Spikenautica

by PhysicistBrony

Chapter 12: The base

Spike was soon on his way to the island for food that he knew Fluttershy would enjoy. "*Blip* Spike, can you still hear me? *Blip*" Fluttershy's voice was heard saying through the small radio Spike had now implanted into his diving mask he wore all times, except when he was in the life pod. "Yep, I can still hear you clearly." Spike responded, happy that the radio's had such a great signal range. Spike was around half a kilometer away from the life pod and could still hear Fluttershy as well as he could when they tested it when he was just outside the life pod.

"*Blip* Um, well that's good. How far are you from the island? *Blip*" Fluttershy asked. "I'd say about another half a kilometer and I should at least see the island." Spike responded while staying on the lookout for enemies as he passed through a Kelp Forest. They stopped talking so Spike could concentrate on avoiding being detected and arriving at the island safely. After around 15 minutes, Spike could see the island and, now that he knew what they were, the small observatories on the mountains.

"Ok, I've arrived at the island." Spike told Fluttershy through the radio. "I will be heading back in around 15 minutes, so it should take around 45 minutes before I get back to the life pod." Spike then climbed out of the Seamoth and made his way around the island to find the small rusted out base sitting in the landslide. "*Blip* Ok, well, stay safe. Please don't let those mean creatures eat you. *Blip*" Fluttershy responded, with worry filling her voice. "Don't worry, if they try to attack me, I'll blow some fire at them as a warning. They might be mean, but I don't think they're stupid."

Spike then proceeded to walk upto the exterior growbed and start grabbing potatoes and marblemelons. As he was grabbing them, he noticed one of the four legged creatures was covered in glowing green bumps. "Uh, Fluttershy? Have you seen any creatures with glowing green bumps all over their bodies?" As Spike waited for an answer he grabbed out his scanner and slowly scanned the creature from as far away as possible. "*Blip* Yes, but it was on one of the shark things that were attacking my life pod. *Blip*"

After Spike finished scanning the creature, he got two notifications from his PDA. He finished grabbing the food and made his way to one of the native fruit trees and grabbed some of those. After he was done, he made his way back to the Seamoth and started towards his life pod. After what felt like a three hour journey, but was only 30 minutes, Spike made it back to the life pod eager to read about the new creature.

Spike climbed out of the Seamoth and into the life pod so he and Fluttershy could talk about where their base would be. "So, I think we should build our base close to the Grassy Plateau because of how often I go there for resources." Spike said, hoping Fluttershy would be okay with his idea. "Oh no no no, we can't live there. We should live here in this shallow area where there are no mean creatures." Fluttershy's said, hoping to persuade Spike to her idea. "Well, there are actually two mean creatures here. One of the fish literally explode just because I go near it and the other shoots balls of gas from its tail if I get too close." "Oh, um, I didn't know about those creatures. Maybe we can look at where you want to build the base?" Fluttershy half whispered in fear of the two protective fish that live in the shallow area.

"Ok, I can start building our base and you can collect the materials needed for it. That is, if you're comfortable swimming by yourself." Spike hoped that Fluttershy would be able to swim well enough and would be confident enough to swim on her own. "Um, I can try, but if something goes wrong, will you come back as fast as possible?" Fluttershy asked, hoping for reassurance from Spike. "Yes, if anything goes wrong, I will be back as soon as the Seamoth will go." "Ok then," Fluttershy said, "I will start collecting the materials you need while you go start building the base, if it's ok with you, that is."

Spike then grabbed all the titanium in the storage unit, a few pieces of quartz, and some spare copper. He then told Fluttershy that all she would need to crab was titanium salvage, which there was plenty still lying around. After they both put on their masks and check to see if the radios worked, they parted ways, with Spike climbing into the Seamoth, and Fluttershy looking around for salvage.

After a few minute long journey, Spike arrived at the edge of the Shallows that met the Grassy Plateau and chose a depth of about 50 meters, that way it was not too deep down, but still close enough to the Shallows in case he needed to swim away into safer territory. He then climbed out of the Seamoth and grabbed out the habitat builder and set it to start building a multi purpose room. Spike had always been fascinated by how the fabrication technology worked; whether he was cooking food, making bottles of lubricant, or even now, when he was building a multi purpose room from the same beams that were used in a fabricator. Spike soon had the room built, so he started working on a hatch and a power source.

Spike then used the builder to put the hatch on the side facing the Shallows, that way if he was trying to get inside to escape, they might go into the Shallows looking for him. After he built the hatch, he climbed into the base to see if everything was structurally sound or if he needed to do anything else to the room. "Warning! Emergency power only! Oxygen production offline!" The base told him as he entered. "Ok, so I do need to power the base, but what power sources do I have available?" Spike thought as he exited the base and entered the Seamoth so he could replenish his oxygen.

As he sat inside, he scrolled through the recipes of his habitat builder looking for a power source of some kind. "Ah ha!" Spike exclaimed, "I can use solar panels to power our base. Hopefully they will get enough sunlight this deep." Spike then climbed out of the Seamoth, swam over to the top of the base, and started constructing a solar panel on top of it. Even from outside, Spike heard the base tell him, "Power restored! Oxygen production online!"

Spike then entered the base and started looking at things he could build when something caught his eye. "Well look at that," Spike said, "I can build a fabricator for the base. We won't ever have to go back to the life pod again." Spike started building the fabricator, until he ran out of materials. "What am I missing?" Spike thought, looking at the blueprint again. It turns out that Spike had forgotten a coral plate, which he had never collected in the first place.

"*Blip* Hey Spike? Are you going to come back soon? It's been a long time since you left. *Blip*" Spike then truly realized how long he had spent at the base: nearly an hour and a half while he was building and thinking about what to build in/around the base. "Don't worry Fluttershy. I'm heading back right now. I just lost track of time, that's all." Spike said as he started exiting the base and entering the Seamoth. He was soon on his way back to the life pod, excited to tell Fluttershy about the bit of progress he had made.

When he arrived back at the life pod, he jumped out of the Seamoth and quickly scrambled into the life pod, anxious to talk to Fluttershy. After Spike had climbed inside, Fluttershy looked over at him with a big grin on her face. They both started to try to tell each other their exciting news. They eventually settled to have Fluttershy go first, because they both more or less already knew what Spike's news was.

"Ok, um, what happened was I was just looking around for salvage I could just pick up, but instead I found a chunk of rock that had copper slightly sticking out. So I started hitting the rock, and after a few breaks, I broke the rock off the copper and brought it home." She stopped for a second to regain her breath, because she wasn't Pinkie Pie after all. "Then, I managed to find a few different chunks of salvage, and I caught a Bladder fish that swam in front of me, though it wasn't easy because of my hooves." Spike then congratulated her on her accomplishments. Spike then began to tell Fluttershy about his progress and his animal friendly power source.

"Oh, it's good that you built a good source of power that's animal friendly. No matter how mean the fish are, I just couldn't live in a base that harmed animals." Fluttershy said once Spike was done explaining. "Though, did you ever build those beds?" Fluttershy asked, hoping that Spike had, or at least had the materials. "Oh no, I totally forgot to grab the materials needed for beds. I can go do that now, then we can transfer everything over to the base when I get back." Spike said as he started to climb out of the life pod.

Spike climbed into the life pod and raced towards the Kelp Forest to grab some kelp for the fiber mesh. Spike soon slowed down as he reached the edge of the forest. He then climbed out of the Seamoth and started cutting out samples of the kelp. Once he had enough, he hopped back into the Seamoth and raced back to the life pod to help transfer the supplies from life pod to base.

Shortly after arriving, Spike climbed out of the Seamoth and into the life pod so he could grab materials and get Fluttershy. After a short conversation, Fluttershy grabbed as much as she could and Spike grabbed the rest, seeing as how he seemed to have almost limitless pockets to carry anything with. They agreed that Fluttershy would take the Seamoth while Spike would use the Seaglide to get to the base. Spike uploaded the location to Fluttershy's PDA, so she could tell where she needed to go.

They both started to go to the base, but Spike slowed so he could look for coral plates to build the fabricator with. His searching was soon rewarded as he saw a cluster of table coral, which was swiftly broken down into smaller chunks to be used for fabricating. Spike then resumed his journey, hoping he could catch up with Fluttershy, or at least make it before it got dark. Spike soon found himself right outside the base with an empty Seamoth sitting outside.

After Spike entered the base, he dropped everything he was holding with the stuff that had been dropped by Fluttershy. Spike then started to build a large locker for them to store everything so it wasn't all over the floor. Somehow, Spike found himself with a cleaner room on an unknown planet than his room at the library back in Ponyville. The thought of Ponyville reminded Spike of Twilight, which he almost broke down on the spot by thinking of her. Spike quickly regained his composure and finished building the fabricator, and then started on a radio for their base.

After finishing the radio, Spike used the fabricator and made the fiber mesh needed for the beds. Then Fluttershy began to make dinner for them while Spike built the beds for later use. Sadly, Spike didn't have the recipe for a table, but had one for a multitude of chair styles. He then built a chair for Fluttershy and a chair for himself, then sat down while Fluttershy walked over with their food and water. After a short exchange of thank you and your welcome, they started eating, but to Spike's surprise, there was only fish in Fluttershy's meal. "Hey Fluttershy? Why aren't you eating any fruits or vegetables? I went to the island just so I could get some for you." Spike asked, confused by Fluttershy's actions.

"Oh, I decided to wait until we had some planted so we could grow more." Fluttershy answered, hoping Spike would have an indoor grow bed ready by tomorrow. "Ok, fair enough." Spike said, dropping the matter entirely. They were soon finished eating and both of them were exhausted from the days work. They both said their goodnights and went to sleep in their own beds, both of them loving the feel of the bed beneath them compared to the seat or the metal floor of the life pod.

Author's Note:

It feels good to belt out these chapters like I did when I first began. Let's just hope I can keep this ball rolling.

I also looked through some comments the other day and noticed I accidentally took credit for an idea with the story that was actually not completely my idea. I would like to thank and apologize to Beirirangu for the idea of Spike having a companion.

Comments

[Funkierparty]

Yo this story is cool dude. I love Subnautica I beat the game like 10 times. (got bored so I’m about to beat it for the 11th time)

[PhysicistBrony]

10572704
Yeah, I beat the game once, stopped for a bit, and now I'm playing it again. I started writing this well after I got into the game for the second time, so I have to slow my progress in-game so I write this at the same pace.

[Moonlight Tome]

Okay! First sighting of the infection! Good!

[Black--Soul]

Solar power for the win! That and warmth generator are the best way for the environment ♡