First Immersion
I was underwater again. The deep, black, deep dark of the sea around me suffocated my lungs. I couldn't breathe, I had to hold me breath. The shadows jumped at me as I looked around, desperately trying to find out where the surface was. I had to get out of here before they got me. I had to get back to the air, back to the island where they couldn't get me.
Then I heard that horrible, horrible sound again. That ghostly, howling roar that echoed through the ocean waters around me. The glows of their giant, serpentine bodies wormed around me as I just began to swim up. Up. Up. Anywhere. They circled me as I touched something hard and rough.
It was the ocean floor.
My lungs burned as I looked behind me, the salt water stinging my eyes. High above me, the glowing yellow eyes of one of the creatures focused in on me, before it opened its huge gullet, roaring again as it dove towards me, it's translucent fins cutting through the water as I tried my best to swim away.
I felt the current of the water passing around its head grip my hind legs, before I was sucked in a current of water, then a million stinging pains as its rows of razor sharp teeth cut me in half.
My scream echoed back at me off the walls of my silencing spell as I awoke with my heart beating thunderously in my chest. A falling sensation took over me as I tumbled off the desk I had fallen asleep on and landed with a thud on the floor. After the pain of knocking myself on the floor wore off, I let out a held, deep breath. The kind of breath you hold when you're scared out of your wits.
I lay there, shaking and quivering on the floor of the habitat. My breath hitched and struggled as my mind wheeled from the terrible nightmare. I began to cry, sobbing as I tried my best to sort my hysterical emotions into some sort of solid stream. That stream was a stream of tears as I sobbed onto the floor of the abandoned habitat.
Several minutes of this passed as I continued to rationalize the nightmare. I kept telling myself that it was a dream, that there had been nothing to worry about. However, that intense fear of the ocean kept on springing back to me as that extremely surreal dream reminded me of my first hours in this Celestia damned world.
Eventually, I forced my breath under control, taking deep, but still shaky breaths of the humid air inside my shelter. I was fine. I was on solid land, away from those creatures. I would be just fine. I needed to realize that. I didn't need to go down there to the great deep. I was absolutely fine away from the ocean.
I shakily picked myself off the floor, the adrenaline and the muscle tension still lingering from the bone-shaking dream still affecting me. I had to stop thinking about the dream and the ocean. So, I got to work, trying to let the obsessive part of my mind take over for the paranoid one.
I checked all of my gear, the stuff that I had taken with me to the mountain island, and the stuff I had left here while I was away. While the stuff I had left here had gotten flooded again, it seemed like nothing serious was damaged. I needed to pack up this morning, and bring all of my gear over to the mountain island.
I levitated it all up, placing it by the door. I took my telekinesis, wrestling the heavy cylinders I had salvaged from the strange sphere away from the door barricade. It was then that I noticed that several rocks had fallen over the entranceway into my base.
Strange. Maybe the storm had caused a landslide?
It was nothing I couldn't handle with my almost completely full strength magic, as I pushed the heavy stones aside with some telekinetic force and a bit of normal pushing. Eventually, the door was pretty much clear, and I stepped out.
The incredible stillness of the day after the storm met me on the other side, and I looked around to see none of the trees rustling in the breeze and an almost completely calm ocean behind them. I had heard of the calm before the storm, but never of the calm after the storm. I guess maybe a high pressure or something had settled in over the island after the storm... I had only read a few books on meteorology after getting my wings, and those didn't say much about how weather worked without pegasus control.
I sighed, wiping some gather sweat off my brow. The temperature in the Quarantine Enforcement Platform seemed to have been kept at a constant, cool temperature, so at least once I was done moving I had that to look forward to.
I notice that a landslide had indeed happened overnight, a small section of the hill next to my habitat falling off and landing in front of my door. Some of it had also landed in the old quicksand sinkhole, and a few rocks had sunken halfway into it before the storm stopped. Puddles still existed around, and I could see insects buzzing around the now stagnant water.
I took a moment to look at the insects curiously. They weren't completely like mosquitoes like you would find in the jungles of Equestria, they were more blue-coloured, and had a bulbous top and tiny skinny little legs. I supposed they were there to lay their eggs in the stagnant water, and I supposed they had a similar life cycle to the common mosquito back home.
...Just glad there weren't any ladybugs in this place. I hated those things. Not as much as I despised the ocean now, but I still hated them.
My old water purifier had been completely swept away by the storm, it seemed. There were only a few sticks and stones laying about as evidence that it was ever there in the first place. My rubbish and scrap piles and been blown all over the place, and the island was again covered in biological debris from the storm and the trees being blown within an inch of their lives.
Yippee I didn't need to clean it up anymore!
I walked back into my shelter, gathering all of my equipment. I took some scrap, and some of the extra boxes. Not all of the scrap, however. I still had to fly with this stuff and keeping alight and focusing on carrying things worth hundreds of pounds altogether was even harder than it sounds. The white-metal technology I had found scattered around was a first priority, the mysteries, although they began to wear on me, still could hold some value down the road.
I packed whatever I could inside the boxes, and then lashed them all together with some vine into a big packed up ball of boxes and vine. Then, I focused up, testing to see how heavy they were. They were completely fine to be levitated, although doing it all day would grow tiresome. I guessed I only needed to do it for the short flight there.
Then again, I contemplated not making it a flight at all. I could teleport there, I supposed. It would be as easy as teleportation from my castle to, say, the opposite end of Ponyville. Then again... I knew Ponyville like the frog of my hoof, and I had only been to the other island once. While the chances of me messing up the location was extremely slim, the consequences of doing so could leave me inside a wall or, even worse, underwater.
...The flight there only took, like, 15 minutes. Maybe even faster with the weather this calm. I would be alright to use my wings.
I took one more perusal around the island. At this point, this place was so eager to give me more mysteries, I was beginning to get used to walking around and finding something new. The first thing that jumped out at me was that the metal sphere had disappeared from the shores of my island. I wondered if it had just gotten un-beached during the storm and floated off somewhere, or if it had been too damaged and just sunk to the bottom of the ocean. Regardless, I could not see the sphere floating around anywhere on the ocean, so i decided to leave it alone.
The structures on the two mountain peaks, whatever their purpose was, were still abandoned and nothing new had magically appeared there. The cave with the black-metal teleporter was still infested with Crabbies, and nothing new was present around the teleportation gate.
It was only when I left the cave, zapping a Crabby with a bolt of magic did I notice something out of the ordinary. It was a single blue glow coming from a white-metal tablet, half-buried in the sand. I tilted my head, walking over to it and then picking it up, looking around.
It behaved much alike the ones I had found inside the habitat when I had first got here, and looked pretty much the same as well. I couldn't fathom how I could've missed it while I was here last time, as it stuck out like a sore thumb when I exited black-metal cave. Unless, that is, it was always there but the storm just blew away the sand covering it up.
I guessed that was the only really reasonable explanation. After all, nobody would just come here and drop this off as a random, indecipherable present to me.
I shrugged, before flying up out of the area and back to my packed up stuff, placing the tablet inside the bundle. Then, I levitated it all up in a heap, testing its weight a few times before taking flight, eyes set on the Quarantine Enforcement Platform.
The water was all too calm as I flew at a brisk pace towards the other island. While it wasn't flat, the waves were much calmer and reared lower than they were even when I first washed up on the island. About halfway through my journey, something interesting caught my eye.
I could see the bottom of the sea floor below me, all the way down below the surface of the water. My heart began to beat as I once again remembered the horrible, horrible feeling of being underwater with the beasts that tried to (and, in the dream, succeeded to) swallow me whole. I felt no different seeing the sea floor for the first time, but I did get some rationality out of it.
The ocean floor here seemed to be not wildly different from the ocean floor back home (from what the pictures told me, anyways). Some kind of red-colored plant life covered the sandy bottom, and waved slowly back and forth with what I could assume was the ocean's currents. I believed I would not have been able to see this if I tried on any other day, as on no other day was the water this still and clear.
Then, suddenly, the seafloor rose in altitude along a big plateau. While it was distorted by the low waves, I could definitely see the signs of a shallow reef. I saw fish swimming about in there, and coral outcroppings. Sometimes, I even saw some of the coral heads break the surface slightly. I briefly considered landing on one of these rocks, but then two arguments from two sides of my brain leapt out at me.
The irrational side of my brain's argument was expected: "Don't you remember the monsters? You'll just be sitting bait for them there." The rational side of my brain's argument was less expected, but still rational: "What good does landing there do you again? Is sightseeing really a priority right now?"
I had no choice to agree with these two interloping thoughts, and turned my eyes away from these shallows and towards the now growing silhouette of the mountain island ahead.
The Quarantine Enforcement Platform was no different than it was when I left. The storm had left it completely intact, its incredibly tough materials standing up to almost every test of time, it seemed. A few of the trees on the beach that had survived the tsunami had taken a few beatings from the high winds and rain, and I saw a few Water Trees dying on the shore, much to my disappointment.
...I wondered where Water Trees kept their seeds, if I knew that then I could replant some of them.
I walked inside of the facility, letting out a satisfied sigh as the coolness of the temperature-controlled building took over from the humid, insufferably still atmosphere outside. I walked into the building a bit, my horn starting to feel a little heated after carrying the same 50 pound pack around for so long. I plopped it down in one of the large conjoining rooms between the first information terminal I had found and the Moon Pool. It was there that I decided I would make my new home.
I must admit, the luxuries of this new spot were many. I did not need to worry about the sun or growing overheated, which meant I worried less about losing water from sweating so much. The area was safe from storms and didn't flood, and was completely exempt from Crabby conquest. While the floors were still hard as ever, I could fix that in due time.
I adjusted the uniform I had pilfered from Spitfire's dusty remains, the thing still being slightly damp from being soaked in the rain last night. I frowned, before taking it off and walking outside with it. I left the coolness of the facility for a moment in order to find the hottest, most sun-exposed rock I could find and placed it there, intent on letting it dry out. I didn't have any soap to wash it with, unfortunately, so for now only a sunning-out was the only thing I could do for the thousand year old jacket.
I decided that my first priority would be to head inside and finally check out that moonpool, it being the last thing I had not checked in this place. Taking a bottle of water, my rifle, and a purple potato I had fried before leaving home on the other island.
I munched on the cooked potato as I walked down towards the moon pool, taking the slightly gut-sickeningly "elevator" down towards the lower levels of the facility. As my hooves were set down lightly on the floor of the moonpool, I took a deep breath, looking around at the mighty room.
There was plenty of space, and it was all well lit. If it wasn't for the water I might have considered setting up my equipment down here, as there was something relaxing to me about the large space.
I put those thoughts aside, looking around for a terminal that I could interact with. Surprise surprise, there was one built into the wall with a glowing "Control Panel" sign floating above it. It must have unfolded like the control center up top when I restored the facility. I prepared myself as I walked towards it, ready to reach out my magic and interface with it.
The only problem about the terminal was how close it was to the all-too-still waters of the moon pool. I figured I would just have to stop thinking about it as I tried to work out how everything worked around here. After all, the terminal seemed to stop time while I worked on it, so it was literally impossible for something to jump me while I was engrossed inside the terminal.
Right? RIGHT!?
Like I said before. I'm fine. I definitely did not have the niggling feeling of something about to jump out of the water at me, not a feeling that the nightmares I had since I got here about to come true. No. I was Twilight Sparkle, the most solid minded, smart pony in Equestria. I wasn't about to go insane from some made up fears of the ocean while I was on completely solid land.
Ha! No.
Trying to prevent myself from sprinting away in this sudden burst of paranoia, I quickly reached out with my magic into the terminal, trying to use its mental link to keep me rooted into the ground.
The mental limbo of the terminal link overtook me, and I saw the glowing green menus of the terminal in my mind's eye once again. This time, the menu seemed much more utilitarian than the others, only sporting a few options and visualized controls.
I could see a meter of some kind telling me that the facility had power to the moonpool and was currently recharging the docked craft. Another meter told me that the water level in the moon pool itself was at acceptable levels and that the pump was idle due to that. A bunch of text up top told me that the shield preventing sealife from entering the pool from the ocean was operating within parameters.
See? The pool was sealed from the outside ocean. It would be absolutely fine.
There didn't seem to be anything awfully interesting, aside from maybe the option to completely drain the pool of water. That sounded appealing. The less water the better, in my opinion.
There was also the docking list. The single docked craft I had seen on the terminal up in the control room was visible here, folded into the wall of the docking bay. The terminal told me it was at full battery, but its engines were nonfunctional.
"Maintenance scheduled. Technical Officer Octavia Melody, Junior Technical Officer Vinyl Scratch, assigned to task. Completion projection: 9.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999x10^99999999999999 hours to completion."
...Wait, I recognized those names. Wasn't Octavia Melody a member of the Canterlot Orchestra? And... uhh... wasn't Vinyl Scratch that DJ who blared the loud music on the most inconvenient of nights back in Ponyville?
Strange. Although, I guess everypony who worked here had a counterpart back in my world... so on second thought it wasn't so strange.
Connected to the docked craft was an option to deploy it. I also noticed it was marked with the values "Power: 100%" and "Cargo: Stable". Cargo, you say? Hmmm... if that was so then there might be useful resources on this ship. I guessed it was worth exploring.
There wasn't any option to just have it eject its cargo into my awaiting hooves, so I guessed if I deployed it (if its definition of "deploy" was the same as mine) I could enter it myself and take a look around. The only problem with that is that this ship was built to be a submersible.
...I decided not to think about what would happen if I was trapped inside that thing in the depths of this cruel ocean. After all, the moonpool was protected by a shield, keeping it separate from the outside ocean. I would have to be an absolute idiot to pilot it outside, right? Right!?
Right.
I hit the deploy option, and a projected image of a large, mechanical arm unfolding from the wall, its grippers clamping around its cargo as it positioned it over the moonpool. It moved quickly, and efficiently, made to quickly drop things off and land them in the water with precision.
Inside the arm's grippers was the submarine. The two wings coming out from the oblong body looked much sleeker and better designed than I had envisioned when looking at the blueprints up in the terminal above. A bunch of windows were built into the side, and I saw two green-colored nozzles at the back... of which's function I could not guess.
The arm dropped the submarine into the water, a splash audible through the projected image. Then, the image stopped, and time slowed to a stop with it as it returned to the menu. I saw the menu of the docked vessel, instead now it said "Deployed" rather than "Docked", although it still reported it was decommissioned.
With nothing left to do within the terminal, I backed out, the world coming back to me as I shook my head, the afterimages of the terminal's screen still in my mind. I looked over at the now very deployed submersible.
I must admit I had never seen anything like it (yeah, such a contrast to everything else I had seen since arriving here). A pony had once tried to make a submarine using a steam engine and a bunch of wood and metal and some ingenuity. It never got anywhere, and instead sunk as soon as it left drydock. I guessed the designers of this craft had done so much better, as it seemed to be able to float perfectly, and was completely airtight (at least, from the outside, for all I knew it could be filling with water as I looked on).
The nozzles on the back, on closer inspection, had inner teeth of some kind in a big, circular fan-like thing. I guessed it might be some kind of propeller, but it seemed far too small to be that way. How were you supposed to move water like that? I shook my head, not being able to comprehend the various other gizmos and doot-dats on the rest of the thing's hull. At this point, I had started to train myself to recognize when I couldn't get any farther in trying to figure a mystery out.
So, I let it be. I just had to find a way in...
I looked around the top of the submersible, frowning. There wasn't any kind of obvious hatch like there was on that sphere... nor any kind of sealed door or button. I began to think back to the blueprints on the terminal upstairs. Did it list a hatch?
That's when I remembered: Yes. Yes it absolutely did.
I felt a wave of dread wash over me as I remembered that the hatch was on the underside of the submersible. I began to question myself. Was this submarine's contents really all that worth it? My fears continued to assail me as I stared at the submarine, at the still waters surrounding the hull of the ship.
I looked out at the black void outside of the shields separating the moon pool from the open ocean. My mind conjured flashes of bright blue and echoing screams of the behemoths that no doubt lurked outside the waters of this moon pool.
I could rationalize the pool itself not being filled with monsters. But actually taking a dip and swimming to get inside this submarine? No. No no no no no no no. I couldn't swim. Even the rational side of me squeaked out that I might just paralyze myself with fear and drown.
I stepped back from the edge of the moonpool with a shiver. Whatever was inside that submarine was not worth it. I could stay on this island for as long as I wanted. I needed not the supplies inside. I should go upstairs, rebuild another water purifier and get my priorities straight. This mystery could remain unsolved forever dammit!
Yet, as I walked away from the moon pool towards the levitation elevator leading back up to the upper levels, my mind conjured up an image. Not of a monster or a sea creature, but one of a pink pony with a darker pink mane and a great beaming smile.
She bounced around in front of me between trees twisted by Nightmare Moon into horrid images of themselves. She giggled at the ghosties, and we all realized that the trees were just what they were: Trees. I frowned as the giggling echoed through the chamber of the moon pool, and the trees faded from view.
"Come on, Twilight, turn that frown upside down!" The hallucination of Pinkie Pie said, giving me a sympathetic smile before bouncing away again into a wall, disappearing from view.
I shook my head. Pinkie Pie didn't exist anymore. I had to be logical if I wanted to survive, not whimsically chasing after memories of the past.
Yet, for some reason, I turned to look at the submarine resting in the ocean once more. The current in my mind rushed to and fro, sides of it arguing against each other for my next move. One party reminded me of my thoughts before. Of the signal leading deeper into the ocean. Of the virus that apparently infected me and threatened to kill me. It argued that nightmares only served to hold me back, to threaten me like Nightmare Moon did.
The other side of my mind told me to give up on the signals and the ghostly locations given to me by the terminal upstairs. That everything down below would either be inaccessible or completely destroyed. That after a thousand years nothing could remain of the virus research, and that if everypony here was dead then there couldn't have been a cure to the virus. It told me that I could survive if I stayed up here and watched the waves slosh against the shore, managing crops and purifying water until the day I died.
I stopped at the moment when that side of my mind said that. Until the day I died? Yes, with this facility active there was no way to get off. Even if more white-metal ships came they would no doubt just be shot down. I could survive off the island, and maybe the virus wouldn't kill me... but...
My face firmed up as I stared at the submarine, the nightmares of the night before being pushed by an incredible force of all my will against the back of my brain. Giving up was the first step towards death in a survival situation.
Judging by how serious their quarantine protocols had been (to shoot down everything attempting to leave), the virus was serious too. I wasn't going to survive up here reasonably. That wasn't my rationality talking to me, that was my fear. It was right there and then that I decided something, and I spoke it aloud, screaming it at the empty walls and ceiling of the moon pool.
"I don't want to survive. I want to LIVE!"
I poked my hoof against the glass-like surface of the water. The previously absolutely still liquid sloshed around my hoof. My heart beat rose as the memories continued to assault me. The part of my mind campaigning to turn back and settle down on this island was now just throwing my memories of the ocean and my nightmares back at me.
The other part of my mind, however, continued to egg me on. I knew vaguely what a submarine was for. I also knew vaguely that divers who swam too deep by themselves died horrible deaths from the pressure of the water (which is why diving bells were a thing). Submarines were kind of like mobile and spacious diving bells... ships that traveled underwater and protected their passengers from the ocean.
That spell location, the one that beamed power to this facility, was the only lead on the rest of Alter-Equestria's parts here. As I continued to poke and prod the water, trying to fight my fears, the gears in my head continued to turn. Eventually, I realized that this machine was the only way I was going to get that deep safely. And to get into it... I would need to swim.
I tried to envision this moon pool as something not even connected to the ocean at all. As just a swimming pool. Kind of like the swimming pool back in Canterlot. I had learned to swim (kind of... it was a long time ago, and I wasn't paying all that much mind to it) in that pool. How different would this be?
I remembered the first time I had to get into the pool, and my mother levitated me off my hooves and simply dunked me into the water. It was like a bath, but bigger. While the green glow of the lights and the incredible depth going down to the bottom of the moon pool ruined my vision of the Canterlot Public Swimming Pool for me, I realised it was going to have to be a leap of faith.
So, I took a deep breath, taking both forehooves and hanging them over the lip of the pool. Then, I let out the breath.
Then, I stared into the water, and took another deep breath.
Then, I let out the breath again and continued to stare into the water.
Then I took a deep breath, and held it.
...Then I let out the breath again.
I shook my head. Come on Twilight, you gotta do it eventually.
I took a deep breath, closing my eyes and pushing with my hind legs, letting gravity force me into the water.
As I fell, I gasped as I hit the water, only to inhale a bunch of the salty seawater inside the pool. I burst to the surface, coughing and gasping as I thrashed around. I was scared, despite all my mental arguments and bolstering. I was not prepared for this. I could feel them below me! Circling around! AAAAAAAAAAAAAA!
I closed my eyes, my legs jittering as they kicked around against the water. I instantly seriously considered jumping back out of the pool.
And that's exactly what I did.
And as I stepped out of the water, dripping and sopping wet, a big, hard hoof gave me a mental slap as I walked towards the levitation elevator. I groaned as I shook myself off, looking back at the waters of the pool. There's nothing down there, see? You're an imbecile, Twilight! You're absolutely fine.
I almost heard Spike's voice lecturing me about being so paranoid. ...Sweet Celestia I wanted to cuddle that dragon right now...
I turned on hoof, walking back to the water's edge.
I repeated the same sequence, slowly psyching myself up and then dunking myself into the water. Only this time, I lasted a whole five more seconds before screaming and launching myself back out of the water again!
...So I did it again.
And then again.
And then again.
About an hour's more worth of pool practice, I finally could open my eyes while wading on the water's surface without giving myself a heart attack. I still felt the swirling of the monsters beneath me, the teeth chewing through my body in one fell swoop. However, I shoved those down my mind's throat with one massive gulp, trying to stomach them the best I could.
...Now step two. Uhh... swim... and... uhh go underneath and open the hatch of the- oh.
Oh no.
I would have to actually hold my breath? Oh for Celestia's sake! This was going to impossible! I would be here all day trying to swim down beneath this dammed submarine!
What if I drowned down there? I would have to be actually underneath this huge thing! What if I couldn't find my way out!? I let out a scream of frustration and tension as I looked at the side of the floating submarine.
...Nothing responded to try and encourage me.
I let out a silent moan, almost crying like a little filly right there and then due to the action I really didn't want to do. Why did I convince myself to do this? Maybe I should get back out right now and never look back!
...There was the Negative Nancy part of my mind again. Its sultry words and tempting attitude almost convinced me to turn around there and then. However, call it spite or call it an unintended reaction from fear, but after a moment of contemplation and a deep breath, I submerged my head underwater.
I swam through the clear, but still salty, water of the moon pool, looking around the bottom of the submersible for the hatch leading inwards. As my breath continued to hold, I saw a very clear hatch at the bottom of the submarine. Why the bottom? I couldn't figure out for the life of me.
My lungs began to burn as I swam underneath the sub, looking up at the hatch to try and figure out how to open it. I saw the glowing glyph of the tablet receptacle, much like the ones on the doors, affixed to a lock of some kind, installed rather messily over the hatch that obviously was not built with the lock in mind.
I kept thinking of the monsters swimming around me, the ones conjured by my paranoia and fear. I quickly realized I had not the oxygen in my system to have such thoughts, and quickly tried to put them aside as I tried to figure out how to open the hatch, as I had left my green tablet upstairs.
I instinctively brought up an item summoning spell, as my mind was more thinking of home when I would just teleport in a book straight off the shelf. It worked beautifully, however, as I teleported the green tablet in from the place I left it upstairs.
The strain left my lungs straining as I brought the tablet to rest over the lock scanner. The lock scanner turned green as the key accessed it, and there was a mechanical groan as a few visible mechanisms inside the hatch spun open, and the hatch opened inwards.
I burst through the now open hatch into an atmosphere of air, letting out an almighty gasp. The fears of the ocean brought another assault to bear against me as I quickly, frightfully pulled myself up out of the water and into the cabin of the submersible, away from the water underneath it.
I took a deep breath, my coat dripping onto the floor of the submarine's interior cabin. I took deep breaths, calming myself against the panic attack. I could hear the sound of water slightly lapping outside against the hull of the ship, although it didn't rock back and forth like a sailboat would.
I looked around at my surroundings. The interior of the ship was lit up by several glowing, green lights, much alike the rest of the facility (and now I guessed, like most alter-Equestrian technology). The interior walls were smoother than the ones outside, not having hard edges on the ceiling and the floor. I wondered why. Maybe it was something to do with design? The submarine in general was a smooth design...
The control panels were interesting, not holding a great many buttons. I walked over to examine them a little. There were two panels with forehoof-shaped slots sticking out from the center of the control panel, and were positioned in such a way that a pony sitting in the chair in front of it would comfortably place their forehooves on it.
Otherwise, there were also a few buttons on the overly-vast and empty control panel. They were all labelled. A small row of switches were labelled things like: "Off" "On - Lo" "On - Mid" "On - Hi". I switched one on to low, and two bright lamps flashed on, illuminating the moon pool before me. They were a big cone in shape, and they reminded me of a directed light spell in their form. I tried the other settings, and noticed the lights got both brighter and more distant with each higher settings.
Another button said "Navigation", and I turned it on. Instead of a display screen being projected straight into my mind, I saw it instead displayed before me in midair. It just showed a single dot, and... huh. It showed that dot sitting in the middle of a large, rectangular box. I realized eventually that that had to be a representation of the moon pool I was in. "Huh." I said aloud. It reminded me of how the Cutie Map represented the land of Equestria, except that this one was tinted green and was a sphere instead of a flat circle.
The last set of buttons I could see were a bunch of ones labelled "Engine Control". I knew on steamboats and stuff like that there was a big lever the captain could use to control the engines of the ship, and this one didn't look all too different. However, the other options aside from "Engine - Off" were all grayed out, and did nothing when I pressed them with my telekinesis. I wondered why. Maybe it was something to do with the craft being decommissioned? Decommissioned mean that it was taken out of service either because it was no longer of use or because it was broken...
A part of me hoped this craft was not seaworthy, so I could have a perfect excuse not to ever leave the safety of the island. I couldn't help but guiltily hope the same.
Overall, the submersible was relatively small compared to the scale of the rooms I had seen around the facility. There was the cockpit, which was about 3 meters wide and 4 meters long. There was the body of the craft, where the hatch was, which was 3x3 meters. And then there was a door leading to a back section that couldn't be more than 2 meters long.
I went back out from the cockpit to the main section. A few things caught my eye for investigation. The first was a cabinet that took up most of the wall to my right. I trotted over, opening it through the use of the hoof-shaped handle. First thing that jumped out at me inside was a large suit, hanging on a pony-shaped frame. It was made out of dark metals and a fabric that reminded me of the old uniform I had left outside.
It had a front breastplate made out of a smoother, more malleable-looking material than the rest of the facility. The joints were made out of a strange, rubbery-but-not-really textured fabric. Other metal plating covered the flanks, the hooves, and the belly, but everything else was made out of that rubber-like material. There was also a helmet, with a clear glass visor on it. On the base of the helmet was the words:
Extra-Vehicular Mobility Suit
It was only after reading that did I make a conclusion as to the suit's exact purpose. It was a diving bell. A suit made to withstand the depths of the ocean and keep its occupant alive and breathing. Although, I failed to see any air hose connected to it... so I wondered how exactly would air be delivered to the suit. Maybe there was some kind of magic that the alter-Equestrians made that I didn't know about that generated breathable air. Maybe the air was stored inside somehow.
Or maybe the suit was defective, like the rest of this submarine apparently was.
I had seen the grayed out buttons on the control panel up front. I wondered if that was the cause for the sumbersible being decommissioned. Had its engines or control system malfunctioned? I knew so little about how it all worked aside from the vaguest of grasps on how the spellwork ticked along, I couldn't really predict. Maybe those options were grayed out for some other reason. Maybe there was actually nothing wrong with this thing and normal maintenance operations had just failed when that quarantine happened and the big gun started to shoot at things.
I had a headache again.
I looked around the rest of the cabinet, spying some other supplies. This was what I had come here for... I guess. There was a series of round, cylindrical cells in here. They glowed green (a now very monotonous color in this place). They were about the size of my hoof, and the pressure against my horn when I held it near them told me that a lot of magical power was compressed into these tiny little things.
Otherwise, there was a different-coloured tablet sitting on one of the shelves to the side. It was orange, and its warm glow was a break from the insufferable green tint of literally everything else in this vessel. The glyph on the front stated: "Technical Access Key". I picked it up, and I noticed it and my own tablet make a connection, much like mine and Spitfire's old tablet did. Then, after a few moments, there was a beep and both returned to normal. It was then that I realised that I had not checked on my
I decided there was no time like the present, and reached out with my magic into the tablet. The voicelogs were highlighted with a red outline, which caught my attention first. I guessed that was the design for the tablet to highlight something in red. It was to try and catch my attention before I moved onto any other matters.
I indulged it, triggering the voicelogs. In front of me was displayed "TWILIGHT SPARKLE - 001" "TWILIGHT SPARKLE - 002" "TWILIGHT SPARKLE - 010" "SPITFIRE - 001" "SPITFIRE - 002" "SECURITY LOG - #401K" "MAINTENANCE REPORT - TECHNICAL OFFICER MELODY".
Seemed like I had some listening to do. I decided to start with the first Spitfire log, having already listened to Alter-Me's logs before.
I heard the distant humm of machinery, but it was a different off-tone from the constant buzz in the facility outside. It was more muted, and sometimes switched pitches and tones. I heard the sound of music playing... although it was completely unlike any music I had ever heard back at home before. I had to say it was fairly... energetic? I still couldn't quite describe the sound, as it was unlike any instrument or electronica I had ever heard, although it was definitely music.
The sounds of machinery halted, as something whirred to a stop. I heard a few electronic beeps and mechanical switches, before a bit of buzzing took the place of the loud humm. I heard the sound of somepony shifting around, and the sound of a deep sigh.
"Engine shutdown complete," came the same automated voice I had become used to hearing.
"We're here. Get your gear on," I heard the familiar, harsh voice of the Wonderbolts Captain, Spitfire, say.
"Yes ma'am," Responded a male voice I recognized, but couldn't place a name to.
There was the sound of somepony walking, the reverberating sounds of hooves against metal echoing through an enclosed space. I began to figure that this log must've been taken in a submarine similar to the one I was sitting in, listening to this log. The reverberations sounded familiar, and the sounds of the mechanical humming would make sense considering there was probably an engine propelling this vessel...
I heard the sound of something ripping open, before the crunch of food being eaten followed. "Lieutenant? Are those... hay chips..." I heard the other pony say.
"Mmhmm," Came the clipped response, around a mouthful of a crunchy snack.
"...I'm diving in the middle of native ocean and you're going to be here eating junk food?" He asked incredulously.
"Mmhmm," Came the same response.
"...Okay then." I heard a bunch of scary, loud mechanical noises fill the room. They suddenly ceased, and then the male voice responded in a now muffled voice, "Uhhh. Lieutenant, I don't have the samples pinged on my interface?"
There was silence as the crunching paused, before there was a beeping sound similar to the ones my tablet made when it received new information, "Thersh..." came the reply from Spitfire around a mouthful of chips.
"...Okay..." There were several, clunky hoofsteps going back to some other area of the vessel. Then, there was a loud hydraulic whoosh, and I recognized the sound of the hatch leading into the submarine opening, before there was a loud splash and it closed.
There was a crinkling sound as Spitfire put down something, before there were shifting sounds as she sat up in whatever chair she was sitting in. Then, her voice came out, even though she would no doubt be addressing an empty cabin by this poi-
"Soarin'? Uhhh. You see those red signals on your sonar?" She said. There was urgency in her voice, and I could tell she was spooked by something.
Surprisingly, I heard a voice respond... even though the stallion, who I now knew his name was Soarin, should have been outside of the submarine by now, "...Oh yeah I see that. Should I be worried?" He said.
I heard a creaking sound as Spitfire shuffled around again, "Yeah. That's a leviathan. Dammit why do they all have to be so big in this Celestia-forsaken ocean..."
My heart skipped several beats and my blood froze solid as I heard a sound dominate the recording. It was not a sound I wanted to hear so soon after my first immersion in ocean water, and my fight or flight instinct suddenly kicked in, despite my inability to move my limbs while interacting with the tablet.
The roar of an ocean creature rang through the recording, and I heard Spitfire's breath hitch along with the breath I had in my imagination.
"Uhh... Lieutenant? What should I do!?" I heard the panicked response from Soarin.
"Stay calm stay calm. I'll take the boat and fight it off. Even this tin can should be able to ward off the primitive beast..." I heard the sounds of the engine kick up again, and the humm filled the cabin once again as another roar shook me to my core.
"Combat mode activated," The automated voice announced, and I could hear the steady beeping of an alarm nearby. The roar sounded off again, even closer this time. There was the sound of shuddering nearby, and Spitfire's breathing started to speed up. Following all this was the automated voice's stone-cold, "Caution: Hostile creatures detected."
"Thousand years of Equestrian technology beats your overevolved, thick skull..." I heard Spitfire say angrily, as the engine sounds kicked into a higher gear. Suddenly, another roar shook the cabin, "Ack! Soarin! We're a bit busy up here! Use your jets and get the Tartarus outta there! Motor down into the caverns, and pop your distress beacon!"
Whatever followed that order was drowned out by the sound of several high-energy pulses, which reminded me of the Plasma Rifle. In response to the sound of the guns, another beastly howl shook the submarine. Following that up was a loud, bodily thud accompanied by the sound of several, loud and wailing alarms.
"Caution: Hull breach detected," Said the automated voice.
"Piece of-!" There was a loud, mechanical groan, followed by a sudden 'PFFT-BAM' of compressed air going off.
"Depth charge deployed," The automated voice deadpanned.
Spitfire suddenly let out a loud shriek as something hit the submarine hard, and a heavy metallic "CRUNCH" blotted out all other sounds of the recording.
"Extreme hull damage detected. Engine damage detected. Caution: Submersible is being towed," Came the blurted out series of reports from the automated voice.
The sound of the plasma weapons firing were heard again, and Spitfire hissed out, "LET ME GO!"
There was the sound of more heavy thudding and crunching as Spitfire was tossed around bodily, causing the recording to be filled with nothing but metallic screeching and the sounds of physical trauma.
"Caution: Contact with reefs," Droned the automated voice, "Severe damage detected. Abandon ship."
There was the sound of a button being clicked, before a loud, buzzing, "WHAMPH" was heard. Another roar pierced the cabin, before the crunching and metallic groaning stopped altogether. The faint sound of electrical sparking was heard afterwards, before another roar was heard, except much farther away. Eventually, the only sound in the cabin was a steady stream of water rushing, as well as the pained humm of the damaged engines.
I could hear Spitfire's rapid breathing, before she let out a sigh, "...Tablet. Record emergency, last thirty minutes..." her voice trailed off as the recording closed off.
I was back in the tablet screen, and I assessed myself. My heart was still rushing itself from the adrenaline of hearing one of those monster's screams again. Although, I had to note that it was not like the other ones I had heard before. Instead of a ghostly, shrieking howl, this one was a much more bestial, guttural roar.
I briefly considered not reading the next log in the series, afraid it might just be a similar incident report than the one I just watched. However, I comforted myself by knowing it was all a dream, a thousand years old. With that, I triggered the next log.
"What the heck happened to you out there, Lieutenant? You had all the weapons of the Equestrian Empire! How could you get your sub that beaten up by just one spooky?" I heard the voice of Rainbow Dash say.
"...Two spookies, Commander..." Spitfire responded.
"Still. How is that possible? You could've minced them with a few plasma shots. Sweet Celestia, Spitfire, these aren't even the big ones!" Rainbow Dash sounded miffed, with a side of disbelief and dissapointment. It was almost like she was scolding Spitfire, which was strange, because as far as I knew it, back at home it was the other way around.
"They attacked from the side... the turret doesn't spin at all..." Spitfire mumbled back.
Rainbow Dash scoffed, "Then why didn't you just turn around!? You're as good an aqua-vehicular pilot as the rest of them, even better than most! You wouldn't be at my left hoof without it. How could you slip up so badly as to charge at one from the wrong angle?"
Spitfire said sheepishly, "They uhh... were circling the sub... and they really scared me..."
"Why didn't you use the cloaking field?"
"I was trying to distract them from attacking Private Soarin..."
"EMP?"
"I used that after they pinned me..."
"Decoy?"
"...It wouldn't have kept them occupied for long enough..."
"That's a load of rubbish. It would've made them look away for long enough for you to turn the sub around and empty your MFCs into them."
"...Listen, I wasn't thinking. Okay? Sorry Commander. I won't let it happen again," Spitfire suddenly confessed, embarrassed-sounding.
"You'd better damn hope not! The maintenance team is already skeletal, they'll take weeks to repair this one.... Seriously, crushed like a tin can. You'd think the Griffs would make better vessels. ...Guess we got what the higher-ups paid for..."
The recording trailed off, with the sound of Rainbow Dash continuing to rant about the submarines.
I silently took out the other recording, and played it, having no special thoughts about what just transpired.
SECURITY LOG - 401K
-LOG.SyS BOOT COMPLETE
-ADMINISTRATOR: ACTIVATED RED ALERT.
-PROCEEDING WITH ALARM PROTOCOLS.
-WARNING! TAMPERING DETECTED WITH ALARM SOUND CHIP! IS THIS ILLEGAL MODIFICATION OR IS THE VERIFICATION SYSTEM MALFUNCTIONING? CONTINUING WITH PROCESS.
-TURNING LIGHT SYSTEM TO: disco_set
-RANDOMIZING NUMBER: 1-7.
-NUMBER = 3
-PLAYING: Rock_It.wav
-LOOPING SEQUENCE UNTIL RED ALERT IS DEACTIVATED.
-RED ALERT DEACTIVATED.
-TESTING SEQUENCE FINISHED, SYSTEMS SHUTTING DOWN...
-SHUT DOWN SUCCESSFULLY.
The next log opened with a refined, Canterlot elite accent. It was female, and began with a deep breath.
"Maintenance log, Technical Officer Octavia Melody reporting. The maintenance team assigned to vessel SKP-01850900, consisting of myself and Junior Technical Officer Vinyl Scratch, have completed the repairs on the outer hull of the submersible and leak-checked them. We have also repaired the locking malfunction with the modified compartment getting caught during the hatch cycling sequence and..."
I heard the sound of a low, droning siren begin behind the speaker of the recording.
"Vinyl. Why are you testing the fire alarms again? We're meant to be cleaning up..."
"I installed a modification to the fire alarm's sound chip," Came the scratchy, casual reply.
"...Vinyl you'd better have not messed with any-" Octavia's voice was suddenly cut off as loud, heavy dubstep began to play through the cabin, drowning out any sounds and all my thoughts along with it.
"-STOP! STOP THAT!" came Octavia's voice, breaking through the cacophony as the sirens stopped, along with the music, "I told you! It's not appropriate to have the submarine play your accursed excuse for music during a red alert sequence!"
"...Aww come on. You can't take a little fun? I just want some high-octane stuff to give background during epic chases and stuff!" Came Vinyl's response.
"No. Remove it now. I need to cut out this entire bit from the recording after we're done!" She demanded harshly.
"...I uhh... I can't remove it..." The reply was sheepish.
"...Well why not?"
"I kinda printed the extra matrix straight over the old spell matrix... so we'd need a whole new one if I tried to remove it..."
"...You're an idiot, Vinyl."
"...Okay calm down there."
"A stupid, thick-headed fool of a mare..."
"Whoa hey you're harshing my feelings a bit there."
"Just... get out and pretend your stupid chip doesn't exist. I'll finish this recording off," Afterwards was a period of silence, before there was a clattering sound as something was packed up, before the sound of the hydraulic hatch cyclin was heard along with a splash of water as Vinyl exited the cabin.
"...There have been a few slight changes to the operating spell matrix of the vessel, and a music feature has been added. Maintenance team is still yet to repair the engines fully, as they are still missing a central Magical Fusion Cube. We are currently waiting on Logistics to ship an extra one over from their workshop. The craft also misses replacement spell cartridges for Stealth Cloak, Emergency EMP, Evasive Warp, ...the entirety of the Sonar system, Combat Shielding, as well as the Plasma Accelerators for its weaponry suite. It could technically sail as soon as we got that MFC, but it's hard to survive in the more hostile oceans of this planet without those secondary systems, so could we please get a shipment of replacement parts for those soon as well?"
Octavia sighed, before completing her report.
"Technical Officer Octavia Melody signing off..."
The new voice logs finished, I backed all the way out of the tablet, finding myself once again in the cold reality of the submarine's cabin. I looked around myself, feeling I could see the entire place differently. I imagined that those two logs were in fact related, and this was the submersible that had been damaged in Spitfire's tangles with the monsters of the ocean.
While I saw no outside evidence that the hull had been repaired, as it still looked brand-new, I could imagine where the place might have caved in slightly as the monsters bashed in from the outside.
I also considered just how formidable this craft must have been to survive an encounter with several of the beasts I had encountered first-hoof. I supposed it was surprising that it was damaged at all. To be fair, these materials had kept perfectly intact for one thousand years, and I had seen them weather a full-force tsunami with a fully erect and draggy design.
If this was low-grade to the Alter-Equestrians... what was high grade for them?
Another minute, another ten questions. I ignored it, as it wasn't of utmost importance to me at that moment. If anything was going to beat back my bad tendency of over analyzing everything, it was going to be this accursed ocean.
I thought once again of the enchanted signal from an entire kilometer below the ocean.... I knew I absolutely had to get there eventually. I had to get rescued and get off this Celestia-Forsaken world. Once again, that wasn't going to happen with the Quarantine Enforcement Platform online.
Life finds a way, and mine had presented me with a very obvious option. This submarine was no-doubt capable of taking me that deep... although the threats of the monsters lurking in the deep, dark depths of the ocean were probably my biggest, scariest obstacle. ...Well, the biggest obstacle aside from my recently intensified fear of the ocean and the monsters that resided inside of it.
"Twilight. That's only an obstacle if you continue to fear..." I said to myself, my own voice almost scaring me as it echoed around the cabin.
My lips drew tight, and I remembered my struggle naught a few minutes ago with trying to dip my hoof inside the ocean. I was brought to the same question: How could I ever overcome a fear this intense?
The answer: One bit at a time.
For now, I had to focus on getting the submersible activated... if that was at all even possible. I scoffed at myself as I walked to the aft section of the submarine. Silly Twilight, always jumping ahead of the gun and thinking I always knew exactly if an option was available or not.
If it wasn't I could just stay on this island until I died and it would be completely FINE! Right?
The engine room, as it appeared to be, consisted of several glass cabinets surrounding a central pillar. I shuddered as I walked into a wall of magical pressure, my horn giving off a twinge as I stared at the middle of the pillar.
The central pillar of the engine was made of several bright, glowing Cubes of Mass Destruction and Unimaginable Power. Yes, those ones, the ones I didn't dare to touch that were strewn around the place upstairs. They crackled and crinkled as I even stared at them, bulging with overcharged magical energy.
...This must be how they had enough magical force to power a submarine like this without a much, much larger engine...
The middle of the pillar was missing, and I saw several holsters for missing components strewn about the middle pillar. I realized this is what Octavia had meant about "missing a Magical Fusion Cube"... although I had naught the vaguest idea of what the word "Fusion" could exactly mean in this context. Perhaps something was magically fused with something else? Or two magics were fused together? These didn't seem like the spell matrixes I had seen before... I wondered how they were meant to work, if not as just a magical battery of some kind.
I saw several, glowing squares sitting in a glass cabinet, along with a bright-orange packaged bag of some kind. They caught my eye as I mused on the specifics of the cubes, and I walked over thoughtfully.
The cabinet had a hoof-shaped handle, and I swung it open, letting out a waft of stale air. The orange bag read "Banjo Hay Chips", along with an orange-coloured banjo with some kind of pony mascot playing it. Next to them were the glowing squares, and if I squinted past their bright green shine, I could see the words "BLUEPRINT RESTORATION MODULES".
I reached my hoof over to pick them up curiously, only for my eyes to pop open in shock as they immediately vaporized as I touched them. Green energy swirled away from them as they disappeared from existence, and my horn twinged again as I heard a series of beeps from by green tablet.
I took it out, looking at it. Its display currently said "NEW BLUEPRINTS ACQUIRED." I frowned, before reaching into the tablet with my magic, letting the flurry of green encompass my mind once again.
A tab in the menu glowed red, labelled "Blueprints". I opened it immediately, curious. Two options were presented, and I saw floating, slowly spinning images of items in my mind's eye. One was a long, slender tool of some kind, looking like it was made to fit around a forehoof, having some kind of complex mechanism of parts attached to the end. It was labelled "Repair Tool".
Below the label of the "Repair Tool" was a few more clauses, along with more images to be projected into my mind. I saw two hoof-sized chunks of a crystal labelled "Diamond" coming together, along with a few clumps of a metal labelled "Titanium" coming together under the influence of a spell to form the tool, before the process looped again.
I hummed. There was a matter-rearrangement spell that I got upstairs... perhaps this was its function? Shaping raw resources into more useful items? That would make sense...
The next tab over stated another object. It was a large, floating cube of green magic, encased by several black-metal struts and a layer of the green tinted glass I had seen covering the cockpit of the submersible. This one was labelled: "Magical Fusion Cube".
The details for creating one of these were shown as two clumps of metal named "Durasteel" coming together with a chunk of "Ruby", as well as four of the bright green cubes I had seen before, named "Magical Fusion Crystals", to form the end result of a Magical Fusion Cube.
...There it was. The apparent last piece I needed to complete the jobs that the repair ponies couldn't one thousand years ago... The only problem was getting these materials. I had no way of knowing where I could find diamonds, let alone the mystery metals of "Titanium" and "Durasteel".
I noticed a small bit of text at the bottom of the blueprints menu, which stated silently "Network access offline. Smart blueprint restoration active, scanning all materials in inventory from now on." I frowned mentally at that, adding another thing I didn't understand to the towering pile of confusion.
I backed out of the tablet with a sigh. For the foreseeable future, I decided I would try and work to repair the submarine. Perhaps then I could use it to travel to the huge, crashed ship outside without catching on fire or getting eaten? Perhaps. It was a baby step, and I was not up for travelling straight to that deep ocean signal.
I picked myself up, heading for the hydraulic hatch, determined to swim back out to the outside to go up and make my camp properly inside the base.
I was going to go beyond my first immersion. Even more importantly: I was going to survive to rescue.
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Please fix this typo, it says “an thriving” and it’s driving me nuts.
Who needs weapons when you can use the Perimeter Defense System?
I love that thing.
10320733
Jeez that was quick.
Where's that dirty typo? I'll vaporize him!
10320737
I'm am a typo.
This is my typo. They're many like it, but this one is mine.
10320741
I've laughing at that joke for a while now.
10320737
In your fic's description. Meaning it's been there for a while. ;p "An thriving ecosystem only disturbed by the presence of the plague the Precursors left behind."
I've beaten Subnautica, and even now a leviathan's roar will still chill my blood. Excellent job at conveying that feeling through text.
Right, finally caught up. Hopefully your next chapter won’t take too long, I like what I’m reading.
10320734
Only works at close range, doesn’t help with lasers
Incomplete sentence here.
I gotta say, this made me buy Subnautica.
10322338
Wow okay. Cool. How's your time been so far with it?
10322371
Send help, real-life has vanished, there is only Subnautica.
Joke aside, now I know why people love it so much. Before I pretty much ignored it because the first two episodes of a let's play I've watched made it seem like just some extremely boring survival game, but the whole discovery thing and exploration parts have me hooked.
Few more resources to discover and I can build my first Cyclops :D
10323054
is nice
I hope this continues updating soon.
so just recently read this. had it in my read later list for sometime. i'm loving it so far, the pacing is great and it's not just a copy paste with twilight doing everything the player would do in game. hope to see more of this if your still intent on updating
hay when will the next chapter come out?
Boy I hope this updates
Then I would suggest a deep breath.....
Cause you've got a long way to dive.
update it
Continue?
Damn... Already over? Really hope this get continued!
I don't think this is ever updating