Chapter Ninety-Three: Run
The two Thestrals didn’t move, waiting to see if the motion tracker lit up again. Sassi was the first to shift, slowly reaching over and activating the backup pilot light for Astral’s flamethrower.
The stallion’s breathing was borderline hyperventilating, his eyes darting over every corner of the dark checkpoint.
There’s nothing here!
“Astral, take a few deep breaths,” Sassi whispered. “We aren’t moving until you do.”
He tried, eventually slowing his breathing. But the fear now ate at the Thestral’s mind like an acid. It would have been different if the stallion was at fighting strength. But if the RASP armor had a glitch or was disrupted, Astral wouldn’t even be able to struggle. Even as they took a few slow steps through the destroyed security doors, his stomach turned. The Thestral spat up some more black tar into the helmet’s waste system. Even with the armor’s assistance and active reactor, his limbs were clammy and weak as if in the bouts of the feather flu.
It was a living nightmare and there was nowhere else to go.
“I watch ahead, you watch our backs. If you see something and it doesn’t notice us…leave it be. Let’s try not to be seen.”
“G-got it.”
There wasn’t any room for weakness, not now. But it was all Astral could do to keep himself together.
Sassi led first, the two of them stepping through the checkpoint. The desk, metal detector, and security glass were utterly shredded. Bits of dried blood caked every sharp edge.
The next hallway nearly made Astral freeze.
There were rooms on either side of the hall, three on either side of the two ponies, leading to a four-way intersection. The first room’s windows were at chest height, but all of the others were full floor-to-ceiling. While the glass was clear, the rooms were completely hidden with a dense, white fog. The emergency lights flickered haphazardly, shapes and shadows moving here and there. Distant, odd groans echoed around the area.
Carefully walking around shattered glass and metal, Sassi paused, the two ponies freezing as the motion tracker blipped again. There wasn’t any space to discern one contact from the other.
A sound made the two Thestrals look over to the room on their right, a simultaneous flicker of the lights illuminating the bloodied imprints across every glass wall.
A wet ‘slap’ now echoed louder, a single shape hitting the glass. The impact spray of blood matched dozens of other imprints. The shredded hoof slowly dragged down the glass leaving a bloody trail before going silent. A soft chittering reverberated off the walls and ceiling, like a sped-up and deeper version of a cricket’s song.
Another impact, this one to the room on their left.
“Don’t look, Astral,” Sassi whispered. While their helmets muted their voices to inaudible levels with the visors down, Astral could only nod, not trusting his voice. “Just follow me.”
The two crept past the bloodied glass, the fog shifting this way and that. Another impact, another wet, dragging sound of torn, bloodied flesh being forced across the window like a psychotic painter’s brush.
They reached the intersection, the RASP layout pointing them to take a right. They continued to move forward again; the sounds of whatever creatures lurked in the room still reverberated at every impact.
Sassi paused, the mare shaking her head.
“I recognize this intersection, I think,” she muttered, then seeming to dismiss the thought. She seemed fairly at ease with the horrors behind them. Then again, she had seen what the Silo had to offer. Their current situation only showed the gap still existed between them in that regard.
Astral forced himself to take a few deep breaths as they pushed through another destroyed checkpoint, a set of elevators and stairs visible ahead of them past a ruined decontamination entrance.
Almost out.
The area beyond the decontamination doors was almost comforting, a familiar office layout with a few scientific instruments here and there. Despite the signs of a battle and blood sprayed across tables and walls, it was a respite from the nightmare behind-
Something moved on the stairwell.
Sassi froze, the miniguns spinning up. The creature moved on six limbs; two small ones sprouting from its back. It wasn’t terribly large, about half the size of a pony. Pale, rough chitin covered its head and back, four spindly limbs carrying it smoothly across the floor, wall, or ceiling as it looked around.
Astral thought for a moment it didn’t have any eyes. But that thought vanished as it turned to look at them, four jet-black pupils locking onto him as the triangular head opened up to reveal a hundred needle-like teeth.
That’s when the creature screamed.
The chittering shriek echoed off the walls and ceiling, and likely would have been painful to the Thestral’s ears if not for the muffling of the helmet’s protection. It jumped off of the ceiling, moving erratically as it launched itself towards Sassi.
With a wet *splat*, the creature met a messy end at the end of a piece of metal Sassi swung at it, not daring to risk a gunshot. It certainly wasn’t quiet, but the impact sounded like swatting a large fly with a rolled-up newspaper. The green slime that coated the floor, however, immediately began to bubble and steam.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Astral whispered. “What in the world are those things?!”
“I vote we call them ‘Chitters’. And looks like some sort of spider mutant.”
“With acid guts?”
“Not acid, thankfully. But whatever that steam is that’s coming off of it would kill you in a single breath. Let’s go around it. Apparently, its friends didn’t hear it.”
If not for still the tendrils of fear digging into Astral’s mind, he would have groaned at Sassi’s words. Dozens of the Chitters abruptly spilled from the stairway, clambering from the stairwell and two open elevator shafts as they bounded towards the two Thestrals.
The miniguns opened up, sweeping across all angles as Astral let loose a wall of flame.
Burn you nasty, evil, little-
A chitter launched itself through the flames, trying to bite Astral’s face before he punched it. If not for the armor, the stallion would have fractured his hoof. The beetle-like armor on the top of the creature was as hard as metal, and it took another blow to the creature’s less-armored face to put it down with a nasty *squish*.
There was a surge of sound, Sassi backing up.
“Astral, there’s too many!”
The dozens of Chitters were now in the hundreds, swarming out of the hall and pushing through the remnants of their brethren. It was only now that Astral could see the shots of the miniguns bouncing off of their top armor. Without being able to aim at their underbellies or heads, the rounds didn’t have enough power. The canons roared, but they only killed a few at a time.
It wasn’t enough.
“We need to move, let’s go!” he called out, “to the intersection!”
Sassi nodded, the mare firing a few final shots before the two Thestrals turned and bolted back towards the fog-filled rooms.
Skidding to a stop, the RASP suit indicated an alternate path.
“We take a right!” Astral called, Sassi abruptly shaking her head.
“No, we…I…” the mare stumbled over her words as the Chitter horde now skirted the ruined decontamination chamber.
“Sassi! Let’s go!” Astral called, the mare’s movements sluggish.
“Not…we can’t go that way. This is-we- other routes?”
The RASP system flashed red, another swarm of Chitters now pouring out of the hallway ahead of them. Yanking Sassi by the hoof towards the hall seemed to snap her out of it, the two of them galloping towards the ruined security doors.
Astral managed to yank the pin on a grenade, tossing it behind them as they pushed the broken metal aside. The device let out a satisfying *BANG*, and the shrieks of the Chitters were a comforting thing indeed.
The shattering of the glass afterward, however, was not.
No Chitters pursued them, a familiar white fog now starting to filter down the hall. There were another few sets of intact security doors. these opened and closed with a comforting hiss of electronics and heavy locks. They couldn’t hear anything trying to break through.
“Sassi? What’s going on? Is it the reactor?” Astral asked, the mare worryingly quiet.
The next large room was clear, the end of the massive chamber showing two familiar glass enclosures. The contents were very easy to see, and nothing moved on the motion tracker. Yet the mare was starting to hyperventilate.
“T-this,” the mare stammered, abruptly collapsing onto her rump. “I can’t…”
“Sassi, talk to me. What’s going on?” Astral asked, the only emotion coming through their special link being that of absolute terror.
She raised a shivering hoof, pointing to the leftmost chamber. A metal table with restraining straps sat in the center of a circular light, robotic arms hanging from the ceiling with all manner of implements strapped to them.
“T-this is where they did it,” she whispered. “Right here is where it started. Where I was first made.”
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Great, just what I needed...more nightmare fuel.
11445888
Oh, and don't forget the death-steam when you smash one!
R U N
Oh hey i watched that movie!
Forgot what it was called though…
I think it was “Tomorrow war” maybe?
11445926
Yup! The Tomorrow War. I went in wanting to see humans vs aliens. Anything above that was a bonus.
I was not disappointing!
11445913
*music plays*
Well, that's not disconcerting at all.
I'm sorry, but this was the first thing that popped into my head.
11446076
Not disconcerting at all!
Ok, and.....YUCK! But...you're not wrong.
11446080
Lol. Nothing like breaking immersion in a story like a little humor.
11446082
To be fair, better that than getting your brain sucked out by a mosquito!
11446083
Whoever made that prop is a genius.
Is it weird that I find the Chitters cute-? I mean yeah sure they'll maul you but...kinda cute no-?
11447537
I mean, to each their own! At least you'll get painful cuddles as they rip your face off?
11447554
I'm surprised you didn't have them use their spikes on them since they do have ranged weapons if you're basing them off of the original white spikes yes that's their actual name in The Tomorrow War for anyone who is wondering they are called White spikes because they can shoot spikes from those tentacle appendages
11448135
Just the general design; no ranged weapons. They don't need them.
They have a swarm.
11447554
Ahaha! Yea I guess, but I was imagining more like...replace all the sharp mouths with those lil suction cups that some phone cases have? And then they'd instantly become funny because if they tried to eat you... *insert comical ammounts of suction cup noises here*
11449151
I mean, until they suck you dry like a mosquito....
11448140
oh, dang, didn't know that these things were based off of those, makes sense, terrifying little buggers
11687130
VERY scary little buggers.