Celestial Hulk

by Waxworks

Chapter 2

Moondancer stepped out of their small room, her horn light glowing as she focused it around the area. It illuminated a wider room, with small recesses in the walls on either side. She led the way over to one of them and inspected it closer. It looked like something had attached here at one point, but if it had, it had been gone a long time. The dust that covered everything was in here as well, meaning it had not been used for a long time.

That actually made her wonder if there was oxygen in here. “Minuette, watch me for a moment, I’m going to release my ward and see if I can breathe in here. If I pass out, please rescue me.” Moondancer said.

“Uh, okay.” Minuette responded.

Moondancer dropped her ward, then let out her breath. She tried to calm down as she exhaled, and as she inhaled she felt an immense sense of relief. There was oxygen, and she could indeed breathe. It was stale, and musty, and tasted distinctly of dust and metal, but it was breathable. If there were any pathogens in the air, they’d find out, but they needed all their energy to defend themselves in here, and this would be one less thing to worry about.

“It’s safe, Minuette. You can drop your ward. You’ll need your energy for other things.” Moondancer said.

Minuette let out a breath and dropped her own ward, giving a weak smile. “Oh thank goodness. That’s a bit of a weight off my mind.”

Moondancer nodded, and the two slowly moved forward, following the rather linear hallway deeper into the ship. Moondancer kept an eye on the dust on the floor as they moved. So long as the dust remained undisturbed, then that meant nothing was touching it. That either meant something lived here that flew, or nopony lived here.

The hall continued down some distance, turning right once, then taking them down a short way. They passed a couple rooms, but either the doors did not open, or they were empty. Nothing at all inside the first two they could get inside, with a thin coating of dust on the floor. The fact that it was thin dust made Moondancer wonder if that was just all the dust that was available, or whatever happened had happened rather recently. Recently being open to interpretation, of course.

“What are we looking for, Moonie?” Minuette asked, pressed tight up against her.

“I’m not positive, but we need a room that looks important. If it’s like a throne room or captain’s room on a boat, it should have a big fancy chair at the very least.” Moondancer answered.

“All the rooms we’ve found are empty. That’s concerning enough as it is, but none of them even had any chairs in them at all.” Minuette whined.

“I know, but calm down. We’ll find something eventually. The ship isn’t infinite. We just need to keep looking.” Moondancer said.

“I just want to know we have an exit. I’m worried and scared. Do you think Caramel and Twinkleshine have started panicking yet?” Minuette asked.

“I certainly hope not. Twinkleshine is in control of the ship. Caramel literally cannot pilot it home if she loses her head. As the sole remaining unicorn on board, it’s her responsibility to keep the ship safe and deliver it, and the remaining crew home intact. She’ll wait as long as she can before leaving.” Moondancer said.

“Would she really leave without us?” Minuette said, aghast.

“That was part of the job description, Minuette. It was always a risk.” Moondancer said, plodding stoically along, hooves tapping on the metal walkway.

The two mares wandered aimlessly for some time, hearing nothing but the ominous creaking of the ship around them, and the tapping of their hooves on the floor. They went from a grating covering the floor, to what must once have been sterile white-painted metal, but was not peeling and dust-covered metal sheets. They hugged the right wall, only deviating to check out nearby rooms in case any of them were what they were looking for, but none of them were promising, and all were empty. After a good amount of walking, the white-painted walls eventually led them to a set of doors unlike the ones they had previously seen. Where the others were single doors with no windows and no markings on them, these ones had some writing on the front, emblazoned in red, and a set of windows just higher than their heads.

“If my mental map is still correct, this leads into the deeper parts of the ship. I was hoping we’d stay near the outside wall and find another door, but this is the only path from here. We’d either have to go back and choose another hallway, or investigate this one. What do you think, Minuette?” Moondancer asked.

Minuette stood up on her hind hooves and peeked through the bottom of the window. “This area looks important. I think it’s worth a look. My only concern is the red. No matter what species made this ship, ponies typically use red because it’s eye-catching. So this area is either important, or dangerous.”

“Well, let’s see if we can get it open, then. I don’t fancy backtracking too much, and I don’t want to get lost. I’m trying to keep a mental picture of where we are, but it’s swiftly getting tangled. See if you can figure out how to open it.” Moondancer said, looking at the wall next to the door.

Minuette looked at the wall on the opposite side, and searched for something that might open the door. She glanced at the door itself, but as from the first look, there wasn’t anything that looked like a handle or a knob that could be used to open it. Not even a wheel like from the airlock. But, if the airlock doors were any indication, there should be a button or something. Some other way of opening it must be available.

Minuette’s eyes flicked over the wall, and alighted upon something with more of that strange writing. It looked like it had once been painted yellow, with flakes of it coming off, but it looked like it opened. She gingerly tugged at it with her magic, and it snapped off, clattering noisily to the floor. Minuette turned and saw Moondancer glaring at her and grinned ruefully. Behind the panel, though, was what looked like some sort of handle, precisely the kind she had been looking for.

“I think I found it, Moonie. I’m going to try turning this thing and see what happens.” Minuette said.

“Wait, what did you…” Moondancer began, a little too late.

Minuette pulled and twisted the thing until it moved, and there was a hissing noise from the door as it slowly separated and slid open, revealing a second set of doors.

“Well… that’s one door, I guess.” Moondancer said. “Now for the second one.”

“At least we know what to look for. There are little yellow panels that appear to open the doors if you tug on them.” Minuette said, holding up the panel she had broken off the wall.

“That’s good to know.” Moondancer said.

Moondancer stepped inside the first door, and looked on both sides, there was indeed a yellow panel, in much better condition than the first. She pulled it open, and tugged on the handle inside. It slid open the second set of doors, but shut the first set, clipping Minuette’s chin as it slid shut.

Panicked, Moondancer quickly twisted it backward, opening the first set of doors again. Minuette stood there, rubbing her chin.

“Well, now we know that whoever built this thing really likes double sets of doors.” Minuette said.

“I’m just glad it opened again. Stick closer to me, Minuette.” Moondancer said.

Minuette obediently hurried through the doors, standing inside, and Moondancer opened them once more, sealing them in the room. Upon opening the doors, they looked around at the room they were now in. It was fairly wide open, with that white paint peeling off some of the walls. In the center was a tall circular object, again, slightly taller than a pony could see, just above their heads. From the light of their horns they could see that there was a path to the right, and to the left, both heading into separate hallways with more of that writing above each.

“What do you think this room is for?” Minuette asked.

“It’s white, and looks like it was built for no-nonsense business. Either a lab or a medical area. I don’t see any instruments I recognize, though.” Moondancer said.

Minuette shivered. “I don’t know that I would want to do either of those things here.”

They took a couple of steps forward, and as soon as their hooves entered the room proper, there was an electrical pop, and one of the lights in the ceiling came on, flickering fitfully. It was followed by a noise that was filled with static, coming from above them. The two ponies’ ears went flat, and they looked around for the source, horn lights flashing to and fro. Minuette back up to the first door, her flank pressing tightly against it, Moondancer stood just ahead of her, light sweeping the room. Eventually, the noise died down, and the two waited patiently until they were sure nothing more was going to happen.

“What… in Equestria, was that!” Minuette said in alarm.

Moondancer looked shaken. “I don’t know! I came from the roof! Keep your horn ready, but let’s try entering again. Remember, if anypony shows their face and seems threatening, shoot first.”

Minuette nodded, and the two both stuck a hoof out across the threshold. There was some sparking and crackling, but the screaming sound seemed to have stopped. They slowly made their way in, up to the tall thing in the center. Minuette stretched up to look over the top, and saw a flat surface, devoid of any items on top of it. There was a small gate in the side, indicating that somepony could have entered and stood inside, likely to direct ponies to specific places. So, sort of a reception desk?

“I think this was a reception area of sorts, Moondancer.” Minuette said. “This desk would have been where somepony stood to help ponies find specific areas or things they were looking for.”

Moondancer was looking down the hall to the left of where they’d entered, light beam focused on the floor. “I think you’re right Minuette, but I’ve found something else. Hoofprints.”

Minuette felt a chill go down her spine and dropped back down to the floor to scurry nearer to Moondancer. “How new?”

“Not very. They’ve been filled in with dust, but dust had already built up before they were made.” Moondancer said, motioning toward the floor down the hallway.

Minuette leans over Moondancer’s back to have a look at where her light was pointed. There were prints in the dust, and they appeared to go both directions, if her interpretation of their shape was correct. They came first toward the desk, then they went back the way they had come. The hoofprints were oddly shaped, with a form kind of like a peanut, and lines criss-crossing here and there across the print.

“Is… is that a hoof?” Minuette asked.

“No. At least it’s clearly not a natural hoof. Somepony was wearing shoes. The design is unnatural and meant for extra traction, showing intelligence. We were expecting whoever built this ship to be intelligent, though. The question is why so much dust landed before they came through here. Either they avoided this section of the ship for some reason, or somepony arrived much later to investigate, much like us. So we don’t know if they were the original creators of the ship or not.” Moondancer explained.

“Should we follow them?” Minuette said hesitantly.

“I think we should. They came in, then they left back the way they came without hesitation. They knew something we don’t.” Moondancer said.

“Alright, I’m ready, lead the way Moonie.” Minuette said.

Moondancer lead the way down the hall, following the hoofprints in the dust. They travel down the hallways, moving carefully through the ship. All of the doors they come to had been removed from their frames and were entirely gone, leaving only the small slots where they would have slid into to open. That was concerning. They weren’t destroyed, but the doors were missing entirely, and that was cause to worry.

“Be ready for anything, Minuette. We don’t know what we’re going to find.” Moondancer said. “There are clearly doors missing.”

Minuette nodded and kept her horn at the ready. She’d noticed that some of the walls were also missing. Sheets of metal removed entirely, exposing the strange underbelly of what went into the ship. There were small colourful strings running up and down through it, as well as pipes and the supporting beams of metal. A strange mixture of things to put behind walls, that was certain. The main concern was that they were gone, though.

The two ponies kept walking for a short while longer, until they heard a strange noise coming from up ahead. It was similar to the sound that had come from the ceiling in the white room, but it was rising and falling in volume. It sounded like it was coming closer, then going away, then coming closer again, it was slow as well, not like a siren. There was also a light rising and falling in intensity with the sound, slipping through a doorway up ahead. Something was moving around up there. Something, or somepony.

Moondancer stopped and tapped Minuette, inclining her head toward the sound down the hall. Minuette nodded and brought a hoof up to her horn. She was ready for anything. The two moved onward, creeping toward the noise. They moved slowly, so as to avoid making much sound themselves, but their hard hooves made that difficult on metal. It clinked under their steps, and the age of it made it creak as well. Nothing seemed to change about the sound except the volume as they got closer, so that was a small comfort.

Moondancer put out a hoof to signal Minuette to turn off her horn, then the two inched forward until they arrived at the open doorway the light was coming through. Despite her best efforts, it was shaking slightly. The constant white noise was awfully disconcerting. Moondancer waited until the noise and light came around, screeching past the doorway as the two ponies pressed themselves tightly against the wall, then she slowly stuck her muzzle around the doorway to look at what was out there.

In the dim light cast by whatever was making the noise, her eyes were immediately drawn to a huge metal construct in the middle of the room. It was a strange cigar-shaped monstrosity, with a pointed top and four fins on the bottom. The room itself appeared to have been torn into the ship over a long period of time.

The source of the noise, meanwhile, was what really alarmed her. A strange glowing figure was FLOATING around the catwalk they were on! It was bipedal, and its arms were waving in front of it as it moved, grasping at the air. It was emitting that awful white noise they had heard earlier, but now, being this close, she could hear some sort of rhythm to it, as if it were trying to say something. The thing was mostly white, with a large spherical and shiny head. It was covered in strange tubes, with a large white pack on its back. She wasn’t sure if it was wearing a suit or that was its natural form. It went behind the tip of the metal thing in the middle of the room, then turned back to face her direction, and she pulled back.

Moondancer ducked back around the wall, pressing herself tightly against the wall as the floating creature made its rounds. She was breathing hard, and Minuette, having not seen what she had seen, was pale, and her eyes were wide. The questions were plain on her face, but Moondancer just shook her head and held her tightly against the wall as the light drew closer. She was shaking as the light drew closer, and she held her breath. She felt her heart race as the light stopped at the doorway, but she dared not move.

The sound stopped as well, and there was a heavy *thump* as something impacted the walkway.

“SQZIPLA*SHHHHHHHHHH*?!”

A bulbous white limb, with something similar to claws moved inside the doorway, touching the hoofprint she had left in the dust. The light grew brighter as a second white paw gripped the edge of the doorway. Moondancer felt tears come to her eyes from fear as she shook against the wall, the thing clearly towering over the two small ponies. Then it stuck its head inside the door, facing them.

“MSHFLAZZTARXM *KZZZZZZZZZZZZT*!”

“AHHHHHH!” The two mares scream in unison, clinging to each other.

Minuette lit up her horn in a panic and blasted a beam directly at the thing’s giant mirror-like eye. The beam deflected off the shiny surface, leaving a small crack from the impact, and melting a hole in the wall above and behind the thing. The creature ignored the attack, and reached out for Moondancer, long bulbous claws groping at the air as it moved closer.

Moondancer screeched in fear and shoved Minuette back down the hall where they’d come from. The two ponies tumbled over each other as they scrabbled at the metal floor, hooves slipping in the dust in their mad haste to escape the one-eyed thing.

“What is it?!” Minuette yelled as they ran.

“I don’t know! I can’t understand it, but it floats, and your magic barely nicked it! It tried to grab us, so don’t stick around to find out! I do NOT feel safe!” Moondancer shouted, sparing glances to look behind.

The thing was slowly stomping after them, each step on the ground seeming to take a large amount of effort. It stopped after a moment and screeched out some more strange noises, then its body jerked weirdly, and it floated slowly off the floor. As slow and lumbering as it had been on the floor, it was fast and agile in the air. It careened down the hall after them, emitting that strange hissing and crackling noise. Its arms flopped strangely as it swung back and forth, hovering after them.

The two ponies lost sight of it as they rounded a corner, but it still glowed with that eerie light, even though Moondancer could not see a light source on it, so they knew it was coming. They tried their best to follow their hoofprints back to where they had come, all the way to that white room.

“If we… can get… to those double doors, we can lock it away… from us… okay?” Moondancer panted as she ran. Physical activity was not her forte.

“Okay, I’ll try to hit it with some magic again. The first time seemed like a glancing blow, so I’ll try to hit the body mass this time.” Minuette called back, slightly ahead of Moondancer.

They raced back to white room, thankfully not getting lost. Minuette led the way with her horn light, pulling ahead of Moondancer. Eventually she saw the desk up ahead after they turned a corner, and she knew they were just about there. She skidded into the room and turned to the dividing doors. The entrance was open, they just needed to get in between and pull the switch!

Minuette slid to a stop right next to the switch in the wall and turned to look behind. The hissing and screeching thing was close on their fetlocks, its sickly light and flailing limbs very close behind. Minuette powered up a shot, and fired it right over Moondancer’s head, striking the thing square in its chest. The beam sizzled through it and struck the wall behind, but the thing didn’t stop, nor did it slow. In fact, the cacophony became even louder and it jerked forward suddenly. It flew through the air, landing with an enormous thud just behind Moondancer. It crumpled to the ground, hitting its giant eye against the floor, but despite not seeing ahead of itself, a claw reached out and grabbed her by the hoof, pulling her away from Minuette.

“Minuette, help me!” Moondancer cried in panic.

Minuette fired another beam, which once again pierced right through the creature, who didn’t care at all. She tried to crush it with force, but despite its skin buckling, it didn’t drop Moondancer. She tried to pull Moondancer away, but its grip was far too strong.

Moondancer was panicking, and her horn was lighting up, but she couldn’t figure out which spell she was trying to cast. The thing had her by the leg, and it was hurting her with its grip. She didn’t think it had broken her leg, but much more and it surely would. Moondancer watched Minuette try everything she could think of, and the thing didn’t care at all. She grunted as Minuette tried to just pull her, but the creature wasn’t letting go.

The creature slowly pulled itself up off the floor, far less mobile and much more weighty now that it was not flying. It lifted Moondancer up off the floor, letting her dangle by her leg. It looked over at Minuette, who flinched as its massive eye focused on her. It plodded slowly forward, dragging its feet as its free claw pointed at Minuette.

“KSHAAAABSFFFFFFFNST!”

The light around it flickered weirdly, and seemed to shift, throwing strange shadows that seemed to clutch at Minuette. She looked down at Moondancer, who’s horn was sparking in the creature’s grip as she tried to figure out what spell to cast in a blind panic. Minuette felt tears come to her eyes as the creature moved closer, each step bring that iron grip nearer toward her. Her horn lit up and she caught Moondancer’s eye, sobbing.

“Minuette, help me please! I can’t get loose!” Moondancer pleaded.

Minuette shook her head.

“Minuette no! Don’t leave me! PLEASE!” Moondancer cried.

Minuette felt her legs shake as her horn lit up and she turned the handle.

“Minuette, noooo!” Moondancer was cut off as the door slid shut, locking her voice away from Minuette.

As soon as the door behind her opened, Minuette galloped down the empty hall, alone in the dark, with the muted hiss of static disappearing behind her.

Minuette ran. She ran as hard as she could through the twisting tunnels, stumbling into walls as she tried to turn around corners, sliding over small patches of dust. She ran until she couldn’t run any longer and had to stop and catch her breath. She stopped and sobbed, crying tears that streaked down the dust coating her cheeks, leaving filthy trails. Her horn flickered in between shuddering breaths and she stamped a hoof against the floor weakly. She was angry at Moondancer for making her go deeper into this stupid ship, angry at Twilight for finding the thing in the first place, but mostly she was angry at herself for not being able to fulfill the one job she’d been brought for.

“They only wanted me here so I could hit things really hard with magic, and I failed at that! That thing didn’t even care!” Minuette yelled into the darkness.

Minuette sniffled and continued down the hall, dragging her hooves across the floor. She walked for a while longer until she reached a set of doors that barred her path. She punched them with a hoof in frustration and looked up at the doors themselves: Large, imposing, with more of that lettering on them, but this time in green. There was also a symbol emblazoned across the entire thing that she was sure must be important, but damned if she knew how important.

“Moon… Moondancer would have wanted to investigate this.” Minuette mumbled to herself, sniffling. “This looks… important.”

Minuette searched around for the yellow marker that hid the switch to manually open the door. She pulled off the cover with her magic, tossing it to the side, then turned the switch. The door hissed open, revealing what looked to her eyes like a very important room indeed.

“Moonie… I think I found it.” Minuette said.

Comments

[Moosetasm]

I do appreciate how they don’t understand what airlocks are. When you can make an aura of breathable air around yourself, why would you even bother making sure everything is actually air-tight?

[lochbessie]

9622552
Oh wow I didn't even catch that I just passed it off as hysteria causing them to be dumb.