a leg should have been. Crossing paths with a colossal Griffin, ruptured like a pile of clay that had been stepped on, the two Flood combat forms almost seemed to nod at each other.

All of them, the prisoners and the guards, Ponies and Griffins, united, in total harmony. Of one mind.

Rarity peered up at Gilda, who was checking the doorway behind them. She met her eyes, and shared what must have been kinship with the Griffin. It didn’t matter anymore that Gilda was a Griffin and she was a Pony. They were all in this together.
“What are you lookin’ at?” Gilda eventually snorted, trying to apply her tomboy attitude. Too much the noble warrior, right?
“Nothing, sorry.”

Big Mac gulped and looked a question at her; their orders didn’t seem to apply anymore.

Getting a gander, Spike started to scream, but was cut off by Big Mac who clamped a hoof over his mouth.

On the deck below, towering up to the ceiling and filling the vast room, was a mammoth clot of mucus. No, not mucus. A membrane. A membrane bigger than a house. Bigger than two houses even. Maybe even bigger than three. Its skin rippled and shifted, odd shapes moving around within, struggling for release, like a water bed full of drowning rabbits.

Oh gosh, those shapes resolved into Horse shoes, bare hooves, Unicorn horns, wings, Griffin claws and beaks... And the faces... The faces. Ponies and Griffins trapped inside, pushing the unyielding skin of the hulking sac. Alive.

Rarity ducked down and nuzzled against Gilda’s Lion leg, the Pony-Griffin war erased from her mind, and brought a hoof to her mouth to stop whatever she felt coming up.

The Griffin wrinkled her beak in disgust at the Flood, glanced at Rarity who latched onto her leg like one of the parasites, and let her be. Big Mac still had Spike silenced, those tiny Dragon claws grasping his brick of a hoof, not struggling though.

“Dude, there’s a live one,” hissed Gilda informatively.
Rarity got up and followed the Griffin’s gaze, as did Big Mac.

An infected Pony. A soldier. Octavia. Missing her eyes, hardened blood encrusting both of her melted cheeks. On her back, another Pony. Pegasus. Not infected. Beating against what had been Octavia with her hooves. A blue coat and trademark rainbow coloured mane beneath the red stains confirmed her identity.
“Don’t let them take meee!”

Rarity’s heart punched through her ribs. She put both front hooves over her mouth, recoiled, and sagged back against Gilda.
Rainbow Dash.

Author's Note:

Use Time New Roman and Medium Dark background.
Short one here lol. What's gonna happen to Rainbow Dash? Find out next week!
Also, unless I do some major editing after I type this, this Chapter has the exact same mount of words as "Dead Or Alive... Actually, Just Dead." How about that.
2 more chapters after this one! Feels like it was just yesterday when I uploaded the prologue and chapter 1.

Comments

[Cheesy Arachnid]

What could the Flood want with live ponies? Probably as an easier way to spread the parasite. Won't know till later though.

[Hi World]

3634394 One of the characters manages to sus it out in the next chapter. The Flood did do something similar to this in one of the Halo games tho.

[NobleLeader6]

Good god man, you know how to keep people reading, even though I know what happens. Again, poor RD.