Salutations

Water.

Left, right, north, south, up and down, just water.

I struggled against the waves and the ripping winds, being pushed under the water by another swell only to resurface a little bit later, gasping for breath. Water pounded into my eyes and mouth, and I was constantly inhaling, only to cough out more water. My hooves flailed wildly, thrashing against the surface of the ocean in a misguided, untrained attempt to keep my head above water. In all honesty, I believed my pitiful attempts at swimming only succeeded in wasting energy and drowning myself.

Was this what the end of time was like? An endless sea caught up in a cyclone? A place where those whose timeline no longer exists went to suffer and eventually die?

Well... water way to go!

I, Princess Twilight Sparkle of the Diarchy of Equestria, had watched as Starlight Glimmer pulled apart the last scrap of Starswirl's time spell, dooming Equestria to a future without me and my friends. I screamed as the timeline tore apart and I was pulled, perhaps for the last time, into the vortex of time and space.

Unlike previous time travels, I seemed to stay in the vortex for much longer. Falling through what I realized was an increasingly dark tunnel of light down towards an unknown destination. Whatever horrible future awaited Equestria, probably also waited for me down at the bottom.

And it hit me with a splash.

I did not appear with the Cutie Map, nor did I arrive in Ponyville (or any place in Equestria, for that matter), and, maybe worst of all, Spike was nowhere to be found. When I finally regained my senses, I was in the middle of the ocean. Water everywhere I could see.

Yes, I had panicked! In essence I was still panicking. I could not see the bottom, nor could I see any kind of land in sight. I... was not much of a swimmer, and... I may have had a small phobia of the ocean. Or perhaps I just developed one when I looked down and all I saw was strangely bright blue water leading down into the dark, dark depths of despair, sadness, death, murder, homicide...

Then the storm started up.

I began to doubt if this was really Equestria's future at all. Which was when I thought that, maybe, this was some kind of a Purgatory of Time... or something. I mean, it did sound like a lot of horror stories I had read before. A pony trapped in an endless ocean, unable to ever get free from the devil's torment...

Rain poured down on me, lightning flashed around me, and... I'm pretty sure at one point when my head was submerged I saw something... something HUGE. Something as long as three trains end to end, glowing bright blue along with the rest of the ocean.

My legs burned, my eyes stung, my lungs were in excruciating pain, and my body was numb with the want for breath. In the end, I think I must have just blacked out, my legs endlessly, subconsciously kicking away at waves that may have gradually subsided.

Eventually, I came to and realized that the waves were no longer rolling over me, and I could see the sun, that I only saw momentarily when I arrived, in this watery Tartarus. The clouds were still thick in the sky, however, and the waves still swelled, but not to the point were they were bent on drowning me completely.

My legs felt like they would never carry me anywhere ever again, and my eyes were almost swollen shut. My purple mane was in tatters. Whatever utilitarian style I once had in them now gone to the wind as the strands snaked out across the rough water's surface.

I think I must have just... floated there for a little while. Not really doing anything... more dead than alive. I guess I must have had a tendency to float, as it seems I didn't even need to tread water. I think I once gathered the mental capacity to try my horn for magic, but I remember having nothing but feeble sparks for my effort. My wings were a no-go as well, as I believed I had lost quite a few primaries in the storm.

I... I think I had started to give up. I was ready to just give myself to whatever beasts of the sea lurked in this... place. I felt the sun beat down on me and the salt begin to crisp on the dry, upper parts of my floating body. I think I could have just turned face down right there and then, letting myself drown.

After all, if this was a dump yard of time for all those whose future was no more, I guessed I had no choice but to accept my fate. I had lost against Starlight Glimmer, and now my friends were who knows where and in who knows what situation. Everything I loved and everything I owned were all gone! What was the point anymore?

I wasn't really sure if it was my dehydrated mind thinking this, or if I really was just this depressed about my circumstance, but I do know that what happened next definitely stirred me into action.

My blistering eyes shot open as I felt something big move around beneath me; the ocean water moving around in a current. I moved my head ever so slowly to try and catch a glimpse of the water beneath me, and I must admit, my scream must have traveled for miles in all directions.

It was BIG! As long as Celestia's tower was tall (perhaps taller), and as wide as the front of my castle. Its eyes glowed an eerie yellow and its skin a ghostly blue. I swear I could see its organs beneath its skin, and, as its mouth opened, I saw a gullet leading down into a bottomless pit.

I had thought that my legs, with all their fatigue, would never work again. However, when I heard that roar. Oh, that bone-chilling roar. That hoarse, echoing, death-cry... oh boy!

My heart began beating like a fast rock song and a jolt of fresh adrenaline shot through me. Without hardly needing to think, my legs started working away at the water. I swam! I swam for my life... literally!

Sweet Celestia, if only I had known back then how much I would be doing that precise action.

I know not which direction I swam, for it was just "away", away from that... creature. That monster that, I am sure, was bent on turning me into its morsel.

My forelegs milled around as I felt a rising presence only a few meters to my right. The water swelled into a big hump as it broke the surface, mouth wide open, lunging into the air. I was launched too, having been smacked by a large... horn, I guess I'll call it, protruding from the side of its head.

I'm pretty sure one of my ribs cracked as I felt my scrambling hooves leave the water, and for one terrifying moment, I was suspended in mid air, looking down into a the black hole of the creatures gullet.

Then, gravity took over, and we both fell back down to the sea.

I smacked into the surface, and the area across my midsection where the launching creature hit me throbbed with the pain of a good amount of rib breakage. I had no time to concentrate on the pain, however, as my legs resumed their terrified kicking.

I heard another roar... and then another one. Was there more than one!? I, again, had no time to worry, only time to swim away from whatever they were. I... didn't really have anything more productive to do at the time, did I?

Was it minutes? Was it hours? I don't truly know, neither do I really know why the monsters did not pursue me. Did they not see me as large enough prey? Was I simply too much trouble? I really doubt it, but the truth of the matter is that, for the remainder of that frantic swim, I didn't see them again, although I am almost certain they saw me.

Eventually, even adrenaline fails you, and the aches and pains that once immobilized my limbs took their grip once again. My speed slowed from frantic, to floppily average, then all the way down to a crawl. Eventually, I tried to move in for another stroke, but found that my leg just refused to move.

I guess that, in the end, there is a point where your body can be in so much pain that it all just blends in on itself. I reached that point. Everything just burned to the extent where I don't really think I felt very much of the pain at all.

I bobbed around in the water, my legs curled up underneath my body, tossed around by the waves. My eyes were shut, swollen and tired, and my fatigue-addled mind moved at about an inch a hour. Even though I probably should have been worried about the creature gobbling me up during my sleep, I guess I just didn't have the capacity to care enough.

I fell asleep, my exhausted mind believing the ocean waves to be my mother, slowly rocking me to the land of dreams...

The next thing I remember was burning thirst.

A raging sun scorched my hide and rocky sand dug into my side. My legs felt like they were about to pop off, and my eyes were almost swollen shut. Even my stomach rumbled slightly, although the burning sensation in my throat argued much louder than my hunger.

My ears twitched. I heard the lapping of waves against the beach... and.. trees. A beach? Trees? Was I on an island?

The events of my frantic swim came back to me in a second. I didn't even pay heed to the minuscule details of my defeat to Starlight Glimmer. The fact that I may have somehow, miraculously arrived on dry land, away from those beasts, was a victory in and of itself.

I worked at opening my eyes. My lids finally opened as it felt like a layer of salt over my eyelids snapped apart with the force. My dry, bleary, bloodshot eyes gazed around my environment.

I was on a beach, all right! A rocky cliff side surrounded me, orange rocks slightly scorched in the sunlight. A few inches below me, the ocean lapped up against the gravelly shore. A couple of strange trees towered above me. From what I could see with my, less than functional, eyes, they seemed to have a purplish-grey bark with a strange, glowing top with branches that extended into green, leafy heads.

The shade of the trees beckoned not too far from me, a promise of safety against a sun that was currently, seemingly threatening to set me ablaze.

I tried to coax my legs to move, but my mind didn't seem to be able to even communicate with them. No response, not even a twitch. I could still feel my legs, which were burning like the fires of Tartarus, but I couldn't seem to move them to save my life, something which I thought I might need to do.

I lay there for about a minute, just trying to get my legs to work, but still not even a twitch emanated from my strained muscles. I didn't really know what to do, but my single-tracked brain knew I needed to get into the shade to rest fully.

In these situations, the mind tends to push all matters aside in favor of survival, survival, and more survival. Even though I wasn't really thinking of appearance at that time, I must have looked ridiculous as I "wormed" my way up the beach.

Since my legs wouldn't work, I instead opted to use my other muscles to get my way up off the beach. Using my neck, my stomach, and my side muscles, I literally wormed my way up onto the sand, raising my hind up before flopping back down to inch forward in the dirt. The crazy thing is, it worked!

Slowly, inch by inch, I worked my way up the shore like a caterpillar. Sand got into my eyes and mouth, adding a gritty texture to the salty layer that coated my taste buds. My left eye watered as a couple grains of sand got past my swollen eyelids. I'm pretty sure I suffered a few bad scrapes against the rocks of the beach as I slid along.

I believe I eventually hit a hill, as the path off the beach took an upward turn. I kept on going, stopping only for a few seconds to catch my breath before continuing the laborious journey up the slope.

Gravel turned to dirt beneath me, and then into a carpet of unkempt, wild grasses. I let out a relieved sigh as I finally felt the wonderful, delicious feeling of grass underneath me.

I squinted an eye open, smiling pitifully as I saw the waving fronds of the strange, alien trees above my head. The blaze of the sun was gone, and sweat I had accumulated from my climb began to cool off my abrased and tattered coat.

I lay there for a good while, flayed out on the grass with my eyes painfully shut. My legs still refused to move, and now my core body was tired as well. My tongue was swollen in my mouth, and my throat was on fire with the taste of salt. My breath was labored, and hazy memories of a possibly broken rib surfaced in my mind.

Finally, I came to a realization. Water. I needed it. Now.

It pained me to open my eyes again, but locating water that wasn't salty was something I could not go without. I honestly feared that, if I fell asleep there, I might not wake back up. Surely this island would have a source of fresh water somewhere!

A spied a little something. A tall, green plant with a hard, shelled base. It was a bulbous little thing, another alien plant that I had not ever seen, even after all my travels back in Equestria. What struck me as odd about it was that it was... sweating. Well, kind of.

Along the grooves in its ridged bark, water slowly dripped down. Wait... water? Was that what had caught my attention about it? The water? Oh, yeah, that's right. If I didn't get water, I would die.

I forced my core strength back up, doing my worming crawl over towards the sweating tree. I craned my neck, sticking out my tongue to the bark.

As the tip of my tongue touched the tree, an explosion of the most wonderful taste in the universe trickled onto my pallet. It was water! Oh boy was it water! And I didn't care if it was clean or not, as long as it didn't taste of the sea!

I began to lap eagerly, the only muscle in my body that wasn't exhausted, my tongue, getting a workout as I tried to remove as much of the residue as I could from the bulbous tree.

I slowed eventually as my tongue only returned to dry, rubbery bark. I growled internally, my throat too stripped to bother with such things as frustration. This tree was going to give me more water, whether it wanted to or not!

I'll call it clever survival instincts, you can call it a childish impulse, but in the end, I reared up and bit into the tree. I was handsomely rewarded as a spray of water poured down my tongue and into my mouth.

Parched tissues were soaked once again, and I tasted blood trickle down from the roof of my mouth as the acidic salt washed out from the surfaces. I was yet to actually swallow any of the water, nor was there any to swallow as my mouth hungrily absorbed the liquid into its dried out flesh.

Eventually, the seeming torrent of water (any amount of water in the moment was a torrent to me) ended, and I spat out a spent piece of tree bark. I looked back up, smiling greedily as a fleshy, yellow wound stared back at me from the surface of the watery tree.

I scooted up closer to the tree, biting away at the innards of the plant. Each bite brought more and more water into my mouth, eventually equaling up to about a glass of water from back home. I swallowed a collected mouthful of the plant's liquid, my mind suddenly sharpening up as water raced down my bone-dry throat.

I lay there for a long time, craning my neck and taking bolder and wider bites from of the tree. I eventually started to actually chew and swallow the tree bark, finding it to have a rubbery, rather disgusting taste. Still, the water values were undeniable, and eventually the edge of my thirst had been sated as I swallowed the last piece of tree.

With my immediate needs for survival met, my mind wandered into the realms of sleep. I fell asleep there, next to the tree with its wide, open wound in its bark, its small leaves protecting me as the sun finally went down over the horizon.

I awoke again with my mind much less frazzled than it had been since I arrived in this strange ocean of endless horrors. My legs still felt like they were on fire, but they weren't as numb as they were yesterday. Sweat trickled down my brow, and my coat felt disgustingly sticky all over. A dull ache throbbed through my head, and my thoughts, even though they had recovered, still swam like a school of sardines. I swear I could still feel myself rocking in the waves, even though I was fairly certain I was on stable ground.

I cracked my eyes open, my peepers still feeling like they had nails being driven through them as I squinted through the bright sunshine. I was still in the strange, alien forest, and I could still see an endless ocean just beyond the rubbery-looking trunks of the trees.

I looked behind me, and saw that my old friend. The Water Tree, had already started to heal the bite marks I had made into it. A green texture had started to cover it, sap, I guess.

I licked my lips with a still-swollen tongue. I could still use another refill of water before I started to explore whatever kind of island I had beached myself on.

I dove in again, biting savagely away at its rubbery bark, groaning with pleasure as the water once again flooded my mouth. My much more functional mind briefly wondered if I was unknowingly ingesting some kind of poisonous chemical existing in the Water Tree's fluids. I shoved the thought aside into my "wonder about it all later" pile, reasoning that, since I wasn't already dead from drinking the day before, the water from the tree was pure and safe to drink.

I finished off, my mouth feeling a sense of half-normalcy as my tissues were, once again, saturated with water.

I tried my slightly-recovered hooves, pulling myself painfully up into what one could call a sitting position with my back up against the Water Tree's trunk. I pulled up a sluggish foreleg, wiping pooled sweat from my brow.

My eyes still hurt, and salt still plagued them, driving figurative stakes through my head. I silently wished that I could have a shower to wash them off with, along with the rest of my now disgusting body.

Reaching backwards with my forward-right hoof, I clawed at the wounded Water Tree behind me, tearing off a sizable chunk off the recently chewed section with a hoof. A reached both my forehooves before me, gritting my teeth in pain as my muscles complained.

I looked up at the Water chunk as I squeezed my forehooves together. Water poured out, washing out my eyes and cooling my hot, hot head. A groaned as my eyes twitched in pleasure under the torrent of fresh water. Salt and seawater washed away from my face. I opened my eyes as I squeezed the last few drops out of the chunk, letting them fall directly onto my bloodshot eyeballs.

I finally could keep my eyes open for more than a few seconds as the pain subsided. I gazed around, vision still blurry, and took a more detailed scan of my environment.

The forest I was in wasn't actually as big as I thought it was, it ended just a few feet to my right and began at the very edge of the cliff at the beach of the island, which was only about fifty feet away from me.

Grayish-purple stalks ended in green leafy fronds, the bases of which glowed with a strange, blue light. Undergrowth grew about, reminding me of, but not exactly similar to: ferns.

The ground dropped off to my right, going down into a little valley and ending down in... water? The water below kept going down, and down, and down. A deep lake perhaps? The darkness at the bottom of it reminded me of the open ocean, sending a small spike of anxiety through me as images of those... creatures echoed through my mind.

A tall hill towered over me on the other side of the drop into water, right behind it lying...

Ocean! Ocean for as far as I could see!

Now that I actually began to look, every direction I spied ended up in the ocean. Why, this island couldn't be more than a mile wide! If not less!

I despaired slightly. Small island meant little to no chance of finding a fresh spring on it. If the lake beside me was so deep that I could not fathom the bottom, then it would surely also be polluted by the ocean's water table. It also meant sparse resources and little to no cover from storms. I seriously doubted that the trees around me would stand up to wind very effectively.

I began to wonder as my attention shifted from immediate survival to long-term life in this ocean. Without a permanent water source to keep me alive, I would quickly die from dehydration. Sure, if there was one Water Tree on the island, there were probably more, but they wouldn't last me forever! Food? None of the trees around here seemed to bear fruits, and I could not live off of wild grass for very long, no matter how tempting the clumpy, unkempt grass looked right now.

I began to hyperventilate as I looked around, hoping for more options to present themselves. And... well, one did, in a way.

I gaped as I spied something very unnatural at the top of the small mountain in front of me. A large, grey, metallic structure loomed at the peak. I could see a glass structure, as well as supports placed against the rocky mountainside. Civilized engineering in such a place as this?

My mind started to swarm with ideas. Perhaps this ocean wasn't purgatory for those banished from time. Perhaps... perhaps... perhaps this was the final future of Equestria! A future of a flood! What might have happened? Maybe the ice caps melted, or the moon drove the tides out of control... and perhaps I did come in right over Ponyville...

I swallowed at the image of peaceful little Ponyville being swallowed up by a tsunami of floodwaters, ponies gobbled up left and right by those... creatures that now roamed the oceans freely. It would make sense. After all, the futures of Equestria had been getting worse and worse the more times I had tried to stop Starlight. Maybe this was the worst future I could have.

But, the structure did tell me something. It told me that somepony was still alive to build the building, whether there had been a gigantic flood or the Space out of Time.

I needed to investigate.

I pushed my reluctant legs out of their sitting position. Wobbly as they were, I got into a semi-standing position. I began to march out, putting one stressed leg after the other as I made my way around the drop-off and towards the mountain.

I noticed another small peak off to my left, a subconscious glance up at the top left me even more curious. Another building rested atop the rocky hill, its characteristics strangely similar to the observatory I had spotted earlier. Another wrecked building? Was there some kind of settlement on this island that I wasn't seeing just yet?

I staggered towards the mountains, looking up in a bit of despair. The slope was much steeper than it had looked from a distance, and while a scraggly, overgrown path snaked up the side of the hill, I was in no condition to try and make my way up. Not until I had properly rested and, preferably, found or made something to climb with.

A breeze blew across the island, the wind tossing my mane and tail. I sighed, sitting down and giving my legs a rest, legs which seemed to be threatening once again to lock up and leave me.

I cocked my head as I spied a patch of pretty, pink flowers growing a few feet from me. Not even trying my no doubt nonexistent magic, I reached out with a fore hoof and plucked one of the flowers. I pulled it up to my muzzle, taking a deep breath of its sweet scent.

I thought that I could recognize the smell from somewhere... somewhere like home. Yes, just like something out of the Flower Trio's gardens. I could even see the three dramatic florists growing such pretty flowers as these in their cute little garden...

My eyes wandered to the clear sky above me as I thoughtfully stuffed the flower in my mouth. My heart sank as I thought about home. I'm... not really sure I can explain to you the feeling of knowing that the world you knew and loved was gone, shattered in front of you.

Sure, I've heard of ponies who have lost their homes, nay, their entire home cities to natural disasters, invading armies, or horrible fires, but none of them, no not even you, could bear the fact that everything was gone, and that you could have prevented it all. Perhaps if I had just tried to talk with Starlight... yes, she seemed irrational, but maybe... maybe I should have just stuck to the thing that I'm the Princess of: Friendship! And... maybe none of it would have happened.

Maybe we would have just come back to the castle together, a happy ending for everypony. Like nothing had ever happened.

As I swallowed the, rather delicious, pink flower, I realized something. When have I really ever... lost anything in my life? My life had dealt with success... much more than it had with failure. As a filly, my dream to attend Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns came true, and much, much more. When I left Canterlot, I gained a new, wonderful home along with five of the best friends I could ever ask for. Even when the library had been destroyed, I instead gained a new castle...

Now I had lost everything.

A blinked, only to find that my eyes had filled with tears. My breath caught, and I found myself staring at the patch of perfect, pink flowers.

They were all... gone. Like they had never existed. What had become of them? Did Equestria just no longer exist any more, or if this ocean was the final resting place of my home, what fate did everything meet? Did they all get drowned by this ocean as foals? Or were they just never born?

No... no that wouldn't make any sense. The point of divergence for... everything was Rainbow Dash's Rainboom. If that was the case... then how did all of this happen so quickly? What villain caused all of this?

I looked back up at the patch of flowers, only to find a bunch of empty stalks and my mouth full of comfort food.

Why... why me?

I think I just sat there, sobbing. For quite a while, too. The thing that interrupted my self-pity party, was the sound of a sudden skitter to my right.

I removed my dirty, tear-stained hooves from my eyes, looking around for the source of the noise. After a few seconds of searching, my sights fell on a the second sign of living fauna in... wherever I was.

It was about half as tall as I was, standing on four, spindly legs. It had a circular, horizontal body, a blue, fleshy center containing visible organ tissue. Did everything in this place have transparent skin? Underneath its body sat a small mouth with sharp fangs protruding from them.

I raised my eyebrow, "Hello there?" I asked cautiously. What were the chances of the creature being able to talk, after all?

It made a screeching noise, before charging towards me.

I yelped, flurrying my forehooves around as it pounced on me. I smacked it with one of my hooves, sending the little crab-like creature flying. It didn't leave without effect, though, as one of its sharp legs left a stinging scratch across my barrel.

After recovering from being clobbered, the crab righted itself, before screeching again and running off.

I watched it crest a hill, before disappearing down a slope to what I assumed was the other side of the tiny little island. I got up, peering down the slope. Perhaps my little friend had friends of his own. And if they were really as keen to kill me as the rest of this place, then perhaps I might want to know if I would be dealing with an infestation. If I decided to stay, of course.

What I saw next was a much better sight than the mountaintop observatories.

It was the size of a normal Ponyville house. It was made out of the same grimy, aged metal that I had seen on top of the twin peaks. It was obviously modular, tubes connected into a larger, circular room. It sat, half buried underneath what looked like a landslide. I had not seen it earlier due to its location behind a small rise which divided the island in two.

The habitat was, unfortunately, showing signs of abandonment and disrepair. A couple windows were smashed in and a landslide had hailed boulders on top of its structure, leaving dents and scratches. A large section of the second floor had been fractured off, snapped bars and broken panels jutting out from the breakages. A set of garden plots sat outside on my side of the building, overgrown with strange, alien plants.

I got up, eagerly shambling my way down towards the building, slipping and sliding down the shale slope. Even though the building looked abandoned, perhaps I could still find things of use inside! Maybe even permanent shelter!

I reached the sandy, softer ground around the abandoned housing. I looked around, startling as a bunch more of those strange crabs which skittered in and about the toppled debris of the habitat. A few paused as they, supposedly, saw me with eyes I could not yet identify. Fortunately enough, however, they seemed to leave me alone, for now at least.

I walked along, fascinated by the design and the composition of the strange building. It was made out of metal, but I could not fully comprehend what kind. Steel perhaps? It was quite likely. I would simply need to assume until I could actually perform a more exacting analysis than just an external eyeballing of what was obviously an impure sample full of rust and decay.

My gaze went next to the planter boxes, filled with many, low-lying underground plants. I walked over, sniffing some of the leaves. One out of the three plants in the first planter box I approached were made up of purple, fleshy tubers with elongated, green stems growing up to a considerable height, ending in slightly bioluminescent bulbs. They looked remarkably similar to the potato plant from back at home, although I had never seen a potato grow such long, glowing stems before.

The second plant growing in the crop was what I could only describe as a, surprisingly normal, melon. A small melon grew out of the ground, its head covered in green, healthy leaves. The skin of the fruit held a pinkish tinge, and it was traced by darker, green stripes. It was almost identical to any watermelon I could find in the Ponyville market! I did note, however, that when i tapped it, instead of it making a watery, wooden sound, it made the sound of a solid stone.

I was, in fact, interested enough in this melon, that I decided to clamp my teeth around its stem and pull it from the ground.

It came out quite easily, the roots having been buried in the soft soil of a planter box. I set it on the ground, and then rapped my hoof on it a few more times, humming as I heard the flat sound of a stone against my hoof. Thunk, thunk, thunk. I pulled it up, sniffing it. It smelled of, once again, stone.

I narrowed my eyes at it, wondering if the fruit was edible. I looked back at the crop plot. Well, if it was being farmed by the previous inhabitants of this island, then it must have been useful for something. Probably for food, unless these "stone" melons actually were strange boulders with valuable minerals inside them...

No way to find out without any way of cutting the melon open, anyway.

I placed the melon back into the ground where I had pulled it from, pushing dirt back in around the fruit with as much care as I could with bare hooves.

I turned back around, continuing back around the habitat. My eyes wandered across the ring of alien trees surrounding the habitat. Beyond those trees lay the wide, seemingly endless ocean. While I had no doubt that there had to be continents somewhere in this strange world of mine, the infinite horizon of water wanted to suggest otherwise.

Everything was clear, no ships, no waves, and I couldn't see any unholy sea creatures from where I stood. Clouds spread out across the sky, but, fortunately, no storms seemed to linger on the horizon. I sighed as I turned back to the habitat and cocked my head in thought as I wondered what might have happened to the original inhabitants of this island.

Were they castaways? Explorers? Colonists? Or maybe they were researchers, growing the foreign foliage of whatever region this was for science. Did they just leave? If so, what kind of a ship must have picked them up?

I was once again reminded of the monstrosity that had attacked me. What kind of technology did one require to traverse an ocean that contained life so... dangerous. I couldn't imagine even the mightiest of frigates from Equestria's navy not being smashed to splinters by that creature. However, somepony had to have gotten to this island to build this thing, so... wait.

If somepony came here to build all of this, then they might just come back.

I stared back out onto the ocean, imagining rescue in the form of a cargo ship sailing by. If I could hunker down, build a signal fire, and survive for long enough... surely somepony would, eventually, come by and see my smoke. Then, perhaps, but just perhaps, I still had a chance. The world I knew may have been gone... but I had no right to give up my life without at least attempting to serve for some good purpose.

If anything, I might learn, well, something about this place.

"'This Place', what was this place?" I asked myself. I had had my theories. It might have been some kind of purgatory between time and space, where ponies whose home timelines had been destroyed go to die. Or, as I have before theorized, this ocean might simply have been the final fate of Equestria without Rainbow Dash's Sonic Rainboom. Drowned beneath a sea of monsters. Or, perhaps, I was just in a different world all together. An Alternate Universe, just like Starswirl the Bearded had himself theorized...

The first scenario just seemed unlikely. Yes, perhaps when I was floating out on the water with the giant creature it might have seemed like some kind of intermediary Hell, but the fact that there were signs of civilization and healthy plant life definitely didn't make it seem like an unholy dimension. While it seemed more likely that I would have landed in Equestria's final future given the context of my arrival, what with Starlight's destruction of the scroll and whatnot, my discoveries of... seemingly alien plant life gave me some doubts. My final idea held some water, but also just didn't make sense. Sure this place seemed to be some kind of alien planet from Spike's comic books, but then again why would the time spell have dumped me out into some random planet? It usually put me right where I was needed, at least, it did whenever I had been transported by it before!

I shook my head, sighing. Wherever I was, civilization was most likely out there. I could not build a raft to get off by myself (well, not a raft that I could trust to protect me from the denizens of the deep), so I could only hope to signal a passing rescue ship. So, I needed to explore the habitat, and board up whatever weaknesses it may have, then I could think about food, water...

I gulped. Water. My throat was still very dry, even after taking a lot of fresh water from that kindly tree.

I... I would figure something out.

I turned and walked over to the habitat, my legs starting to get back into the rhythm of walking, and definitely not as achy as before (though still much too sore to be attempting any sprints or marathons in the near future).

On the other side of the habitat, I noticed three things. One, the normal point of entry for the building, a large, metallic bulkhead-like door, hanging half-open. The tubular corridor connecting it to the rest of the spindly building had fractured off, and the whole entrance sat at an angle, sloping from the elevation of the building down to the ground level. Two, the place was a bit... short. Third, I noticed was a surprisingly pristine, white crate, about the size of my midsection, sitting on the ground not too far from the door.

My eyes turned to the crate, which I sat down next to for closer inspection. It was fairly solid, and seemed to lack any kind of clasp or locking mechanism holding it shut. Although it clearly had a seam for a lid, I could feel when I tugged at it that it was locked shut.

I raised my eyebrow when I noticed a glowing blue panel affixed to the front of the box, seemingly spelling out some kind of... text, I think? Some words in a foreign language, unlike anything I had ever seen before.

What confused me about the panel was the fact that it was glowing. I didn't need to use a scan spell to know that it wasn't magical, and I could not imagine any physical technology that could make something... like that. Electricity could barely make light, let alone hold boxes closed with an invisible force!

I reached out with a forehoof, poking the panel with the tip. It didn't give way or click like a normal button would, but it did give out a strange *beep* noise. I gasped a little as the thing let out a hiss of a pneumatic lock, before springing open.

After recovering from the shock of the violent opening, I rolled my eyes. Of course, an internal lock system! With the... strangely non-magical panel acting as the activation force.

I peered inside the vacuum-sealed box, quirking an eyebrow at what I saw.

A plastic bottle of clear, pure water. All wrapped up in plain sight with a blue cap, just asking to be drunk by my thirsty lips.

One could not blame me for being slightly suspicious. I had found this crate, just lying around in the open. And it just happened to, suddenly open up and give me just what I happened to thirst for when I wanted it?

I frowned, curling a hoof around the annoyingly small cap. It didn't exactly seem like this bottle was made to be opened by hooves. Perhaps it was specifically built to be opened by some kind of opener? I didn't really know. Perhaps it was the norm for the ponies of this area to bottle their water like Applejack would bottle her cider.

I eventually wrenched it open, and I held the bottle up to the sun. I saw no impurities in the liquid, and, when I put the top to my nose, it did not smell chemical or rancid. I checked around me, afraid, for some reason, that somepony would suddenly walk out of the bushes and yell at me for opening their precious bottle of purified water.

After seeing nopony around, and after shaking my head at myself for being so silly as to think that the owners of the, obviously abandoned, shelter would suddenly appear, I decided that finders were keepers. I opened my rather thirsty mouth, and took a sip of the water.

It tasted... okay, I guess.

It was nothing like drinking from a Ponyville river, and it definitely had a dull tang to it that I didn't quite enjoy, but it did eliminate most of my leftover thirst. I shrugged. What was the worst that could happen? I could keel over and die? Well... odds were I was going to do that anyway, but I had no real evidence to say that this bottle of drinking water would be the cause of my passing.

Bottoms up!

I licked my lips after the last gulps of the bottle went down, before letting out a satisfied sigh. I put the emptied bottle back into the crate, carefully closing the metallic lid of the box back over it. The emptied bottle would most definitely be useful to me later.

I got up, looking at the steel door in front of me. Grunting, I pulled on the door, the rusty hinges eventually giving way and the bulkhead swinging open far enough for me to step inside the habitat.

I noted that the interior of the place had a most futuristic design. Like something out of those "science fiction" genres I had sometimes read. A few wall planters were inset into dirtied, white walls next to me, their planters overgrown with, green vines. I had to duck a few times, but it wasn't any worse than a constricting hallway or a tight alleyway. Claustrophobic, but not physically impeding.

The entrance corridor intersected into a T-crossed section, one hallway to the left, one hallway to the right. To the left was a ladder leading up to the second story of the habitat, the right leading to a larger, circular room. Another strange crate lay on the floor next to a... glowing blue tablet. Beyond that, the entrance to the circular room was barred off by a fallen blockage of debris and supports. Nothing I couldn't clear on my own.

I walked over to the glowing tablet, fairly curious. It had a handle, made out of the same pure white metal as the crate and, now that I actually looked around, the interior of the habitat. It extended out into some kind of tempered glass, which was the part that was currently glowing.

I raised an eyebrow as I noticed that the glass was actually displaying something, much like the screens of scrying mirrors and the like. It was currently a jumble of foreign words, and even though I knew nothing of the technology powering it, I could tell that it was malfunctioning in some way. A thin crack led down the screen, and the phrases and abstract graphs behind it constantly jumped and shivered.

I clucked my tongue, placing it back down on the ground carefully. Perhaps later I could try and repair it, or maybe just take it apart and try and learn from it. Who knew? Maybe it would be useful later.

I opened the container in the same way as the one outside, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that we and whoever built this place had a symbol in common: the Red Cross. A medical kit bearing that symbol lay inside of the sealed box, which I pulled out carefully.

I found a clasp on the side, and I delicately pulled the kit open. It was filled with bandages, a few syringes filled with liquids I could only assume were medicine, a bottle of pills that, again, without a knowledge of the language the label was written in, I could only assume were some kind of painkiller, or antibiotic.

I took out a roll of bandages, cutting off only a few strips and applying them to the shallow scratch I had obtained during my tussle with that four-legged crab. I packed the roll back into the kit, closing it and placing it back onto the box, saving it for later.

I walked over to the entrance to the larger room. I tested the debris blocking the way, and found them to be just a bit sturdier than I thought they were. I pursed my lips, stepping back from the obstruction. I could easily cut the rebar apart with a precision magical lance, but it would be wise to wait until my magic was on speed with the rest of me, or else the beam would go wide and carve into something I didn't want cut open.

I peeked through the cracks between the beams, and I noticed that half of the room on the other side had been filled by the landslide that had damaged most of the building in the first place. I hummed as I noticed that the very left window of the room was smashed in. I could still gain access from the outside.

I turned from the blocked door, trotting back over to the ladder. I frowned as I noticed just how... steep the ladder was. My wings were far gone, my feathers having been knocked far out of alignment by my swim. That, and I wasn't sure that attempting to fly inside a constricted space such as this habitat wasn't all that great of an idea.

I reached up with a hoof, deciding to try and climb the ladder the "Earth Pony" way. It was not long before I fell to the floor, dazing myself and bruising both my behind and my confidence. I frowned, shaking my head. Whoever had built the ladder had made it a bit ridiculous to scale. The surfaces were slippery, and one would need to wrap their entire hoof around each rung to pull themselves up. Who had the dexterity or the patience to do that?

I shook my head, picking myself up from the floor. From the outside, I had seen that the second floor of the shelter had already been ruined, so I was not sure what I stood to find from the second floor. Perhaps it would even just be better for me to cover up the hatch the ladder led into to prevent rain from pouring in. Maybe once I cleared the blockage in the door, I should also patch up the broken window and make the larger room my permanent, indoors base of operations.

I trotted out the front bulkhead of the shelter, taking a deep breath of the outside air.

I stood in the... let's call it, the "front yard" of the habitat. With my thirst temporarily quenched, I had the first chance in a while to simply take in the atmosphere of the island.

I could actually hear birds singing, despite the fact that I had never once seen a bird since I arrived here. The wind blew lazily through the trees, and I was comforted by the gentle sounds of the leaves and the branches. I could definitely hear the water on the beach, and...

I whirled around as heard the skitter of a crawler right behind me. The four-legged crab screeched at me and lunged.

I grunted in annoyance as its sharp legs scratched up my newly-bandaged face, leaving a new set of shallow cuts. I flared my, retrospectively, pathetic-looking wings and took the crab with a forehoof. I grunted, beating it down under my forehooves.

Eww... was that blood yellow? I took my hooves off the dead body of the crawler, screwing up my muzzle in disgust as the yellow ichor dripped off my hooves.

Perhaps stamping the crawler into the ground was a bit... extreme. I don't believe I ever killed even an animal before, perhaps a roach or two, but never something like this. However, I could clearly see that these "crabs" were pests, I eyed them carefully as they darted in and out from under the habitat. They would need to be exterminated, eventually. Or I feared that when I was too weak, these scavengers would eat my battered body. I deduced that they were scavengers, as they clearly weren't herbivores nor were they strong enough to rely on prey animals, and they only seemed to attack the weak. And even though I had recovered since I washed up yesterday, I still wasn't thinking completely straight nor were my legs completely stable, not to mention my magic, so I was most definitely quite weak.

I sighed, looking back over at the shelter and frowning at the holes and dents in its structure. The abandoned base was definitely my best bet for survival. The plants here seemed at least edible, and I could probably sustain myself on their fruits long-term. The pre-built roof of this place would give me sanctuary from wind and rain, and the walls were strong, impregnable. Nothing would get me in there.

I made a decision. This place was going to be my home.

I had one more stop to make, to explore the back room of the habitat. I trotted back around the base to the broken window of the main room, refilled with confidence. I would make this place my home, and perhaps I could still do some good, even though my home world had been destroyed. Just as long as I didn't need to go underwater... I really don't think I would ever be emotionally prepared enough to face that... creature ever again.

I stepped through the shattered glass carefully, wincing as I accidentally scraped myself along some of the sharp, still rigid knife edges. I looked around the room, and only one thing could really catch my eye.

It was in no way hiding from me, as it sat on a metallic desk (some kind of control console, considering the displays and the switches on it). It glowed bright purple, almost the same colour as my coat. It was not anything like the rest of the habitat, and I suspected that it may not have had the same origin as the building housing it. It was blocky and metallic, though not made out of the same type of pure white metal as the rest of the technology here.

I walked over to it, and I noticed a definite aura of magical enchantment on it.

I picked it up, peering at a large, glowing display right in the center of the device. It was written in Modern Equestrian, plain and simple. It said:

GENERAL ACCESS KEY, KHARAA CURE RESEARCH LABS

Tropical Eden

View Online

I stirred as a faint ray of sunshine poked through my ramshackle thatching.

I yawned, shifting my weight just a little bit on the cold, hard floor. The tablet was still in my hooves, its purple glow still illuminating the dim space around me. An empty bottle of water rolled around near my head, the sound causing my ears to twitch. The jury-rigged branches, covering the broken window of the larger room, rustled as a breeze blew against them outside.

I winced as I got to my hooves, my legs still shaky beneath me. I grunted as my stomach gurgled and I realized just how famished I was. I hadn't eaten a bite of food in two days! Well... maybe the bark of that Water Tree, but that was more water than it was substance.

An old enemy also plagued my throat once again. Good old thirst, huh? A huge chunk of Water Tree and a bottle of (I hoped) disinfected water later and you still wanted more? Ugh.

I had blocked up the shattered window of my new home with a wall of foliage, mostly due to the several mental images of me getting gobbled up by Crabbies (as I had taken to calling them) while I slept. It also was not that great of an idea to keep such a large opening to my shelter exposed to the elements, although I'm pretty sure that the sticks and leaves wouldn't have done much to repel rain and flood.

I shrugged it aside, snorting as it fell limply off the opening and hit the ground with a "fwoosh". Flimsy little thing. I would need to find a more permanent solution than inexpertly crafted thatch. Most houses in Ponyville may have used thatch for roof, but I could not make a grass wall to save my life.

It was barely dawn, and only the first rays of daylight had penetrated the horizon. A calm breeze blew through the trees and the morning birdsong had begun to erupt across the island. The ocean shimmered, and I could hear the calm lapping of the waves against the shores. It looked like the weather would hold out for the better. For now.

I sighed, as soon as I ate I would need to get to work reinforcing my shelter.

I trotted over to the planters, stomach growling, its barren pit eating away at me. I snorted, I had always worried about my weight and eating too much, perhaps my stay in this desolate ocean would teach me the habits of eating responsibly.

I arrived at the planter, and examined my options. Either the purple potatoes or the stone hard melons. Since I figured that I would need some kind of a knife to cut through the hard flesh of the melon, I decided to try the potatoes.

I tried my telekinesis, and was glad to find one of the many fleshy tubers lifted up in my weak but functional magic. I pulled on it, finding it firmly attached to its parent stem. I leaned forward and bit down on the stringy tendrils securing the tuber to its plant. The potato came off, held freely in my magic.

I took a moment to examine it. The sample looked like a potato. Except purple. And slightly smaller.

I knew that an Equestrian potato was slightly poisonous when raw, and I also could not verify the toxicity of the strange sample before me. I had no doubt that the original inhabitants of this island had intended to grow this plant for food, as it was planted inside a crop plot and I had seen no examples of it in the wild. However, many foods needed to be cooked before they could be rendered edible, and, despite my stomach's incessant complaints, I was not about to risk food poisoning in an environment such as this.

I pulled the leaves and sticks from my ill-constructed thatch and put it all in a campfire-esque stack. The thatch had already torn in many places, and I was going to set about replacing it in short time.

I focused my magic in my horn. Not a full-blown flame spell, that would take too much energy, just a small surge would create enough of a spark to ignite the wood.

A few minutes later, I had three purple potatoes on a stick, roasting them over an open fire.

I held the stick in my hooves, not wanting to waste energy unnecessarily, as I would no doubt need it for the workday ahead of me. I took the time to take a good look around as the sun rose on my little island.

I was reminded of the other, unexplored structures still on this island: the two observatories capping off the twin mountain peaks of the island. Sunlight reflected off the glass of their spherical observatories, which had the polluted look of an old factory building (or perhaps, in this case, an abandoned habitat)

A few, grey clouds rolled across the sky, and a large, red moon orbited outside the atmosphere...

Hang on.

I stood up, gaping at the gigantic, foreign body in the sky. It was a deep, dusty red. No, not the red you saw during a blood moon. More orange than that. It was huge, it was easily ten times the size of Luna's Moon, and it was making a fast-moving circle around the horizon of my position. Behind was another moon, this one a glowing white orb, this one not unlike the Moon.

Where was I? Absolutely not in Equestria, I could be certain! At least, unless some cataclysmic event in the alternative future had somehow brought a gigantic red planet into orbit of Equus. Maybe... maybe I was just somewhere completely... alien. A foreign planet!

There was a loud pop, and one of the purple potatoes exploded, having been roasted too quickly in the depths of the fire. I hissed as burning potato-innards coated me, and I hurried to pull the rest of my now-cooked meal out of the fire.

I stared down at the purple potatoes. Was I really on an alien planet? I mean, lots of evidence now pointed towards that probability. Alien flora and fauna, unknown orbiting body, and architectural style unlike anything I had seen before in any of Equestria's neighbors.

But... why?

Why would the time spell have dropped me here? Why here? What did Equestria have to do with anything? The only, and I do mean the only, trace of home I had remotely found here had been some strange artifact written in Equestrian.

I shook my head, ripping my eyes away from the orbiting planet as my stomach growled once more. I picked up my thoroughly-roasted Purple 'Taters (I couldn't really think of a better name), tentatively biting a small piece off.

It was hot, that's for sure. It was, however, strangely similar to a pumpkin in flavor. I couldn't complain. Pumpkin may have not been my favorite, but food was food.

Two roasted potatoes, and one half-exploded one later, and I felt relatively full. My throat was still dry, but it wasn't demanding my immediate attention, so I decided to bump that little problem back on my list of "things I needed to fix". After all, if worse came to worse, I could always make the trek back to the Water Tree.

I got up, shaking off the dust I had accumulated from sitting on the ground. I had work to do!

First step in any survival situation: Inventory All Resources. Figure out what items you had, and what you could do with them. Having what you need when you need it would save your life! At least, this is what my read-through of Daring Do and the Castaway Island had told me.

I secretly wished I had a pad of paper to write a checklist on. Of course, one did not appear. I guess an internal list would have to do.

First things first, I had two strange alien tablets, one less alien and more purple than the other. I had an empty plastic bottle of water, and a first aid kit containing, mostly, unverifiable medical contents. I also had two metallic, vacuum-sealed crates to store food and other things that I may want to keep out of the rain.

I had food planted inside the raised gardens, probably enough to last me a couple more days on a steady diet. Maybe more if I could figure out the proper ways to remove and replant their seeds and or cuttings. I had a water tree, possibly more, growing on the island.

The sea probably had some fish in it, in an emergency I could probably try to catch something. I loathed the idea of eating actual meat... but fish wasn't so bad. Just so long as it wasn't animal meat (or Celestia forbid, Cow meat), I could probably stomach it. Just as long as those ghostly creatures did not leap out of the water at me... I would be fine.

I probably had unexplored resources on the twin observatories up on the mountains. I could attempt to make the climb today! Perhaps they had some materials up there that I could use to reinforce the hull. If anything I could expect a place to retreat to if, for some reason, the lower parts of the islands got flooded.

I decided that my first task was going to have to be: Explore. I could not exactly make a full inventory until I knew exactly all the resources I had at my disposal.

I followed a trail leading from the habitat, which was no doubt blazed by the previous inhabitants. My legs, after two nights' worth of rest and nutrition, were feeling much better. They weren't completely relaxed, and they still sometimes cramped up, nothing short of a deep tissue massage would fix that, but I was confident that I could at least still run, should it be necessary.

I reached the edge of the island in no time, and I stared tentatively out into the water. I couldn't see anything, but that didn't mean nothing was down there. I began to walk a perimeter around the island, studying the flora as I navigated the thin, gravel path winding around the island.

I noted a couple of things about the plants. No truly tall grass grew here, the tallest specimens making a carpet of fetlock-high blades which, funnily enough, ended in small rings that I could barely stick the end of a quill through. A taste test told me that they were bitter, which was not a great sign for grass, or most edible plants for that matter. It probably meant that the island had a faint mineral layer, corrupting the grass, or that the plant itself produced a foul toxin. Either way, the grass here wasn't good for consumption.

I noticed a bunch of wide-spread pink mushrooms, almost matching the colour of Pinkie Pie's coat. I picked them up and sniffed them. Smelled like one of Rarity's perfumes. I broke one of their caps, watching the tissues of the plant. They began to turn purple after being broken. Poisonous. Very poisonous. I chucked the mushrooms away.

I noticed more of the little pink flowers, which I snacked on. They were nice. I would need to grow some more of those...

I was delighted to find an abundance of Water Trees growing here and there, all beginning to sweat pure water as the morning sun began to rise on them. I happily walked over and took a bite out of its bark, letting the fluids sate my thirst and spitting out the bark. I had already eaten breakfast, I wasn't going to spoil the taste of baked potato with the sour taste of that rubbery flesh.

I was about to walk away from the snacked upon Water Tree when I noticed something gushing from the base of their trunks, right where the trunk turned into the roots. A milky fluid gushed from it, presumably some kind of sap... wait, no that couldn't be it. I had seen the sap come from the Water Tree that I had wounded earlier, it was green not white.

I plucked a droplet of the syrup with my magic, holding it up to the rising sun, being careful not to let any slip past my telekinetic cloud and into my eyes. I marveled as it hardened in the open air, eventually solidifying into a milky-white, sticky liquid with the consistency of half-dry superglue.

I bit my lip. If used correctly, this sap would a decent adhesive. I would have to keep that in mind.

I continued on, noting alien flora and more alien flora as I went along.

Short, wooden trees grew in clusters not too far from the Shelter. They stood only a foot higher than my head and branched out about three feet in diameter. Orange, translucent fruit hung from their branches, shaded over by pretty blue-orange striped leaves.

I plucked a fruit from the tree and sniffed it. Odorless. I decided to simply dispose of it, I could always pluck another one for analysis later and I didn't want to taste any of the wild plant life unnecessarily. Not with the risk of the fruit being toxic.

A closer look at the tree itself told me something fairly fascinating. It was not a lone plant, but instead a colony of woody vines. They grew out from the ground, growing up into and around each other, relying on each other for support. The vines stopped at the top, each vine going out into a single branch. Fascinating...

A few speckled, purple rattle-like plants grew around. I poked one and it gave out a pleasant rattling sound. I giggled, tapping it again, just a little harder. I eventually plucked one of the rattlers from the ground, shaking it harder in my magic. I plucked another one, shaking them in tandem and bobbing my head to the impromptu musical orchestra I had made.

I grinned, my mood lifted. I had completed an exploration of most of the small island, and the sun had fully risen over the horizon. The breeze had died down, and I began to sweat. I made the short walk back to my Shelter, which wasn't all that far from my position (again, small island, big ocean).

I tossed my two rattles into the main room, right through my still-open window. I wasn't quite ready to make plans for renovation just yet, I wanted to check out the mountaintop observatories.

I set out again, scaling the landslide by the Habitat and making my way up to the steep path up the mountain. The gravel crunched underneath my hooves and keeping my balance was difficult. Dry, clumped up grass grew on the side of the mountain and the flora from the lowlands still persisted up here. Pink flowers and more of the rattles grew, blowing around in the wind.

I finally arrived at the top, taking my first close-up look at the abandoned observatories.

The modular pieces were much like their lower counterparts, grimy and rusted, a few dents and holes punched through here and there. A rusted bulkhead guarded the entrance, which was already open enough for me to step through.

I noticed a large crate sitting not too far from the entrance to the observatory. Not the same as the boxes I had discovered earlier, but larger, and with the front side opening to its contents. I leaned down and looked inside.

There was a damaged piece of technology inside. It was long, thin, and colored the same pure white as most of the island's technology. It had definitely seen the ravages of time and the weather.

It was about the length of my foreleg. Two parallel cylinders stuck out from a strangely-shaped handle, ending in a binding with twin, blue crystals (which were cracked). The handle itself held a still-glowing display, which showed most of its level grayed out. Its prongs were dented and and disfigured and certain parts of it were damaged and discolored. Whatever this thing was, it was out of commission.

I tenderly pulled the damaged wreckage from the large crate, holding it aloft in my magic. A few small bits and bobs fell out of its casing as I lifted it. I grimaced, flipping it around. Yeah, this thing was not going to work. Ever.

I placed it on top of the crate, intending to bring it back down the mountain with me. Who knew, it might come in handy for something.

I pushed through the entrance to the observatory, wiping the sweat from my brow as I came into the shade of the building's roof.

The walls in here were constricted, and the ceilings were just a tad high for my tastes. To my right were two alien objects. A vacuum crate, and another tablet (the broken variety that I couldn't read, not the purple one).

I levitated out the alien tablet, placing it outside next to the other broken technology. Another thing I could dissect later. I pushed the panel on the crate, it opening to reveal... yet another piece of alien technology I could not recognize.

It was a cylindrical, metallic object, made out of a darker, more silvery substance than the white panels of the habitat. Each side of it contained a contact made of copper... hinting at some kind of electrical use for the object. One that I could not fathom. On the side was printed some kind of triangular logo, followed by words that I did not recognize.

I levitated the cylinder out of the observatory, adding it to the stack of "things I would just figure out later".

I walked over to the large indoor planter. It was hosting many plants that I had already seen growing elsewhere on the planet. The interdependent vine tree, the purple rattles, and a couple of those tasty pink flowers (nom, nom) all crowded in the soil of the planter. I silently wondered how the plants had not already exhausted the nutrients of the soil they were planted in, let alone how they survived so long without being watered. Perhaps my predecessors did not leave so long ago... though I had plenty reason to doubt that.

The only plant I did not recognize in the plant bed was a short, spindly palm-like tree. It did not reach higher than my neck, and consisted mostly of segmented bark and sharp, sturdy shoots as leaves. It didn't... exactly seem useful, nor had I seen it growing wildly around the island. Perhaps the previous inhabitants had brought it here? If so, why? It wasn't exactly pretty, it did not have a pleasant smell, and it definitely didn't seem useful as a building material.

I shook my head. The Precursors (as I had taken to calling them) were just a bit strange. Why even build an observatory all the way up here just to plant more trees? I would understand if they were using it as a lighthouse to signal their ships, but there was no light or mirror in here for such a purpose.

I walked out of the observatory, confused and a bit disappointed. Well, at the very least I could still, maybe, build a mirror up here to signal rescue. I would need to remove the planter, but that was something I could easily lose. I could even take it back down to my main base and use it for my own farming procedures.

I arrived back at base, bringing with me a stack of unknown technology, which I promptly placed next to the broken alien tablet and the "General Access Key" inside the main room.

I sat down for a breather, electing to examine my supplies before taking the trek up to the other observatory. I looked through my messy stack of random damaged garbage. I had neither the tools nor the patience to attempt to repair or disassemble the tablet or the long, banged up object. So, I instead turned to the large, purple tablet.

"GENERAL ACCESS KEY, KHARAA CURE RESEARCH LABS", what was Kharaa? Well... since the tablet said it was to "Cure Research Labs", I could deduce it was probably some kind of disease. Either that or it was the name of the corporation that built the disease research laboratory. "Kharaa Incorporated"... that didn't sound completely unbelievable.

I picked it up and ran a magic scan over it.

Fascinating... this was incredible magic! The tablet consisted of an internal lattice of relatively cheap diamond. An extraordinarily complex enchantment was laid across the crystals, similar to an intelligent golem's brain, but much more advanced (also, notably, not built for complete autonomy).

I marveled. This kind of magic was the stuff of science fiction! Theoretically possible, but something that I could not fathom the minute detail of! I could have sat there for hours, scanning the small fixtures and gadgets within the tablet.

In the end, I could not arrive at a definite conclusion as to the tablet's purpose (aside from the fact that it was some kind of key, but that was mostly from the inscription of the front). I couldn't say for sure, but it seemed that something about the internal enchantments had been damaged or "wiped", as there were entire lattices filled with blank enchantments. I could also not identify the metal that comprised its casing, and I could also see with the naked eye the huge growths of algae and mold outside of it (though the insides were completely fine).

I deduced that this tablet was... much, much older than the other technology I had found. The other pieces were dusty, dented, and rusted. This tablet was at least centuries old, even if the metals and the interior enchantments didn't show any sign of decay (probably the enchantments themselves that kept them maintained).

Otherwise... it looked like it was supposed to have some higher purpose than just as a "key", but I wouldn't be able to figure that out until I found the lock it went to.

I placed the tablet aside for now. I guessed that was a question for another day.

Properly rested, I picked myself up, heading out the shattered window once more and turned up the path for the second observatory. The sun was starting to rise high in the sky, it would be noontime in about an hour. I would finish my exploration, then get to work in the afternoon reinforcing my shelter.

The second mountain was just about as steep as the first, but the path instead snaked through a few short caves, heading through the mountain and again through the other side. I found another patch of pink flowers. Tasty. I would have to stop eating them and eventually extract a bulb to plant later, or else I would have no more left.

I made it to the feet of the observatory, and noted that it was the same in construction and design as its counterpart.

Unlike its counterpart, there was no opened crate lying around outside, so I simply walked right up to the bulkhead and pushed through it.

Two indoor plant pots were resting up against the wall. One containing another Purple 'Tater and the other containing a melon plant. To the left, the compartment continued into the large, glass observatory, which seemed to have an indoor planter in it, overgrown with alien flora.

To their left lay another vacuum crate. I punched open the box, revealing another bottle of (supposedly) pure water. I grinned, floating it out the door and placing it neatly on the ground.

To the right, inside the glass observatory, was a desk with an office chair parked in front of it, the blue glow of a non-magical tablet coming from the desk. I walked over, getting a small case of vertigo upon looking at the perilous cliff face from the window of the glass room. I picked up the tablet, walking out, trying to keep my balance.

I arrived back at base with a bottle of water and yet another broken tablet. I tossed them both on top of the Pile in the main room, before stepping back from the base. I took a deep breath, assessing what I would need to do.

I could see about five obvious holes in the base's structure, not counting the fractured bulkhead section and the smashed window. Three in the hull of the bottom level, one gaping hole in the second floor's T-section (on second thought, that may have once been another compartment that was torn off), and one hole in the roof of the second floor.

I also had to note that half of the main room was buried in mud from (what I supposed was) the landslide that had damaged the base initially. I would want to think about digging some of that dirt out before making the place a permanent home, and probably removing some of those boulders as well might free up a lot of working room and sanitize the interior.

I decided that, at least for now, I would just seal off the top floor via the ladder's hatch, turning two hefty holes into one job. All that was left was figuring out what to patch them with.

I began to pace around the base. They had to be waterproof, and heavy enough to not simply get blown off by wind. Of course, they also had to be put up by tonight. Just because today's weather was holding, it didn't mean that I would not wake up to a storm tomorrow morning.

Perhaps I could try my thatch again, but this time using the adhesive sap from the Water Trees. I could also lash them over the holes using some of the local vines, seeing as the damaged modules were both built elevated off the ground and were circular, allowing me to tie and tighten vines around the building.

However, I first needed a tool. At least a knife of some kind.

I looked around, finding a piece of handle-like scrap metal. I stripped a piece of vine from my failed attempt at thatch from the day before, and pulled a large piece of sharp glass free from the window.

I carefully used my magic to punch a pair of small holes through the glass. My head ached from the spell, however. I would need to be more sparing while I recovered.

I laced the vine through the holes tightly, before wrapping them around the scrap metal. I tied the knot across the bottom of the scrap, before testing the handle in my magic. Firm, surprisingly so. I do believe I had outdone myself.

I didn't exactly need the handle to lift the knife with my magic, but I might need to handle the knife in my mouth should my magic either be unavailable, or if I needed to access it quickly without calling to my telekinesis. In those cases, I did not want to be chomping down on a piece of sharp glass.

I set out into the forest with my makeshift knife, getting to work on some of the larger trees. I hacked away at branches, retrieving leaves and small, purplish-grey colored sticks. I tried to cut a branch from the Hangers (the interdependent vine trees), but found that its wood was soft and flexible. Not a good building material. I did pluck one of its fruit for later study though.

I placed a good (but not quite big enough, I would need to get more) stack of leaves, branches, and other thatch-worthy materials by my shelter. I picked up the empty plastic water, walking out into the undergrowth to retrieve a bottle of Water Tree sap.

Not wanting to waste much magic in funneling sap into the bottle, I left it under a pore of the Water Tree, letting a slow-moving stream of sap flow out into the bottle. I would be back for that.

I went to the center of the island, were a vine-hosting tree stood. I used my knife to slash off some of the strong, rope-worthy vines. I bundled them into a coil, much like I would with a rope, and placed them on my back.

By now, the sun was about half way down from its noontime position, three or four hours until sundown, as it seemed. I I turned my eyes back down towards the path ahead of me. Plenty of time before sunset.... Wait, why was it getting so dark?

I stopped dead in my tracks as my environment got slowly darker and darker, not quite like I was blacking out, just as if it was becoming night very, very quickly. Soon enough, the day seemed to have left me, me being in total darkness. It was as if I was in a studio and somepony had turned off all the stage lights. The only things I could see was the bioluminescence of the surrounding trees.

Suddenly, just like day had left me, it was now coming back to me. The light came back, as if it had never left me in the first place. I looked up at the sun, only to find out that I had experienced a very brief eclipse.

The red planet I had spotted before had completely blotted out the sun for a few terrifying minutes, before orbiting back around. I took a deep breath, calming myself. Sweet Celestia, my body had gotten used to adrenaline recently, hadn't it? I relaxed, continuing on my path. Perhaps eclipses would be common with that big planet (or second moon) in orbit.

I picked up the bottle, now full of sap, and brought the whole load back to base.

I looked at my gathered supplies. If I was going to repair my base completely, I would need more leaves, and probably more vines. With this, though, I could at least try and patch one of the holes on my base. My intention being to test the seal on the one patched hole, just to make sure my plan was going to work before wasting away the entire afternoon.

I began to take up some branches to make a basic framing when I heard a skitter from behind me. I growled as I spun around, only to find nothing.

That was, though, right before a Crabby jumped me from behind, giving me a deep scratch across my back. I gasped, almost having a heart attack as I pulled my knife from the ground, knocking off and stabbing the unbearable Crabby with the sharp glass.

I tossed my knife aside when its body stopped twitching, panting heavily. Annoying little bottom-feeder. I picked up the corpse, tossing it into the same pile as my hanging fruit. Another thing to learn the insides of later.

I went back to work, wary of any of its Crabby friends. I stitched together heavier leaves and the more spindly and strong, thin fronds of some of the ferns, making a "patch" of kinds. I applied it over the hole, pushing it down before wrapping it with vines. Two lengths of vines went around the patch, parallel to each other, down under the base and over it again, a tight knot secured in in place.

I pulled out a bottle of sap, distributing it evenly across the surface of the patch, watching it as it hardened into a thin film (kinda like a bubble's surface, but more firm). Satisfied, I took the now emptied plastic bottle down to the shore, where I washed out the remainder of the sap and filled it with seawater.

I brought it back to the patch, before emptying the bottle onto the makeshift repairs. I frowned as the water seemed to seep right through the film, and I could hear dripping on the floor below.

Well, so much for that idea.

I removed the patch, the leaves sticking together as the not-so-waterproof gluing sap blooped off the patch in big, wet drops. I discarded the ruined patch and added the vines back to my spool, sighing.

I took the bottle of fresh water, taking a deep sip from it as I tried to think of a better solution. With enough magic I could weld the breakages in the metal shut. That option was out, since I did not have nearly enough stamina for that kind of spell craft, nor would that fix the broken, non-metallic window. I had no really wide leaves to make seamless patches with, and the last time I had tried to do that without adhesive the construction had fallen apart.

I groaned. Survival was hard. I didn't really have a choice, though. If I couldn't survive... well... I wouldn't survive.

My other option was to leave an imperfect patch on the roof and deal with the leakages. There was little to no drainage in the habitat, meaning that rain would all pool in on the floor after seeping through the thatch, leading to a wet and filthy shelter (maybe that's how the indoor planters got their water).

That was an option that was not really an option.

I grumbled, getting up and scanning my surroundings for inspiration. I had to be honest, I was stumped. Most of my solid options weren't waterproof. I had the idea of using mud and firing them into brick, but then I realized that a furnace was one of the many things I didn't have.

Okay... what exactly did I have that was waterproof? Metal containers, plastic bottles, some bits and pieces of scrap, though nothing that would fit perfectly inside the holes...

I hummed in thought. It would be pretty strenuous, but maybe I could do it... if that one link was strong enough.

I gathered some scrap metal from the many bits and bobs strewn about the shelter, placing them in a pile in front of me.

I took a deep breath, taking a look at the holes for reference, and then rearranging the pieces in their approximate shape. It was like a jigsaw puzzle, except none of the pieces fit together.

Having a half-fitting pile of scrap, I picked them up, holding them over the target hole and comparing their fit. Almost perfect. The metal overhung the gap a little, but it didn't leave any openings. This was going to hurt, but it was going to be permanent.

Placing too much heat on the metal all at once would do nothing and leave me passed out on the ground for Crabbies to gobble me up. I slowly dialed up the heat coming from an expensive solar heat spell, a cone of solar radiation becoming visible from the top of my horn.

The solar heat spell wasn't all that difficult, at least not for an Alicorn. It was related to the Solar Control spell, the one that I needed to use to temporarily control the sun during the Princess's absence, though it was not nearly as energy consuming. What it was was hot, very hot. It didn't matter how much actual magical energy you moved around to perform this spell, it was the very fact that you were emitting focused solar radiation sent waves of heat through your horn. If you maintained the spell for too long, you could burn your horn or melt it right off.

I was sweating and it felt like my horn was resting on the baking tray of a hot oven. The metal, however, was turning white hot. I let the hot metal run for just a second, but not increasing the heat any more, lest the whole pile melt and lose shape. I did not have a cast.

Finally, I could not safely hold the spell any longer and I let it go, falling onto my rump, panting heavily. My horn was blazing hot and I swear I could smell it sizzle just a bit. Nothing too serious, the bone of the horn was actually fairly durable (especially in Alicorns), more like a heavy steel beam than anything else. The actually sensitive nerves of the horn were located at the base, near the brain and away from the excess heat of a spell. As long as I could still feel it, it wasn't seriously burnt. Just needed to cool off. Never stick it in a bucket of cold water to cool it off, though, as the sudden decrease in temperature would cause it to crack open. That wasn't fun.

I sat there for about a half-an hour, waiting for the metal and my horn to cool off. Yes, using such a sapping spell was a bad idea, even though I had mostly recovered. However, if it would all work, I would not have to worry about the holes any longer.

I spent the time preening a little. I had not paid much attention to my wings, mostly because there was very little I could do to help them until they began to grow back. I could remove the directly damaged feathers now, but I would have to wait a good while for the others to fall out and start growing in. I would be able to glide with a few primaries missing, but with about 50% of my feather mass blown off by the storm... I wasn't going to airborne for a good week or so.

The heat I had applied to the metal showed through. It was now bubbly, but smooth, not having any gaps in their structure like they had previously. Molten metal from the top had flowed down to the side and hardened along the roof, securing the metallic patch over the holes all too well.

I climbed carefully down from the roof, walking through the broken window and looking at the bottom side of the sealed hole. It wasn't pretty, but there was no longer a small shaft of sunlight poking in through the roof.

I went to the shore, filling up a plastic bottle with my hooves (my magic wasn't home right now), and brought it back to the shelter with the filled bottle between my teeth.

I poured out the water onto the, well, I guess I'll call it the "weld". Every last drop flowed off beautifully.

I sighed in relief. A perfect seal. Now that I think about it, it might have been more effective to seal off the ladder's hatch first... but I guess it was too late now.

I wasn't going to be able to turn metal molten again today. Maybe not even tomorrow. In a couple hours I might have my telekinesis, but until then I was stuck with imperfect seals and a super-heated head.

I walked up to the roof, tapping the metal quickly with my hoof. It had apparently cooled faster than I had expected, probably dissipated by the large amounts of heat-conductive metal next to it, now that I think thermodynamically.

I smiled at my hoofwork. It was firm, impervious, and oddly enough made out of the same material as the rest of the habitat. I could probably tune the spell a little more; make it better for melting metal in particular. Once I let my magic fully heal, I could probably chain up a couple of those in a day. Soon enough I would have the whole base fully sealed and impregnable once again!

I looked up from the hole, spying the broken second floor of the habitat (the floor I could not make it to due to the ladder's imperfect design). I could fit through the gaping hole I had seen earlier, since it was the size of an entire hallway.

I shrugged. I guess the only place left to explore on this island was the second floor of my new shelter.

I hopped up into the fractured section, smiling as I spied another vacuum crate and... yet another broken alien tablet. I noted that, pleasantly, this section actually had windows built into it, giving me a nice view of the endless ocean horizon around me.

I opened the crate, revealing a... strange item. It was rectangular, and fibrous. Kind of like a biscuit. It was about the size of my hoof, and it smelled a lot like. Hmm, how did it smell exactly? Kind of like... dog biscuits, but left out in the rain for too long.

It was dry, though, and it was firm in my hoof. While it's smell wasn't great (not like those pink flowers), it did seem like food. Was it? I didn't really see anything appetizing about it, though sometimes things like military or emergency rations weren't aiming for taste.

I picked up the glitching tablet between my teeth and laid the rations on my back, shrugging and walking carefully back off the roof. I placed the rations on the desk, right next to everything else I didn't yet understand.

The sun was halfway through its decent towards the horizon, and I didn't have all that much time left to effect final repairs. I looked at my, probably biggest, problem with my main room. The broken window stared back.

I went over to the room's intended entrance, the one barred off with heavy beams. Another problem, if I blocked off my window, I wouldn't be able to get out or into the main room without removing the beams. I sighed, and put my nose to the grindstone, seizing the beams and doing my best to move them out of the way.

Progress was slow, but the beams were damaged and weakened, and one of the three races in Alicorn DNA were, after all, Earth Ponies. I eventually cleared the doorway enough to be able to step through fairly easily, yet I could still block off the gap during the night so that the Crabbies couldn't get in.

I looked back to the broken window, noting the shifted shadows outside. My muscles were aching, and I was sweating profusely. I picked up the half-full bottle of water and downed the rest, just one more job to do and I would take the rest of the day off. My everythings needed it.

I decided the broken window was most effectively solved by simple, traditional, Stone Age engineering. A rock wall, made of boulders.

A few minutes later, and I was rolling the largest boulder from the inside of the main room out to its window, removing the stone from the debris of the landslide that had, probably, caused all this damage in the first place.

"Stone's *huff* in my path? *puff* I shall *huff* keep them all! *puff* With them *grunt* I shall build my castle!" I gritted my teeth as I pushed the boulder a final few inches into place in front of the window.

I was no rock expert, but that boulder was much lighter than I had expected it to be (any heavier and I would have been able to push it in the first place). Probably porous on the inside, maybe volcanic in origin? In any case, the boulder blocked most of the window now, and I only needed a few other decently sized stones to completely wall off the window.

The sun was setting by the time I had sealed off the final gap in my wall with a stone.

I picked up a gathered bottle of Water Tree sap, coating the interior of the stone with the glue-like (but unfortunately not waterproof) syrup, letting the pasty mixture harden into a solid mortar. It would secure the wall from the inside, on the side which did not receive any rain.

I took a deep, exhausted breath. I had always needed more exercise, and between the swimming marathon the day before yesterday and today's magical and physical exertion... if things kept going like this, I would soon be able to challenge Rainbow Dash for best athlete...

Except, there was no more Rainbow Dash to challenge.

I squeezed my eyes shut. No, no, no, no... just don't think about it. Crying over something I could not change did not help anypony.

I picked myself off the ground, taking a deep breath to calm myself. I needed some fresh air.

The birdsong was starting to be replaced by the chirping of crickets and the horizon turned red as the sun set. Red at night, shepherds delight. That meant good weather was coming, right?

I would be fine to walk around for now and enjoy the view. Just so long as I got back to my shelter by night before the Crabbies came out in force.

I decided to go and explore down at that deep lake I had seen earlier on my arrival to the island. Maybe taste the water. Who knows? Maybe I had been ignoring a perfectly good source of fresh water this entire time!

There was a steep, winding path down to the water's edge. It stretched through a cave, twisting down between trees before arriving down at the lake.

There was about a ten foot beach wrapping around most of the lake. Vines hung from the trees above, and the lighting of the setting sun set a beautiful scene for my eyes only. Yeah, only my eyes. Don't think about it Twilight, keep not thinking of it...

I turned to the water, walking up to its edge. I peered down into the lake. Deep, very deep. I could not even see the bottom.

I must have leaned too far forward over the water, because I suddenly found myself tipping forward as my back hooves lost traction with the loose sand of the beach. I face planted into the water, the chirping of the crickets quickly being replaced with the gurgling of the water around me.

I opened my eyes, only for them to begin stinging with salt. I looked around a little, only to find...

Okay, this is hard to explain.

The only logical conclusion for me to come to when I saw the pool of water in the center of the island was for me to think "Oh, hey, a lake!". The only other conclusion for me to make when I saw that I could not see the bottom beneath the "lake's" surface was that it was an extremely deep lagoon. When I felt the stinging of salt water in my eyes when I fell in was: "Oh, of course, the water will have a high salt content because the ocean will have seeped into this lake's water table".

However, when I looked around me underwater. All I saw was ocean. When i looked up, I realized something that I could not have possibly seen without being underneath the island.

It was floating.

I don't know how, I don't know by what mechanism, I don't know why, but the island was floating, suspended up on the surface in the middle of the ocean. The same ocean where the Ghost monsters lived...

My mind began to generate images of the horrible creatures all around me, closing in. My ears thought they could hear the distant screams coming from their opened maws. Echoing, rasping, bloodthirsty...

I have never gotten out of the water so quickly in my life.

I sat on the shore of the "lake", hyperventilating as my imagination kept generating images of a hump of water forming in the middle of the pool, right before a monster shot up from the surface...

The sun was setting fast when I finally calmed down enough to snap out of it. When I did, the area around me was getting dark, fast. I got up, intending to get back to my shelter and try not to think about the fact that my island was no more than a buoy in the middle of the ocean, in the middle of those creatures' domain.

However, when I looked around for the exit in the dim light, I noticed a faint, green glow coming from a strange cave opening (I had noticed the cave opening, which was a geological feature that seemed to be common on this island, but not the glow before) on a ledge a few feet above the far side of the lake's beach.

I squinted at it, making my way carefully around the lake, or more accurately, the ocean's edge. The glow was coming from a strange device set into the entrance of the cavern's opening. It was made out of a dark, metal alloy not unlike the one that comprised the casing of the purple, readable tablet.

I scrambled up onto the ledge, coming closer to inspect the light.

That was when I noticed these... cables snaking from the light further into the cavern, where more lights rested along the cable. I followed the cables in, placing my steps carefully in the unknown cave.

My overheated horn could still detect strong magical readings from the cables and from the green lights, and I could only marvel at the magical complexity of the seemingly simple devices.

The cavern opened up into a much larger atrium, which was where I saw something that outdid everything else I had found so far on the island.

Three pairs of ornate columns lead to a large, open arch, just standing there in the open cavernous room. It sat upon a platform made out of the same alloy as it and the rest of the "magical" technology I had found before. I began to wonder whether or not I should have gone back to retrieve the "General Access Key" from my shelter, just in case there was some kind of security around this... machine.

The path sloped down around the room, coming down at the feet of the archway. This detail made me wonder if the cavern may not have been completely natural, or if the beings who built the archway had engineered it for their own purposes.

I approached the archway. I cursed myself for using all my magic in my welding experiments this afternoon, not able to even run a scan over what could have been a fascinating discovery. Not like it was going anywhere right now, but still.

I ran my hoof across the metal. I noticed a definite groove running along the insides of the archway, which glowed a bright green. Even my burnt horn could tell that the glowing strips were important magical runes; I again cursed my luck for not being able to make a scan for its purpose.

I looked around for some kind of interface. Maybe a place to put a "General Access Key"? I wanted so badly to know what this thing did!

Of course there was nothing. No buttons, no switches. All there was were these colored lights that glowed on and off when I went near them.

It was getting dark, and I was about ready to give up and begin heading for my shelter when, suddenly, a mare's voice boomed out from the archway.

I jumped in shock as the voice seemed to come from every direction, "Welcome, *ERROR* UnidentifiedUser001. It seems that you are having trouble operating the platform. Unfortunately, your trouble may be due to the current protocol in place: Planet-Wide Security Lockdown. This travel area as currently locked down from Outpost 012-Quarantine Enforcement Platform. Please contact your network administrator or report to your superior officer. Glory be to the Stars."

The voice stopped speaking, and the cavern fell back into silence. I looked back up to the archway, the thing that had spoken the first voice I had heard in much too long.

I had an impending feeling that this island, neigh, this entire ocean had more secrets than it was letting on...

Habitat

View Online

"Red sky at night, shepherd's delight. Red sky in the morning, sailor's take warning. " That night, I remembered that that particular phrase was supposedly only true in the Northern Hemisphere of, I guessed, any planet.

Rain pounded on the roof of my little habitat, lightning flashed and thunder roared. The waves were slamming up against the shore, loud enough to be heard over the storm. I thought I could feel the island tilt with the waves, though I wasn't sure if I was only imagining it, or if the floating island really was moving about in the storm. I heard the groan of a tree falling over outside, the wind pummeling the exposed flora of the island without remorse.

Rain poured in through the many leaks in my roof, the floor quickly becoming flooded with icy cold water. My stone wall sprung a few leaks as the interior sap was washed away by the rain water, and the flooding stopped as the water drained to the outside through the exposed holes and gaps in my de-mortared wall.

I sat on top of the desk in the main room, shivering and damp. I hugged my purple tablet close, having realized that the glowing device let out a bit of comforting heat inside my drenched habitat.

The skitters of Crabbies invaded my habitat, and in the ambient light of my tablet I could see some of the four-legged scavengers running around just outside the entrance to the main room, fighting each other for space. The good thing was that, at least, I had blocked off the main entrance to my space securely. Both the remainder of the fallen beams and the rock I had placed in the access gap kept the scavengers out.

I sighed, this was going to be a long night.

For that morning... and for the rest of that day, for that matter, I was damp and cold. The clouds were still heavy in the sky, and it drizzled on and off for the rest of the morning. The shelter was flooded, and I wasn't exactly sure how I was going to bail out my habitat without magic.

I mean, when I arrived here the abandoned shelter was not flooded. Not even a trace of a puddle. There had to be some kind of drain inside of the habitat since, without full exposure to the sun, any water could not have evaporated away. It would have simply sat there, stagnant and fetid, and no doubt a great breeding ground for mosquitoes.

Although, I had to note, I had not encountered any mosquitoes since I had arrived here...

For breakfast, I munched on one of the fruits of the interdependent vine trees. A quick examination and an (admittedly eyeballed) biological comparison later and I could at least tell that the fruit was edible. Dry, fibrous, but overall not too bad. A little bit of sweet mixed into the thread-like skin of the fruit.

Not only that, but there were plenty of vine trees growing around on the island, meaning that food wasn't going to be of much concern, for now.

I had decided to swear off magic for the rest of that day. No point in repeatedly running myself into the ground when I could wait for one day of rest and then I could be back on my own four hooves. Maybe then I could make some real progress. Perhaps complete the patches of the rest of the holes in my shelter.

I sighed, sitting down a moment to wring out my mane and tail from the water that had soaked in from the night and from the morning's drizzles. Now that I had actually checked myself over, I realized that I was in quite a state.

My mane had drifted far, far out of its previous styling. It was a shriveled, lackluster mop head, frayed every which way. My tail wasn't any better, just sorta hanging there. A lot of the feathers on my wings had dislocated or completely fallen out, and many more were damaged. I sighed and preened them a little. If I didn't take care of them, I could actually permanently injure them. My coat had lost the battle against the ocean, the rain, and the various filth from my hard "survival-ing" around the island.

What I wouldn't give for one of the many makeover visits from Rarity that I had turned down. I could really never stop reading those books, could I?

Sweet Celestia... Rarity. Would I ever be able to see her again. Or any of the rest of my friends...

They were all gone. That was the answer, I guess. Literally wiped... wiped from existence. At least, the ones that I knew and loved, who knew what kind of lives they lived in this future. Or maybe I was wrong and this wasn't the future at all, maybe I was just in some random... alternate dimension.

And, for that matter, where was Spike? He was with me while we travelled through time! He was even right next to me when Starlight destroyed the scroll! Where had he ended up? Was it without the spell keeping us specifically tied together that he just drifted off somewhere else? Was he on this planet with me, just on a different part of it?

I imagined Spike being in the middle of this horrific ocean, no homely shelter or floating island in sight. Then the Ghosts would circle around him...

Nononononononononono, no reason to think about it now. Perhaps once I got off of this island I could figure out something that I could actually do about it. For now, just think about surviving to get off. Rescue had to come eventually. The... ponies that built this shelter or the archway in that big cave had to come back eventually. I still couldn't imagine how they could get past the monsters of the deep, buuuuuuut... that was another question for another day. I could get all the information I needed from the captain of the ship that'd come and rescue me!

I shook my head. Right, what to do?

Without magic, I couldn't do much about the leaks in my shelter. More metal was the only thing that could truly seal those holes, and I could do all of them at the same time tomorrow when I wasn't running low on energy. I did have a lot of things piled up inside that I had promised myself I would dissect later, and that... alien arch definitely required more research. I could at least run a low-level scan on it, I was confident I could do that without wearing myself out.

I nodded to myself. The secrets of the foreign alien technology would be mine! And perhaps I could also bisect some of the plant life to find out their seeds for a more permanent food source.

I was puzzled to find that, once I re-entered my shelter, most of the water that had gathered on the floor had disappeared.

I bit my lip, looking around the compartments of the building, looking for some kind of drain or opening that the water could've escaped from. It would either be a convenient way to get rid of water inside my habitat, or it would be another hole on the underside of my shelter that I would need to patch.

A good few minutes of searching later, and I found a small patch of wet floor leading in trickles to a certain panel where the floor joined in with the walls. A grate sat in the bottom of the panel, and a few letters in the alien babble were written just above it.

My knife's blade was too thick to fit into the panel, though a piece of scrap metal from outside pried the grate right off.

Behind it sat what I could only assume was a bilge pump. Frayed cables snaked out from behind it and led up further into the wall. A wide pipe connected to the grated part of the panel and let into the pump, and two pipes led out of the mechanism and led... somewhere. Presumably outside, if this was actually a bilge pump.

What fascinated me about the pump was that it was not manually operated. Nor was it magically operated (a general scan of it gave me the same answer as it did with the rest of the white-metal technology in this place, not a trace of magic in it). It seemed to, instead, be powered by mere electricity.

I pulled out my knife and made a slight incision into the insulation of the cable (I was holding it with telekinesis, and the cable probably wasn't charged, since the pump wasn't actually pumping, simply letting water flow right through it under the power of gravity). Sure enough, it was made out of copper... and was that gold I saw? Huh, I do actually think I remember reading about the conductive properties of gold now that I think about it...

I could understand somepony powering a... light bulb (was that what they were calling it?) with electricity. A telegraph? Yeah, sure. Electronic signals in intervals to transmit messages. However, transforming electricity into physical force? No, that was magic's field of operations.

I shook my head. I didn't want to risk poking around inside the pump. I had plenty of other examples of white-metal technology piled up next to my desk, and I didn't want to risk compromising one of the only draining systems I had. Sure, it was broken, but I could easily poke a leak in it or block off the water's escape route by messing with it, and, despite my unending curiosity about foreign technology, I did not feel like giving myself yet another machine to have to study.

Anyway, all I needed to know was that the water was gone now, and I could depend on a slow drainage system inside my habitat.

I turned back to my pile of technology. I put aside the General Access Key for now, I would take it down to the underground archway later today, after I checked out the rest of my discoveries.

I picked out one of the glowing blue tablets. They were all identical, so I just chose the one nearest to me and placed on the floor in front of me.

I again noted the relatively damaged state of many of the white-metal artifacts I had found when compared to the archway and the Key. The enchanted purple tablet was definitely older than the white-metal tablets, I could tell that just by comparing the growth of moss and algae on the exterior of the General Access Key when compared to the relative cleanliness of the white-metal tech.

My observations from my first (technically second, since I slept through most of my first day here) day when I arrived in my habitat still held true. Distorted pictures and alien text danced around the screen. This tablet, notably, had a thin crack running along the glass screen of the device. Upon closer inspection, I could figure out that this one had been taken from the first mountaintop observatory I had explored. The dents and damages of this one clicked in my mind.

I shrugged, looking around the casing of the tablet. Interesting enough on the outside, now all that was left was to crack it open.

I had plenty of spare tablets should I need an intact one later on (they seemed to be mass-produced, and were perhaps a normal piece of equipment for the ponies who built them, which was probably the reason there were so many of them lying around after they abandoned this place), so I had no qualms about potentially permanently disassembling the one before me.

A seam in the casing of the handle gave me a good clue as to where I could open up the tablet for study. I picked it up, using my telekinesis to pull at the seam. When it didn't give, I pulled a little bit harder. Then harder. And just a bit harder.

Eventually, there was a hissing sound, and the casing popped open. It splayed open on small, hidden hinges. Probably meant that this was actually how you were meant to open up the casing for servicing.

I whole plethora of unidentifiable... components stared back at me from the inside of the tablet. I could recognize a veritable rat's nest of miniature cables and wires tracing their way back and forth along the inside of the casing. They led into these... square and rectangular wedges. Each one was covered in a microcosm of little devices and machines. Tiny, tiny lights blinked on and off along the path of the board.

Despite the fact that I had plenty of spare tablets, I felt paralyzingly afraid to touch anything inside of this... fascinating piece of technology. Mundane technology this complicated... it blew the mind. How did somepony make this all work? Who had the finesse or the physics-breaking equipment to manufacture artifices so miniature?

I drooled slightly as I examined the innards of the tablet. The harmony of all the wires and the (I supposed) conductive lines on the non-magical board reminded me particularly of advanced magic. Similar to a golem's brain, or maybe the processor enchantments inside the old, clunky computer I had stored in my laboratory basement back in Golden Oaks.

I had my nose stuck all the way inside the compartment now, my eyes crossing at every minute detail of the unbelievably complex piece of... art, I could only call it art.

With the purple tablet, at least I could understand vaguely how the (still unbelievably complex) enchantments layered inside of its diamond latices. This though? This was a whole branch of science that the ponies of Equestria hadn't even considered researching!

I was suddenly terribly disappointed that the tablet was seemingly nonfunctional (I could see why now, as my eyes passed over a hole, scorched into one of the boards, most likely disabling the entire system). What amazing things could this tablet have done? What could it tell me?

I sighed. I had to admit, the technology was far beyond me. Even if I could repair the tablet, I didn't have any reference point to translate their alien language from, nor did I have any applicable living entity to cast a translation spell on. I would not be able to even understand it.

I noted a particular symbol that I had noticed on many of the white-metal technologies I had found so far. A styled isosceles triangle, with the same seven alien symbols repeated underneath the triangle.

I could recognize a brand name when I saw one. Interesting. So most of the white-metal technology on this island was made by the same business? Perhaps this entire base was an enterprise by the same corporation. Unless the triangle was actually the symbol of a nation, like a flag or an imperial emblem of some kind. I did not really have any evidence aside from my own assumptions to think that the symbol was a brand icon of some kind.

I put down the tablet, delicately pushing the casing shut again. It clicked closed again with another mechanical click. No reason to leave the hyper-advanced alien technology open to rain and floor, after all.

The only things that weren't a white-metal tablet was the strange, long, cylindrical device I had found in the crate by the first observatory and the small grey cylinder I had found inside the vacuum box up in the same observatory.

I examined it in my telekinesis. Dented, scratched up. In notably much worse condition than the tablets. This thing wasn't close to looking operable, assuming that it wasn't meant to look like it had been tossed in a trash compactor and then pulled forcibly back out.

A strange handle covered in gripping rubber led up into a cylinder, before leading out horizontally into two other cylinders. It seems that at one point the end of those two cylinders were capped off by a rectangular piece, which had snapped off the lower cylinder and was hanging onto the top cylinder.

I hummed, taking a closer look at the handle. I experimentally grabbed at the handle, trying to sustain an actual grip on it. Not possible with bare hooves, nor did it fit well into the mouth. It was more something a griffin's claws could grapple with, or perhaps a minotaur's grabbers.

Right above it though, I noticed a particular element to the design of the cylinder. Namely, another smaller piece that was distinctly a different tone to its surroundings appeared to be inserted into the circular "dock" of the joint.

I toyed around with it, trying to find a way to open or remove it. A deliberate tug, though, was all that was needed to disconnect the smaller element from the circle.

I discovered that it was another grey cylinder, like the one that I found in the observatory.

They both bore that same triangular symbol, whether it be nation's emblem or business's brand. There were copper electrical contacts present on each one. I did note, though, that the damaged device seemed to have sister contacts for the cylinders, leading me to believe that these were some kind of power storage devices.

Kinda like magical batteries... but for electricity.

I hummed, grappling with the "battery" in my magic. Despite my best efforts, there seemed to be no removable cap or seal to open the battery, and perhaps that was for the best. I did not know how much power was contained inside the tiny cylinder, and now that I think of it, I was quite careless for attempting to open it in a contained space such as my habitat.

Perhaps some things were better left contained.

I picked up the long device from which I had obtained my second battery. I did not actually see any access panels or seams with which to study the inside of the gadget, nor did I think it was a great idea to try and tear this thing apart. I pursed my lips, perhaps I could tweak a few things in my magic scan...

After a few minutes of concentration, a ran a low-power ray over the device. Before I had even reached the end of the artifact, I felt the twinge of impending exhaustion coming, and I quickly shut off my scan. Again, no point in running myself to the ground repeatedly when I could. Just. Wait.

I grunted, shaking my head. I got next to nothing from the brief moment of scanning. Oh well, this thing wasn't going to sprout legs and walk away. I could always just get back to it tomorrow.

I put the thingie back down, my frustration increasing as even simple telekinesis had been made difficult by a simple surge in my scanning spell. Just give it proper rest and nutrition, and you'll be able to teleport left and right, Twilight. Just wait one day. How hard could that be???

For the rest of the day I slogged through some of the debris and litter around the compound of my shelter. I cleared away some brush and scrap lying around and put it all into a big stack not too far from my shelter, though far enough that I wouldn't be tripping over it in the near future. I also re-sealed my sap mortar in the stone wall in my main room, making it once again Crabby-proof.

It drizzled on and off for the rest of the day and into the night, and the wind still howled threateningly outside as I retreated into my habitat for the night, a bottle of pure Water Tree water to accompany me to bed.

I awoke to my fifth day on this island, thirsty and hungry, but blessedly less damp.

It must have rained overnight, since a few puddles of water were scattered across the floor. Fortunately for me, my shelter was nowhere near as flooded as it was yesterday. I could even hear some birdsong outside, making a small smile stretch across my face.

When I left my shelter, I saw that the sun had started to peek through the clouds, even though the clouds were still very prevalent in the sky. The wind had also calmed down, and I sincerely hoped it wasn't a calm before a bigger storm. Nevertheless, I was confident that I should at least be able to seal the rest of the holes in my shelter today.

I tried my magic. Much better. Though, I was still disappointed that I was not casting at full speed yet. Back in Equestria, I would've been just fine by now. I began to wonder if this place had a naturally lower magic content than home. Perhaps. Low ambient magic such as sour lands could hinder regeneration. Though, if that was truly the case, there was next to nothing I could do about.

I decided to try the stone-like melon. The rind was unusually hard, but my glass knife made quick work of it. It cut open to reveal a fleshy, pink interior. As was a characteristic of most melons, the flesh seemed to have a high water content. A sweet scent drifted off the melon, and a test with my knife revealed no acidic or troubling elements inside the plant. The fruit was making my mouth water, and I again reasoned that the inhabitants of this island would only have planted this melon was for food.

A few hearty bites later, and I had placed the Bouldermelon (as I had dubbed it) up in my top 10 favorite foods, the pink flowers being right above them and hayburgers being all the way at the top. I made sure to spit out all of the seeds after my meal, replanting them back into the planter. I also took the rinds and buried them around the seeds, for fertilization.

I did not want to waste any time, and I immediately began to shift around the metal scrap for my welds. A half-an-hour of measuring later, and I had three piles of scrap for melting. Two for the lower floor leaks, and one for the problematic ladder hatch on the second floor.

I defaulted again to using the solar heat spell. Low energy, sufficient results. Sure, my horn would overheat, but I had plenty of hours in the day to cool off in the intervals between melting sessions.

A few tweaks in the spell put more emphasis on high heat and less energy on light. Even though the spell wasn't as flashy or as bright, the metal still heated and melted as quickly as normal, covering the ladder's hatch with a slab of solid... whatever it was that comprised the shelter and its scrap

I wasn't exactly tired (winded, yes, but not tired), but the melting point of my horn was not that much higher than the melting point of... whatever this metal was (it wasn't steel like I had first thought, that was for sure).

After breaks lasting about a half-an-hour each, I systematically sealed the last two remaining holes in my roof, testing each one with bottles of seawater each time. Near perfection, a few holes bubbled through here and there, which I easily sealed with a few more spare pieces of scrap heated just enough for it to flow and seal over the gaps.

I blew a wisp of smoke off the tip of my horn as the last few leaks in the roof were finally sealed over. A headache had built up after the repeated spellwork, but I at least hadn't succeeded in running myself all the way into the ground like I did the day before yesterday, and in my... final battle... with Starlight Glimmer. My abnormally deficient magical recovery rate aside, it was only halfway through the morning and my habitat was finally sealed up. The only thing that was really left was the fractured entryway... which would have to wait just a bit longer.

The compartment holding the entryway bulkhead had completely broken off from the rest of the habitat, meaning that melting scrap wouldn't do. Perhaps a modified Come-To-Life spell could make the compartment mend together like a body healing a papercut, but would cost too much energy. Energy that would probably take me too long to recover. If I had the blueprints for the compartment when it was not broken and battered I could simply just cast Restoration to pull it back into its original, intended form.

I pursed my lip, I had another idea.

I searched through my dwindling stack of random scrap, and found a sheet of fairly flat metal. I used a rock to bash and bend the metal into a semi-circular shape to match the top of the broken entrance compartment.

I walked it over to the broken compartment, placing the bent sheet over the open space in between the fracture. I placed it carefully on top of the jutting metal and rebar sticking out of the broken walls. I then applied just enough heat to melt the top of the metal of the rebar. Like a charm, the bars stuck to the sheet, making a perfect awning over the entrance. A piece to shed the water off and prevent it from dripping off into the inside.

I smiled, wiping the sweat from my brow. Perhaps I could, finally, feel safe inside my habitat during a storm. Sure, there were probably plenty of other smaller, unnoticeable leaks in my shelter, but for now the shelter wouldn't completely flood overnight with me in it.

I put my hoof up to my horn, wincing as I could feel the nail of my hoof sizzle on the red-hot bone. Now that I paid it heed, I could also feel the throbbing pulse of exhaustion incoming. Maybe I had pushed too many heat spells in one day, and I had no ice packs around to cool it off with.

I stepped into my shelter, picking up my General Access Key up with my hooves and placed it under a wing (I might've not been close to flying, but I could still very well carry things under them). I had put off a complete examination of the cavernous Archway too long. Perhaps a few scans were in order.

I frowned as I spied my glass knife, just sitting on my desk, unused.

I hadn't seen very many of the Crabbies ever since the storm. While on my first few days here, they had bothered me non-stop, now, they were just gone! Surely they hadn't just decided to leave me alone, so where had they gone off to?

I frowned, then picked up the knife in my mouth, keeping it close while my horn continued to cool off. Better safe than sorry.

I hoisted myself up from the shore of the central dropoff and into the entrance into the Archway cavern.

The green glow of the magical technology in the cavern had a calming effect on me. I followed the cables between the lights deeper into the caves, until the tunnels opened up into the much larger, airier Archway cavern.

My ear twitched when I heard a familiar skitter... and then another one. And another one. My eyes widened as I heard several right behind me.

I wheeled on the Crabby, gasping as I saw one of the little critters jump right at me. My wings flaring out behind me dropped the tablet with a clatter to the floor.

I flailed wildly with my knife, catching the Crabby on one of its legs. Yellow ichor spilled out, and the Crabby screeched, whipping my across my cheek with one of its sharp legs.

I grunted as I felt another one drop onto my back, and I screamed when I felt teeth dig into my back. Several more seemed to skitter out and around many of the rocks in the cavern and from under a few of the towering pillars surrounding the Arch.

I lit up my telekinesis... surprisingly painfully, and stabbed the one on my back, tossing it off from the end of my blade at another one of his friends. Another one lept at me and sent another thin gash across my chest, it too got a face full of my knife.

I was however, fighting a rapidly approaching tide. Every swing of my telekinesis just left me with another scratch. As I backed into a corner, I honestly began to fear for my survival. The Crabbies seemed to sense it too, and they began to charge me more boldly, in pairs and trios.

My defensive strikes became more frantic with wide sweeping arcs with my knife and hoof beatings for anything that came too close.

It wasn't an easy fight, not by far, but eventually I repulsed the Crabby incursion. Many dead or wounded Crabbies lay around the cavern, all bleeding yellow ichor.

I wasn't doing too great either. Many papercut-like gashes covered my body, some bleeding, some just stinging. On top of the four days without a shower, my coat also had a few bucketfuls of the creature's yellow blood to deal with as well.

Thank Celestia the wounds weren't exactly deep, so i wasn't worried about bleeding out any time soon, but it hurt! It all hurt! Horn to hoof. It all hurt!

Where was these little critter's nest? I wanted to burn it.

I picked myself up off the floor, wincing as the many bands of thin cuts stung around my body. I needed to use that white-metal first aid kit to bandage myself up, lest the wounds become infected.

I peered around the rocks the Crabbies had poured from, my knife being held in telekinesis that was becoming increasingly shaky. I almost had a heart attack as one final, notably smaller Crabby lept out at me from a crack in the rocks. A quick slash with my knife sent its corpse sprawling against the wall of the cave.

I narrowed my eyes, walking up towards the crack from which the Crabby had sprung from. Not wanting to waste (already) dwindling magic reserves, I pulled the Key up to the crack, letting its bright, purple light shine in.

Eggs, lots of little eggs. It was a nest of little (what I could only assume was) Crabby eggs.

I sighed, they must've retreated back here when the storm hit. No wonder they tried to dogpile me as soon as I walked into their nesting grounds...

I grabbed one of the eggs, holding it up to the light of one of the columns. Nothing inside that I could see, aside from a normal-looking yolk. Hmm, a Crabby Egg Omelet sounded nice.

I set the egg down, taking a quick look around me for any more of my Crabby friends. Finding none, I turned my attention over to the Archway.

"Um... hello?" I called out, hoping to stir the voice from the other day to answer me.

Nothing.

I pulled out my tablet as I walked closer, watching both it and the archway for any changes in magical presence or flux. I paused halfway to the Archway, biting my lip as I felt a slight twitch in the matrix of the tablet. It seemed to have tried to... connect to something, before failing.

I stood there for a little while, just in case my movement troubled any kind of spell the tablet was trying to conjure. Nothing. It didn't seem to want to try again.

I looked back up at the Archway, my lips drawing into a tight line. My scratches stinging up a storm, I trudged up to the Arch's platform, before sticking it with a higher-power magic scan.

A cloud of my purple magic advanced from the top of the Archway down to the bottom. I focused to keep it steady, soaking in every piece of information the extremely general scan gave me. I let out my breath as the scan finally reached the bottom of the Arch, panting as I took stock of the results.

Hmm... lots of enchantments similar to the tablet. The aura was also similar, meaning that they both probably were cast by the same pony. There were a series of main sequence spells which were... listening for something, which lead down into a series of several matrices. An easily recognizable receiver spell array were present on the surface of the Arch, drawing magic from... somewhere. Down was the most probable answer.

The thing that most screamed the Arch's function at me, however, was the line of enchantments covering the crystal matrices along the inner groove of the device. Teleportation in the form of a portal. The inlaid runes were, obviously now that I looked at it properly, built to project a film for the spell's detection and transit catalyst. Once somepony activated it and stepped inside, the device would teleport them to... wherever the spell was programmed to take them to.

Now, don't get me wrong. It may sound as if, when I explain this marvel of engineering, the spells to make it are not that incredible. Long story short: they are not.

Starswirl barely understood the runes he laid when he built his Mirror Portal, going to and fro from other dimensions. I barely knew what I was doing when I stabilized his Mirror to stabilize travel through it. This? I knew what it was. I could assume it worked just like any normal Portal would. What I didn't know was how it was supposed to work, or how I was even supposed to use it!

I began walking around the structure and the columns before it, following a few leylines and taking a closer look at a few of the machinations.

I noticed several essence conduits going to and from the portal into the platform beneath it, all twisting and eventually converging into a small device inset into the floor. A set of locks made out of whatever alloy made up the Arch held the device in place with an iron grip, preventing it from coming to the surface while a high-pressure mechanism below would succeed in pushing the device up should the locks release.

I also noticed a long line of enchanted... nickel (which is, actually, surprisingly magic-worthy) leading up into the columns supporting the cave. A constant, encrypted message transmitted through the signal enchantments, playing over and over again.

I hummed as I noticed that the consistent message carried the same tune as the "twitch" in my purple tablet when I approached the platform earlier. Perhaps it was some kind of... signal? Something like the long-ranged connections used in scrying? I couldn't really know. I could, however, trace the message back over to the Portal's teleportation mechanisms.

I took a closer look at the device embedded into the platform.

I guessed that, when raised, it would be just about three inches taller than my horn. An opening existed on the front of... what looked kind of like an altar. From that opening, several cables led away from it and into ports that, I assumed, would line up with another cable when the altar was raised and carry the current into the Portal.

Hmm.

Oh, wait.

Aha!

So, if the device was unlocked, I could try and provide a source of power to the Portal to activate the teleportation spell. Probably in some material form, like some kind of artefact or key. I looked down at the General Access Key floating around in my telekinesis. Maybe it would suffice as a Portal-opening key!

I looked down at the inset device, then back up at the portal. Then again, was it such a great idea to try and open this portal?

If this place was a final, sunken future of Equestria (and all the flora had somehow... changed to look like what it was today, which might explain the Purple Taters and Bouldermelon), maybe this portal would only open to the ocean, and it would promptly flood the cave and the entire island, as well as carrying the monsters from down there to up here (though, I doubted they would be able to fit through the Arch, what with their hideous size). Or maybe it would just open up into another dimension worse than this place. Or maybe... just maybe, I could go back.

Maybe I could go back and try and change everything. Maybe try and talk Starlight down instead of charging her...

I shook my head. It was no use to be hopeful or fearful when I could just check where this portal went. I licked my lips, checking my reserves. Yep, still enough. Capacity was still pitiful (I was seriously starting to wonder if some Sour element of this world was clawing some excess magic off of me), but at least I could cast a tracer spell.

An intense focus came over me as I locked the teleportation runes under the scrutiny of my tracer. I interrogated the unbelievably complex enchantments for what they could tell me about their destination. West... west by southwest. Yes, great, what else? About... two kilometers from me. Located... a few dozen meters above sea level.

Perfect.

Well, it didn't lead into another dimension, and it didn't lead to the bottom of the ocean. That was good. And, if this portal followed the rules of most material portals, it would also have an anchor on the other side, allowing me to travel back. I would, of course, want some kind of rope to force the portal to stay open should it be some kind of a... trap. For all I knew, the portal might just be leading me to open air a couple dozen meters above sea level to just drop me down into the ocean.

That wouldn't be fun. I was really starting to fester a fear of the ocean.

I couldn't try anything without first attempting to activate the portal, and there was nothing stopping me from trying it out right now. If night fell or the Crabbies came back, I could just retreat back to my shelter, now knowing that my roof was secure and thoroughly rain-proofed.

I doubted leverage would work against the inset, as that would, at most, succeed in destroying the lock and damaging the no doubt fragile hardware. A spell would be too risky. It would either cost too much power and, without knowledge of the magical engineering, have the chance of ruining the delicate enchantments inside of the mana transfer. However, it seemed that the device's builders would have made a physical trigger or a switch of some kind.

I looked around for some kind of control panel. A button, or perhaps even a place to insert a "General Access Key" (I had it, and it was slowly burning a hole in my figurative pockets, and it seemed something that a magical artificer would use to unlock their portal).

I noticed a remarkable quality in the metal. Local plant life had in fact overgrown the structure, telling me that the portal and the surrounding engineering was... fairly old. Derelict. It probably had not received the care of its builders in quite a while. Despite this, I saw no rust, no scratches, no dents in the paneling and reinforcements in the hull. Strange... it looked like it had been built just yesterday.

Maybe the original inhabitants of the island had intended to study the structure, building a habitat and other structures around the island in order to research the arch. They definitely didn't build it, since it seemed that the white-metal devices were... technologically inferior to the devices I had seen here. That, and the plant growth around their structures didn't seem to match the time period around when, I could estimate, this arch was built (unless, for some reason, they purposefully encouraged plant growth down here). Therefore, if they didn't build it, they must have been here to study it.

It would make sense... though I didn't see any research equipment down here (nor any debris that would suggest that there once was any equipment littered around). Nor did I really find any research equipment back around the habitat, unless the tablets and that... pronged thing was meant to be used to study things. Yet, they did have a General Access Key. Had they come down here? Again, if they did, then where was all their research equipment?

Why else would they have been here, if not to study it? Surely not castaways, since castaways didn't have the tools or the resources to build strong, sturdy houses for themselves. This island was interesting and breathtaking, sure, but it wasn't exactly substantial enough to warrant building an entire colony on. Nor was it a harbor or a local navy base, due to the complete lack of docks for ships to restock and repair.

Research was the only thing that made sense. Not here to mine or farm resources, but instead to study ancient ruins on the island. Their technology did not have magic in it... which would mean a race like theirs (despite how brilliant their mundane machines were) would probably be fascinated by a magical device such as this. Imagine, a world with technology so fascinating as theirs suddenly finding the techniques to push their ingenuity to new heights!

Still didn't explain why it didn't seem like they ever came down here.... Mysteries for other days. They had, at least, left their shelter behind for me to one day inhabit. After all, once I was rescued, I could ask them about it all I wanted! Of course, only if they spoke Equestrian... which wasn't likely given that all their written language was indecipherable to me.

I shook my head, completing my survey of the archway. No control panel. Not even a keyhole to put my key into! The most interesting thing I had found was a panel that had a tiny inscription on the side: "In case of fire, extinguisher will deploy". I doubted that the creators of the arch would build it without also having some way of turning it on and off, but the columns and panels were devoid of any buttons or switches.

I growled, kicking the arch in frustration. Ouch. I looked at the place that I had kicked. Not a scratch or a scuff mark, I couldn't even feel the metal reverberate. How dense was this stuff? What was it made out of? I couldn't sense any protection enchantments on it. Nor would I really recognize the metal from anywhere. It held the same, comforting green sheen as everything else, and it wasn't like any alloy I had ever seen!

I shook my head, I would need to get it under a microscope. I doubted I could even pry a piece off for study. Neither did I think any of my spells would be able to cut anything off. Well, nothing I could conjure right now.

I heard a few skitters outside. A gulped as I took a quick look at the exit of the cavern. dark orange light poured in through the gap. Sunset was coming, and the remnants of my crabby friends were starting to muster for a charge back into the cave to protect what they assumed was left of their nest. Ugh, why did they have to be the only other land creatures on this island with me?

The birds were starting to quiet down, and it was starting to get darker and darker. Night had always hit like a bag of bricks for me. Mostly because I was always doing... something. Reading, chatting, organizing, doing "Princessly" things... I guess I rarely noticed the sun go down. This situation wasn't any different, right? Right? Right! Riiiiiiiiight. Yep. Nope. Nothing different here. Definitely going to go home and fall into the embrace of...

I took a deep breath, wiping a some of the... sweat from my eyes. I picked up my Key, my glass knife, and the Crabby egg, heading out of the cave with them in tow. I kept my knife close, keeping my eye out for any lurking Crabbies. I saw a few, but they always skittered out of the way, never engaging.

My scratches ached, and a few of them had started bleeding. Nothing serious, but some were starting to itch. I needed to get some bandages on them and, hopefully, any antiseptic the medical kit back at home had. Of course, with all the labels being written in a foreign language, it would definitely be difficult to identify them all.

A Crabby skittered out in front of me, stopping in the middle of my path and... stared at me. It wasn't exactly the threat of a Crabby attack that scared me, it was... well...

It was sick.

A horrible looking rash had spread across the shell of the Crabby. Green pustules grew from the creases in its shell, seeping puss. The Crabby itself was shaking slightly, unstable as it "eyed" me.

I held my knife in a defensive position in front of me. My breathing sped up as I backed away slowly, my magic ready to strike the glass shard into the... infected Crabby's brains. And so it did, because with a bloodthirsty screech, the Crabby charged me.

Knife and terrified reflexes won out over death-charge and yellow ichor spilled out from the Crabby's twitching corpse as my knife flattened it out on the path. I only dared to remove the knife once the Crabby had finished twitching.

After a moment I calmed down. The corpse still lay there, the green blisters still glowing as the sun slowly set. What was that thing? I pulled my knife out of the corpse, looking at the yellow blood stains on the tip of the blade.

I quickly threw it away. it was contaminated and I didn't want that thing chopping up my food, no sir! I could always make another one.

Whatever that thing was infected with, it didn't look fun. A disease of some kind... a closer inspection of the Crabby's shell (from a distance, of course) told me that the rash seemed to exist around a pattern of, what I assumed was, the Crabby's circulatory system. Blistered, painful looking flesh followed the streaks around the body (where the flesh was exposed outside of the shell), and I assumed the creature would have been in excruciating pain. I, at least, put it out of its misery. I guess.

I gave the corpse a wide berth. I didn't feel like studying the body. I didn't have the equipment to safely analyze the late Crabby, and it was probably just the best to ignore it and avoid other contaminated creatures. In fact...

I turned around, picking up the Crabby's corpse carefully in my magic, making sure to get none of its blood on me. and flung it off the nearby cliff and into the ocean.

I gathered my stuff in my telekinesis, ignoring the steadily building ache. Dinner and sleep was coming soon, I could rest my magic all I wanted then. For now, get my stuff back to the shelter.

I placed the rock back in the doorway with my hooves, blocking my entrance and keeping out any Crabbies.

I turned back to the interior of my main room. It was still half-covered in landslide debris, which was probably a health hazard that I would need to fix eventually, but it was secure, safe, and now rain-proof. A warm sense of accomplishment came over me. Relative safety was mine! Let the storms rage on my roof! My home was reinforced by steel! Let Crabbies pound on my door! They'll never get past my defenses! Well, minus one glass knife now, but I would replace that tomorrow morning.

My stomach growled, and I eyed the condensed energy-bar like thing lying in a container alongside the rest of my stuff. Well, may as well give it a try. It looked filling, at least.

I picked it up, turning it around and around in my magic. I took a cautious bite, chewing thoughtfully. It wasn't so bad for the first few chews, it almost tasted like the pink flowers (Mmm... pink flowers...), but then the other taste kicked in. It wasn't quite like cardboard. No, that would be a mercy. Instead, it was more like dirt. Disgusting dirt with a chewy texture. It was stuck together by some kind of paste that... did nothing for the bar. I felt like emptying my stomach, and I spat out the half-eaten bar.

As I gagged and coughed I seriously considered removing the boulder from my entrance prematurely and chucking the horrible bar far, far into the ocean. I hoped to sweet Celestia that this wasn't a staple food for these people. What a horrible life if all you could eat was... that! Yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck!

I sat in a corner, recuperating. Well... it didn't seem like it was rotten, at least. Probably preservable like canned food. No, this was just a problem with the taste of the cook who made the awful thing. I could only hope that it was only a last resort emergency or military rations for these people.

Well, it had at least killed my appetite. I didn't need food that badly anyway.

I popped open the petite first aid kit, dumping out the supplies onto the floor. I examined some of the bottles, trying to glean what I could from the label. After a few minutes, I could identify something that was actually mutual between both of our medical sciences: Hydrogen Peroxide. A dab into a cotton bud, and I went to work on the scratches. It stung, but I was thankful that I had something to clean wounds with. After emptying almost all of the bottle on my many, many wounds, I pulled out a good amount of the roll of bandages, applying them across my body. It still stung, but it would heal. Next time I would be more careful walking into a Crabby nest.

I sighed, lying down. The floor wasn't that comfortable, and as much as I wished for the comfort of my own bed, I could make do with the current sleeping arrangements.

While my search of the Arch hadn't revealed all that much... I had at least found the location of the exit portal. I wasn't sure how I would even be able to activate the portal, let alone open the device that, I assumed, powered the arch. I definitely didn't want to teleport there myself. Raft was a bad idea, end of story. I could wait until my feathers came back (which wouldn't actually be all that long, a couple of days at most) and just fly there. I assumed that there would be at least land near where the portal exited. I would need to conserve strength, but I could probably make two kilometers and back if I didn't find anything there.

Whatever was on the other side of the portal, I probably needed to see it...

Ancient Aliens

View Online

The next morning, I found myself sitting and staring out over the sea.

Outside of my little shady spot underneath a tree, the sun beat down on the island. Even in the shade, humidity and reflected heat still got to me, and sweat beaded on my forehead. I had come down to the cliff side of my merry little island to catch some breeze, but it seemed the storm a few days ago had left the wind currents all too calm.

My habitat, as sealed up and safe as it was, was beginning to act like a toaster. It was roasting hot during the sunny days, even though it was lovely and warm during the cold nights. I felt like I would just catch on fire if I stayed in there, and I heard some suspicious hissing from the... electrical storage cylinders that I had examined yesterday. I thought that perhaps high temperatures may have been... destabilizing some of the contents of it, so I moved it outside under the shade of some of the nearby trees.

I would go for a swim to cool off, but I don't think I ever wanted to go close to the water ever again.

2 kilometers to the northeast lay the exit end of the portal. I knew I could make a round trip of about 4 kilometers if the portal was actually a trap and led to no land. At least, not until my wings came all the way in. The feathers were all in, but were still young and fluffy. By tomorrow I could probably attempt the flight, but I would want to wait until the day after before I could glide and fly higher.

Until then, I guessed I would just focus on surviving. There were a fair few chores I needed to do and improvements I could make to my shelter.

For starters, cleaning up some of the paths around the island. They weren't clean to begin with, and the storm had knocked over quite a bit of plant refuse into my way. Maybe after that I could prepare more soil for planting of more crops, if I didn't start replanting I would find myself in a perilous food shortage. Another issue of nourishment also pressed into my mind: Water. Water Trees were nice and all, but I had already pretty much killed two Water Trees keeping myself hydrated over what was... almost a week since I arrived here. I needed to either start replanting like crazy or I needed to find an alternative water source.

All of the above options required me to have a cutting tool, at least to defend myself while I worked.

Back at my habitat, I pried another piece of appropriately-sized shattered glass from my walled up window. I applied some Water Tree glue straight onto the bottom of the blade, then fished around in my assembled metal scrap pile for an appropriate handle. It actually took a while to find a semi-usable one, as my pile was mostly reduced to waterlogged garbage and very little actual metal scrap. I could always resort to wood, sure, but I was sad that my convenient metal supply were beginning to run low.

Like a charm, the handle stuck to the blade, and I made a hole in the glass before looping a braided vine through it, stabilizing it.

Feeling more confident in myself with my new glass knife, I decided to try and pursue a more permanent water solution. A distiller to separate seawater from its salt, giving me water as long as I had a source of heat.

I licked my lips, going over to my shelter for the first component of the distillery. I would first need a basin to put seawater into, something metal that I could heat up and something that could funnel the steam into a catcher that would let the water condensate and flow off into an awaiting water bottle while leaving the salt back in the basin. One of the many vacuum crates I had would do perfectly, since they were watertight and made of metal.

After exiting my toaster of a shelter, I placed my basin in the center of my compound, right over the place where I, sometimes, lit my fires. I searched around for a while, gathering perfectly-shaped rocks. I placed the tall, flat-topped rocks underneath the basin, elevating it a good few meters of the ground. I would need to light a fire underneath it, after all.

I gathered a few sticks and thin stringy vines that I had found hanging from some barren trees, tying them all together in an X formation on either side of my basin. I backed away from my project, thinking. I needed something to affix to the stop of my sticks above the basin for the steam to eventually catch on.

I took a stroll around the island, looking for a leaf to make the match. Interdependent Vines leaves? To narrow and too short. Water Tree leaves? Big Tree leaves? Maybe, but just a bit too bushy for what I needed.

Finally, I came across an old friend. Water Tree, Water Tree, Water Tree, oh how much I loved my Water Trees...

Where it had provided for me with its water before, it now provided me with long enough leaves to complete my distillery. While I would have preferred them wider, they were the best choice out of the options extended to me. Solid, waterproof, long enough... I pulled off a nice, long one.

I shook my head, turning about and walking over to my shelter. I strapped one leaf down on top of the X braces, a meter or so above the mouth of the basin. I made sure the lower tip of it was slightly slanted towards the ground, where I would eventually put the water bottle to collect fresh water.

I made a small platform out of random debris and a flat rock. Just below the end tip of the catcher leaf, I placed an empty bottle of water (one that I had made sure had never been out to gather sap, as to not contaminate water supplies).

I took another empty crate down to the ocean, gathering a good amount of seawater inside it. I took it back to my distiller, pouring (almost) the entire crate into the basin, sparing some as to not overfill the basin.

I took a step back, checking my work. I took my knife to go and "prune" some usable firewood from the trees. I needed stuff that would burn gradually, since the distribution of heat through the basin would inevitably be painfully slow. I figured the water content of the living branches of the large trees would do well enough, so I chopped a few off with telekinesis and my knife.

I didn't need tinder as long as I had my heat spell, one of the many benefits of being an alicorn in a survival situation. While I had nothing against earth ponies and pegasi, I would rather be stranded only with my horn than with anything else. Fortunately for me, though, a broken timeline wasn't enough to take away my royalty.

A quick flash, and the branches ignited, sending jet black smoke into the air as the living branches burned. The smoke was a lot more foul than it would have been if I had used dead wood, but living firewood would burn gradually and boil the water more steadily, instead of burning immediately and requiring me to keep refueling every half an hour or so. It would also vaporize the water slowly, instead of just turning into steam. That way, the water would condense on the catcher leaf and trickle down into the awaiting water.

At least... that's what I hoped it would do.

A beam of sunlight caught my eye, blinding me. I looked up to see a patch of sun reflecting off of one of the rounded glass portholes on the second floor of my shelter. I could also see the distortion of heat on the surface of the (steel?) roof.

My stomach reminded me of the Crabby egg I had retrieved from the nest the afternoon before, and I got an idea.

I retrieved the egg from inside my shelter, taking it outside. I climbed the landslide outside my shelter until I was on level with the roof of my main room. I floated the egg out over the most central part of the circular roof, not daring to set my hoof on the (no doubt) searing hot roof. I cracked the egg open, pouring it out onto the hot metal.

It immediately started to sizzle, and I grinned. Why light a fire when the sun will just do your work for you?

I briefly wondered whether or not the egg might be poisonous. I knew from my studies that even if the animal was poisonous their eggs were usually safe. In most cases, anyway.

I did have evidence to believe I was on another planet, however. That meant the fauna here were not studied by the Equestrian Department of Zoology. Exceptions could abound down here...

Then again, I was probably thinking more fearfully than logically. Crabbies weren't poisonous. Eggs had no reason to be poisonous. The only thing I was really at risk for was infection by anything the parent Crabbies might have had. That would be most easily fixed by frying the egg thoroughly.

Over Easy it was then...

I had difficulty flipping the egg, since most of it seemed to like to stick to the metal, but that was most likely a result of either my unpracticed cooking skills or the lack of cooking oil. Now that I thought of it, I could have probably used water... but it was too late now.

A few more minutes and a quick check of my distiller, and my egg was done. I sat down with my back against a tree with the egg in hoof. It was burnt pretty well. It was probably edible too, but it was most definitely burnt. Spike could have done it ten times better.

Oh Spike. Where were you?

The egg wasn't that bad. A bit charcoal-y and unpleasantly crunchy, but not too bad all in all. I could also use some salt. Definitely some salt was required here. Maybe some pepper too. However, I believed that less burn time was the true secret ingredient in this case.

Whatever. It filled my belly. In situations like these, any non-contaminated food was good food.

I checked up on my distiller. I grinned as I found that a small trickle of (I hoped) pure water had trickled down into the water bottle, which was now a fifth of the way filled. Every once in a while, a drop of water collected at the end of the leaf and grew heavier, before dripping down and landing inside my bottle. It was slow business, sure, but it was collecting.

I did notice that some of the steam was being blown to the side by the incoming wind from the sea. Problem. Today was an especially still day, which meant my distiller was utterly worthless if it the wind was anything more than a whisper.

I sighed. Perhaps my mediocre thatching skills were needed once again. At least I could be certain that even the worst thatches would keep wind off of distillers.

By the time all the water boiled, I had managed to clean up around my merry little island. I pushed trees that had fallen onto paths of onto the side (or as far as I could). I added more random fallen branches and debris to my pile (now becoming piles) of junk.

I also emptied some of the dirt and debris out of the inside of my main room. I had already used the larger boulders to wall up my broken window, so I just tossed mainly pebbles and box full of dirt outside. I briefly wondered if I would ever need to resort to using sharpened pebbles for hatchets and knives, just like in the good old Stone Age days...

How long would I be staying here?

I couldn't know. I would eventually need to build a firewood stack for signalling rescue, should it come (a beam of magic straight up into the air would be more effective, but a backup was always useful). However, the buildings on this island seemed to be fairly aged, and there didn't seem to be any signs of recent equine activity in the area. What if the builders of this place weren't coming back?

No. I couldn't think like that. The first step towards death in a survival situation was demotivation. I just had to keep my eyes on the goal. Open that portal or fly to the other side of it. If that task proved fruitless... my one task would be to keep myself alive, as comfortably as possible, until I could eventually signal rescue. In a place as remote as this, that could be months, or even years.

But that was fine. I was confident I could keep my sanity.

...Maybe.

I picked up the now filled bottle of distilled water. Holding it up to the sun (which was now going down in the sky), I observed no obvious particulates or impurities in the water. I took a sip. Warm. Disgustingly so. But it was pure water. No trace of seawater remained in it.

I downed the rest of the bottle, quenching the powerful thirst I had built up throughout the day of work. I put it back down underneath the end of the leaf, there still being some more water to be vaporized in the basin.

I placed more firewood on the fire, hopefully enough to last it until sunset, where I would put drier wood in and cook some potatoes for dinner.

I went to sleep that night with a full belly and a bottle full of distilled water, snoring softly on the hard floor.

I must admit now: I've always liked rainy days. Back in Canterlot, and I guess back in Ponyville as well, a rainy day was always the best excuse to stay inside and study. Clean. Or perhaps just to sleep in. As a filly in Canterlot, I was always encouraged, whether implicitly or explicitly, to get outside more. My mom and dad had no valid excuse to get me out and about when it was raining outside! I guess... I guess since then I'd just formed a friendly association with rain. I'd always just smile when I woke up to rain falling outside my window. It just made home feel so much cozier.

My little shelter was far from home, but it sure was cozy as I watched the storm rage outside. It seemed that when it rained, it poured and when the wind blew, it would be a tempest. I had taken a peek out, and the hill behind the shelter seemed to have prevented my ramshackle distiller from being blown away in the winds. I didn't dare to move it unless I wanted it to fall apart in my grasp, but the water bottle I had randomly left on the receiver had collected rainwater that had gathered on the top of the condenser leaf of the distiller and dripped down.

I was now sipping on the bottle as I just watched nature have its way with the rest of the island.

It wasn't as bad as the first storm. Then again, I may have just been thinking of the first one being worse since I was drenched the whole way through.

So, I just sat inside my safe, cozy little shelter as I waited for the storm to pass. My stomach grumbled, but I wasn't going to wither and die from one day without food. I preened up my wings. My feathers were coming back. I would have appreciated a few wing care products... but the most I could use was the natural waterproofing oils excreted by glands underneath my wings. It would protect feathers from becoming waterlogged, to a fault. Despite this, they still weren't meant to be dragged halfway across the ocean.

After a few hours, the storm only seemed to slowly intensify.

I tried a simple shield spell. My magic seemed to hold up well enough, so I took a walk outside. I had a feeling the storm was going to last a fair while, perhaps even days. I wanted to grab some food before the storm flushed the Crabbies out of their holes and I would need to lock myself inside my shelter.

The now heavy rain bounced harmlessly off my shield, but the ground beneath my hooves was turning muddy fast. A few hanging fruits here and there, perhaps one stone melon for safekeeping. I downed the rest of the water from my bottle and quickly filled it back up from a nearby Water Tree (which had, unfortunately, had recently died from my overuse of it).

I arrived back at my shelter with muddy hooves, but a blessedly dry mane. I retreated farther into my shelter and blocked up the doorway into my main room.

Not long afterwards, I could hear the tell-tale skitter of Crabbies outside my shelter.

It was still raining.

The worst of it had passed during the night. It had rained so hard that some of it had made it inside my shelter... somehow. I experienced a slight flood that, while the fact that I had no holes in my roof had made the flood much less serious, it still forced me to retreat to the top of my little desk.

Crabbies were stuffed inside the small compartment outside my main room again, and I even had to push my rock back into place a few times as they endeavored to push their way in. I did not obtain much sleep that night.

Now, it was still thundering on the roof, but at least it had let up enough that some of the Crabbies had left and gone back to their nest. Some of the flood had drained out through the bilge pump in the corner, and while it wasn't dry enough for me to sit on the floor comfortably, the water was still gone.

The rain ramped up and down throughout the day. I wouldn't be able to fly in this weather (at least, not with confidence) and I wasn't getting anything productive done other than counting the scratch marks on the ceiling. In fact, it was driving me up the wall with inactivity.

I took some time to map out my plans for flight as soon as the storm cleared. I came across a... fairly troubling scenario.

Pegasi, unlike most birds, did not tend to have a natural sense of direction. Alicorns are no different. I could use things like compass directions and wind currents... but I wasn't in my home country. The ocean was unsurprisingly uniform, and my gut twisted at the idea of running out of energy and falling into the ocean. I mean, I could always ascend altitude and rest on a cloud, but I would eventually just run out of food and water. Or perhaps I would just fly into open skies, not a cloud in sight.

I knew from scanning the teleportation enchantments on the Arch that I would be heading approximately two kilometers northeast. Chances were I could just fly straight and spot the island by sight. However, I still wasn't confident about leaving anything to chance.

I looked around my shelter for anything. Gold would be the best material for what I wanted to do.. or maybe diamond. A simple tracing spell. A "ping" spell and it would respond to me, giving me the right heading for home. I had had one on the Golden Oaks Library (just in case I needed to ace an emergency teleportation), and I... had one on my castle back in Equestria.

I looked around my pile of recovered artifacts. Perhaps I could find some valuable metal inside them? I don't think I would be able to repair them in the near future, despite their potential uses.

I popped open one of the broken tablets. Perhaps they used some valuable metals in the construction of their technology.

On the many blocks making up the... synapses of the inside of the tablet had copper imprinted into them in a sequence of complicated networks. Copper wouldn't make the cut, and I wasn't quite sure where else I would be able to find silver or gold in any of the other, similarly crafted technologies.

The glowing Key sounded like a fairly good idea... up until the point where I actually picked it up and was reminded of the tablet's complexity. I realized it would be a horrible idea to enchant a navigation spell onto it. Never mind what information could be lost by enchanting over pre-existing spells, who knew what kind of reflex the tablet would have? Probably an explosive one, about the size of this island and then some.

I shook my head. I loved to prepare and plan, but sometimes resources just didn't work for the most straightforward option. After all, it was only two kilometers. Perhaps if I was feeling really paranoid, I could build a fire to make a smoke trail. If my destination turned out to be true, I would probably still be able to see the smoke.

I settled down again, trying my best to wait out the storm.

Finally, I began to hear the rain taper off outside. It shorten from a pounding rhythm to an annoying needling to, finally, a weak drizzle. It kept on drizzling as sun began to shine from the splits in the clouds, before the rain stopped altogether. The Crabbies stopped skittering, moving back to wherever their nests were, and the birds began singing once again.

I cautiously removed the safety blocker from my doorway, and climbed out the front bulkhead... and right into a puddle of mud. There was a "glop" sound as my forehoof sunk deep into the muddied, silty soil, sealed tight. I wrestled with the mud, before I ended up needing use a mixture of flight and telekinesis to pull my leg out of the muck. That was dangerous. If I hadn't been able to fly out of that situation, I would have probably gotten nicely stuck in there until I fairly certain death.

Must be a natural sinkhole for quicksand down there...

I lightly stepped around the quicksand, making sure only to step on the hard, gravelly dirt around it. A great many things around the island were drenched, and puddles were apparent around the paths and in between the trees. The sea was less than calm, but no waves were threatening enough to give me pause. Winds were choppy, but I wasn't a foal. I was strong enough to fly in these conditions.

I checked my wings. Everything good in the feather department, everything in order, no signs of anything that could impede flight. I took a deep breath. It was morning, I had all day to find and explore the exit location of the Archway. Barring anything absolutely tragic, I would be back before sundown.

I took one of the metal vacuum crates, punched a few holes in it magically, then laced a few vines through it. After a bit of adjustment, I had something akin to a backpack. I took anything I thought could be relatively useful, such as a bottle of distilled water, some more of the vine lashings should I need rope, my new glass knife, the General Access Key, and one of the broken white-metal tablets (who knew? Maybe some more white-metal technology lay beyond the portal?).

I lifted off a few times, hovering, just to ensure the weight of the makeshift backpack wouldn't be too heavy. Sure, it was hefty, and maybe it would tire me out if I was taking a couple ten-kilometer journeys, but I wouldn't be crashing into the ocean any time soon.

I took a quick trip back down to the Archway, making another quick interrogatory scan, just to ensure the directions towards the portal's exit had not changed. They had not. Two kilometers east by northeast. I came back up from the caves and used the sun for compass directions.

I briefly wondered if this planet rotated the same way as back home. Perhaps I was really heading south instead of east. Food for thought. Not that it mattered, though, the sun still provided directions consistently enough for me.

I got some high ground on top of my shelter's roof. I spread my wings wide, giving them a few experimental flaps. All clear for flight. With a running jump, I was up in the air, flying up above the island. In a split second, the island below me turned into ocean.

I banked right a little, before pulling up into a hover, making sure I had my bearings. After a few course adjustments, I leaned forward and pushed myself into a glide, flying out over the choppy seas.

A few gusts of wind rattled me a little, but not enough to make me lose my course. A decreased my altitude a bit, hoping to get underneath the wind currents, but not enough to get caught by something stupid, like an oversized rogue wave. I looked down into the water beneath me.

I felt my heart rate begin to speed as my mind conjured up images of that sea monster once more. It was not long before I realized that, if that ghostly snake decided to leap out at me, I would be just within the altitude it could leap up to! I quickly ascended to a safe distance from the water, trying to ignore all the tricks of the mind as I swore I saw the glimmer of ghostly bodies in the water below. Perhaps the choppy wind wasn't so bad after all.

It was not long before I saw what I assumed could only be my destination peak over the horizon.

It was a mountain. A mountain island. More precisely, an underwater mountain that had breached the surface and created an island.

A beach of sugar white sand lined the westerly side of the island, circling around to the other side of the mountain. To my delight, I spied several Water Trees growing on the island. Otherwise, however, there did not seem to be any signs of other remarkable flora.

I began descending slowly in preparation for landing, aiming for the soft, sandy parts of the beach. However, when I banked left to line up, I saw something around the edge of the mountain peak. It was the tip of something fairly tall, and colored in a way that immediately reminded me of the Archway's metal alloys. I narrowed my eyes, keeping my eyes on the barely visible object, coming in for a landing.

I kept walking around the beach, circling the mountain to get a better view of it. What I saw amazed me.

The building started on the beach, and extended out a fair ways into the water. Heavy over-engineering was present on the boxy, black-metal walls of a rectangular base, before shooting up into a tall tower, which in and of itself was almost reaching the peak of the mountain. As I drew closer, a heavy growl of a type of magic simply foreign to me could be sensed coming from deep within the building.

"Hello?" I called out, "Is anypony still here?"

Nothing. I could not see any signs of hoofprints or other recent activity around either, and the building also had the marks of aging, yet none of the rust. I sighed, my hopes that the building might still be inhabited were looking dim.

I noticed what looked a lot like a General Key, but this one instead lying in pieces on the path towards the building. It lay in about five pieces, and had stopped glowing. However, the hum of the magical enchantments within was still apparent. I picked it up and placed it in my "backpack". I briefly wondered what kind of force it must have taken to smash the artifact into so many pieces. I doubted I could do it even at full power.

While there weren't any windows leading into the building, there was a fairly obvious front door. Not a traditional door, mind you, just a magic shield placed within a door frame. I experimentally poked it, and the shield held steady. Extremely so. I doubted that Canterlot's Invasion Shield was that strong.

Right above the shield was an elaborate sign. I noted an emblem that looked... oddly familiar. The central piece of the emblem was an almost exact copy of Celestia's cutie mark. The mark was surrounded by unfamiliar imagery, however. Strange stars and constellations, unreadable lettering, and several military items such as swords and shields were littered around the emblem. Right below it was written in Canterlot Equestrian "Her Majesty's Royal Marines".

Above it seemed to be the name of the facility in general, and it confirmed a niggling theory that I had on the purpose of the building. It read "Primary Surface-to-Air Quarantine Enforcement Platform".

I noticed a definite link in power between the shield to a nearby terminal. I frowned, another automated function. Who knew? Maybe all of their buildings were naturally abandoned, only run by their automation and kept maintained by their preservation spells.

As I approached the terminal, I startled a little as the a panel covering automatically unlocked and flew open in front of me. Under the panel was a slot, helpfully denoted by a copy of the lettering used on my General Access Key. I eyed the slot suspiciously. Hmm... well, I guess peg A goes into slot B.

I gingerly placed the Key I had found back on my home island and slotted it into the panel. I backed off as the panel slid shut again, seemingly sealing my Key in there. Not before long, the sudden mechanical whine of the shield powering down was heard as that same mare's voice came from the terminal.

"Access Granted." it simply said.

The interior of the building was simplistic and utilitarian. Not quite dull, more bare and imposing. Deep, ornate carvings were printed into the wall paneling, and everything carried an air of imperial authority. No furniture was in sight, and the builders of this place seemed to prefer ramps and wide arches over stairs and doorways.

No dust collected on the floor, and the air was clean, fresh, and cool. I figured that preservation spells were plentiful around this structure, maybe some traditional mechanized ventilation as well. I thought I could hear some kind of humming inside the walls, perhaps that was the ventilation?

I began to become nervous as I went through a few corridors, uninterrupted and without finding anything of note. After a few minutes of idle wander, I turned a corner and found something that was, at the very least, something to examine.

It was another machine, a small boxy little thing sitting in the center of a walkway. A holographic projector gave a sort of display above the console, which currently displayed a big "PUBLIC ACCESS TERMINAL". So, it was a computer of some sort, perhaps it could serve me with information.

The display brightened slightly as I approached, and I noticed the projection actually turn to face down at me as I came closer. I gulped, reaching out cautiously to try and... interact with the image. To my suprise, the image was solid, and it gave a "beep" sound when I touched it.

What came next, I must admit took me completely off my hooves.

The machine reached out to me, confidently grabbing a hold of my horn and interfacing directly with my magic. I could feel a twinge in my horn as my heart raced, and shut my eyes as I half-expected to go up in an epic explosion. However, when I noticed no hostile actions taken by the machine for a few minutes, I slowly began to open my eyes.

The display on the console had changed to a bright orange "LOGIN" icon, and a smaller symbol saying "OK" flashed periodically beneath it. I panicked a bit as I realized that I no longer could move my hooves to reach up to the image, instead the machine had seemingly stolen all my focus away to its own intent. I quickly tried to pull my magic back, hoping it would maybe break my connection with the machine.

To my immediate relief, the machine seemed to automatically release me, and my senses came rushing back to me. The display changed briefly to an "ACTION CANCELLED" screen, before it reversed to its original state. I furrowed my brow, reconsidering.

I got up, reaching out to touch the display again, and I steeled myself as the process begun again and my magic was seized.

Instead of backing out of the machines grip like a little filly, I reached out with my magic and felt around. Several triggers were immediately apparent, and I suddenly realized the function of this computer. Simply, there were no buttons or levers to activate this machine, it was controlled by directly interfacing with its user's magic. Fascinating.

I realized that one of the triggers was related to the flashing "OK" symbol on the login screen, so I pressed it with my magic.

The machine seemed to process my input for a moment, before the display changed once again. I would have jumped, if I had control over my limbs, as I heard that same mare's voice talk to me again.

"Welcome back, Director Twilight Sparkle. It has been approximately one thousand years since your last login date. Would you like to update your profile status?" It said, but I noticed a certain hint of warmness to her voice now.

And, wait what!? Director? I have had a fair few titles in my time, from Princess to Head Librarian to Destroyer of Worlds... but I've never been a director of anything! Was this computer mistaking me for somepony else...? Somepony else who had the same name as me?

I mean, it was quite... possible, that... well... maybe. Then again, maybe not. Well, actually, no... no yes! That made sense, but did it? It couldn't be, it must really just have me confused for somepony else.

Right?

It was a big maybe, but... perhaps this universe I had been dumped into also had a Twilight Sparkle? A Twilight Sparkle that was also a Director of something? Then again, did it say it had been one thousand years since "Twilight Sparkle" logged in? I would have assumed that if the time spell was going to place me somewhere with a version of myself, it would at least place me in a contemporary time period. I also thought I was on a different planet! How would another version of myself end up all the way out here in this forsaken planet?

I mentally shook my head. What had I gotten myself into?

I looked back up at the display, and it currently showed what looked like a... document.

A picture of... me... lay in the top right corner of the current display. Albeit, it was a slightly more pudgy version of me, and although I could only see "my" face in the picture, I could tell by the length of "my" horn that "I" was still a unicorn. I also noticed a pair of, well, distinguished spectacles resting over my eyes, as well as a slight streak of grey cutting across the fringe of my mane.

Beside the picture was the title of the document: "DIRECTOR TWILIGHT SPARKLE - GENERAL INFORMATION". Paragraphs of text were laid out beneath it.

First Name: Twilight
Last Name: Sparkle
Family/Affiliations: Night Light, father, Twilight Velvet, mother, Shining Armor, brother. Coalition City Zone AA-0001c "CANTERLOT".
Planet/Zone of Birth: Coalition City Zone AA-01 "CANTERLOT", Planet Equus.
UNIVERSALID: 18293053-PNX21-C285
LOCALID: AL-OP
Current Coalition Assignment: Medicinal Research, Coalition Research Zone MP-4546b.
Last Recorded Location: Coalition Research Zone BP-4546b, Quarantine Enforcement Platform

Local Details:
Rank/Position: Director of Operations, Head of Biomagical Research.
Current Status: !INFECTED!
System Access Level: Unlimited.

[ERROR -106. UNABLE TO PRINT FURTHER DETAILS DUE TO NETWORK LOSS, PLEASE CONTACT YOUR NETWORK ADMINISTRATOR]

Well, if that wasn't a veritable avalanche of information.

I reread the document a few times, trying to make sense of the terminology and the details. What was this Coalition? My current status was "Infected"? With what? Universal IDs? Local IDs? Well, those were the unanswered questions, at least, but they did provide some pieces for me to solve the puzzle with.

This alter-Twilight Sparkle was obviously just that, this timeline's version of me. Somehow, I ended up in this... place... due to Starlight interrupting the Rainboom, as the director of some kind of medical research project. Obviously, due to the writing on my General Access Key, to research a cure to whatever virus it was. Wait, was that what this thing was saying I was infected with? Or maybe it was just saying that alter-me was infected with it?

I didn't feel sick...

Well, I was quite happy about the profile information stating that my security access level was, and I quote, "Unlimited". Perhaps I could gain more headway around these machines now, I mean, they would be made to listen to someone with unlimited access, right? I hoped so.

I exited the document, touching a magical trigger named "Exit to Menu". In the "Menu", a large flashing red icon told me that, apparently, the computer did not have "Network Access", whatever that was, and couldn't give me a its full range of functions. I assumed this was why several options on the screen, such as "Intranet", "Remote Communications", "Update Map", and "Network Browser" were grayed out. The options that were left were things such as "Exit Terminal", "Local Voicelogs", "Access Local Functions", and "Access Local Files".

I moved my magic, and selected the Local Voicelogs first, moving from the top to the bottom.

Three options presented themselves: TWILIGHT SPARKLE-001, TWILIGHT SPARKLE-002, and TWILIGHT SPARKLE-010. Curious, I selected the first entry on the list.

Suddenly, I heard a conversation replayed for me, I most definitely recognized one of the voices as my own, and... I believed I also heard Rainbow Dash's voice as well!

"Director!" I heard Rainbow say.

"What is it, Commander?" I heard myself say.

"I would... like to question the legitimacy of the submersible cruisers you had shipped to us." I hummed, it was Rainbow's voice for sure, but it didn't sound like she was talking to me. Or, well, an alter-me. She sounded instead like she was just talking to a superior, not a friend.

"What's wrong with them?" I heard alter-me say in an uninterested voice.

"Frankly, Director, they're not much better than scrap," Rainbow huffed, "They leak, they rust, those weapon systems just seem to endlessly jam. I don't like the chances of my ponies going down there with something that flimsy!"

I heard shuffling, and I envisioned alter-me turning to Rainbow, "Commander, I'm afraid you'll just have to deal with what you got. More and more planets are going under Quarantine Protocol, and our supplies are getting fewer and farther between."

"Sure, sure. But where'd you even get these models from? A primitive could build this piece of crap!"

"They're old Griffon models, and they work just fine."

"Fine? Yeah, sure, if we were going on a sunday afternoon cruise, they would work fine. But have you seen some of the Leviathans out there? We were sent here to contain them, not for them to toss around our ships like ragdolls!"

I heard alter-me sigh, and the recording went silent for a few seconds, "I'm sorry, Commander, but this is all we can do. Either find a solution, or find a solution. Quite frankly, all of the Coalition depends upon us final research sectors to find a cure to the Kharaa," alter-me took a deep breath, "Maybe talk to... what was her name again? Ah, yes, CTO Pie, maybe she can find a fix for your submersibles."

The recording ceased, and I was put back to the list of voicelogs. I could at least empathize with Rainbow, I had seen those Leviathans first hoof (at least, I think that was what she was talking about). Also, alter-me had mentioned a "CTO Pie", was Pinkie in this place? What were the chances that the rest of my friends were here as well?

I decided to leave all those questions be for now, and I selected the next log on the list.

Alter-me sighed, "You're wasting my time."

I was pleasantly surprised to hear Rarity's voice, "Ma'am, we've had nothing but... minor resistance up in the polar regions. I'm telling you, our only options left on this planet are right here."

"No, Doctor Belle, our best chances were up in the poles. We only have a few weeks left before we need to move camp anyway. I'll admit that this planet's ecology is unusually diverse, but if we tear apart every planet we come across, everypony will be dead before we can find anything of value."

"Yes, Director, but prove to me one thing, have you ever come across a planet with this much biodiversity?"

"Yes I have, but Earth was more about diversity in subspecies. This planet just decided to have plenty of smaller species."

"Exactly. While I do not doubt your... expertise in biomagic, I am your head of Genetics. I know there has to be at least one species on this planet with resistance to the Kharaa!"

"We've already given exposure to 70% of the planet's population, and while you are right about me not being a geneticist, I do know how to operate a calculator. On the principles of evolution and genetic inheritance, there's little to no chance that, if 70% of the population is vulnerable, that we'll miraculously find something with complete immunity," I heard alter-me sigh wearily, "We've already wasted enough time on this planet, Doctor, the transport arrives next week. Please have your crew ready to leave by then, or perhaps we'll leave you behind."

I heard Rarity give a haughty huff, "Well then. If you'll excuse me, Director, I believe I will take a swim."

"A swim? In these waters?" a hint of surprise had leaked into alter-me's voice.

"Yes, I do think it will be more fruitful than talking to you."

The recording cut, and I wordlessly selected the last recording.

I heard a loud, moaning siren in the background, and the hurried hoofsteps of, who I assumed was, alter-me.

"Warning - Planetary Quarantine Protocols initiated. Quarantine Enforcement Platform online. Infected individuals may not leave the planet." the very same mare's voice as I myself had heard echoed through the halls in the recording.

A heard a magical whirr and the sound of a energy shield powering down, before alter-me's voice rang out, "Spitfire!"

The pounding of hooves ceased, "D-director! Don't get near me!" I heard the voice of Spitfire, who I had only knew in my timeline as the captain of the Wonderbolts.

"Captain... y-your infected..." Alter-me whispered. Infected with what?

A series of coughs broke out through the recording, which I could only assume came from the "Infected" Spitfire, "Yeah.
Wh-where have you been, huh? Commander Dash said she tried to contact you..."

"I've been in Containment, the Doctor found something... then I heard that the Quarantine Enforcement Platform was powering up..." a pause, "What happened? We had our Kharaa samples secured in Research!"

"Yeah. I dunno what happened. I was coming back from patrol, and the Commander tapped on our window..." Spitfire broke into another fit of coughs.

"Hey, pony up. We have to switch this thing off, the polar regions haven't been infected yet, they need to be evacuated."

"We... we can't, I'm sorry. I-I must have not been think-thinking clearly. You're contaminated now," another fit of coughing, "we can't switch it off..."

In the background, I heard a profanity leak from the mouth of alter-me.

The recording snapped off suddenly, and I gulped. It sounded... serious. An epidemic? A thousand years ago? Aside from that one Crabby I had seen earlier, everything around me looked fairly healthy. Was that why this whole place was abandoned? Just a ghost building, running on maintenance spells after losing its masters?

Could a disease like that survive for one thousand years? Perhaps it was best to leave all those questions be for now.

Since there were no more logs available to me, I backed out of the log menus. Back on the main screen, I tried "Access Local Functions" options. The menu that followed had an excessive amount of grayed-out options, that simply said "UNAVAILABLE" instead of actually telling me what they once did. The ones that were left were "Environmental Lighting", "Intercom", and "Dock Tablet".

The first two actions did what I expected, they switched the lights on and off and turned on an intercom, I did a quick broadcast message through the entire building, asking if there was anypony still around. After a few hopeful minutes went by, I subconsciously pouted and turned the intercom back off. I had a feeling that the facility was abandoned, but one could still hope.

Finally, I tried "Dock Tablet", after a moment, the terminal replied with: "User's Tablet Already Inserted, Eject?"

I gave a magical "Yes".

There was a mechanical click as something out of my view appeared... in a strangely slow manner. I blinked, quickly navigating my way to the "Exit Terminal" button.

The world rematerialized around me, and I found myself gasping. The object I had seen earlier suddenly clattered to the floor, a purple glow catching my eye. I bit my lip, picking it up with my telekinesis. I jumped a little as the tablet suddenly turned green in my magic, and I felt that slight pinch in my horn again as the tablet grew brighter green.

I dropped the tablet, raising my eyebrow as I stared at it cautiously. It ceased glowing green, and instead resumed that same purple glow that I knew from the General Access Key. It even held that same symbol from the purple tablet.

I picked it up again experimentally, getting an idea. I pushed into it like I did with the terminal. Like I had expected, the tablet interacted with my magic. The tablet seemed to forgo the "login" formality, and it instead cut straight into a menu quite similar to that of the terminal's.

I interacted with the "Voicelogs" option again, wondering if the tablet held anything different. Apparently not. Just the same three logs. I exited. The only thing different about the tablet seemed to be that the option for "Access Local Functions" was replaced with an option called "Access Spell Matrix".

I went into that option with excitement, wondering what kind of wondrous spells the tablet might be able to conjure up. More disappointment and misery met me as all I found was a bank of greyed out options. Literally the only option available was a "Light Spell".

I turned it on out of curiosity, and lo and behold, the tablet created light.

My mind went back to the first time I examined a General Access Key. I remember finding a blank part in the huge expanse of the diamond matrices. Was the same true in this tablet? Was a great amount of the tablet's full power gone?

I shrugged, and exited the tablet. I checked the terminal one more time, accessing the local files. All there was was an expansive list of "Corrupted Files", I exited the terminal again.

I placed my new tablet (which glowed green when I picked it up, so that made it special?), and placed it in my makeshift backpack, before striking out further into the abandoned building. My expedition was once again quickly distracted as I spied something on a pedestal in the corner of the next room I walked into.

It was... it was a green cube. But oh-ho was it really more than that. As I walked towards it, I suddenly realized that this... object... was the source of power I had sensed when I first entered the building.

I gulped as I eyed it. This thing had enough restraining spells cast on it to rival Discord's imprisonment in stone, which held back enough energy inside it to blow my head off and leave a crater large enough to level the island. I dared not touch it, should my magic accidentally unravel the incredibly complex binding enchantments cast on the cube.

I decided to ignore the incredibly, horrifically powerful cube of unrelenting power for now.

After passing several more rooms filled with more death-cubes of immense power and death, I came to a strange... empty shaft.

I raised an eyebrow, walking forward to take a peek over the edge. The only thing that greeted me was a dead drop down at least ten floors. I leaned forward a little bit, only to scream in terror as an intangible force pulled me off of stable ground and dangled me over the drop.

Suddenly, I plunged downwards, pushed by that same force, I squeezed my eyes shut, half-expecting to have my bones shattered against the floor of the drop. Instead, the force suddenly let up gently, before stopping me in place right over the floor. It pulled me to a side, before setting me down gently on an adjoining hallway connecting to the bottom of the shaft.

After a moment of collection, I took a deep breath and settled down. Well, I guessed that was this universe's version of an elevator.

Another energy shield blocked my forward progress, and another terminal with a slot for a General Access Key. I took out my new tablet, it again glowing green as it floated in my telekinesis. I hesitated to use it to unlock the shield, yet... I didn't see another way around it. I also now knew how to interact with other tablets I would probably find... considering it seemed to be fairly easy to find around these buildings.

I would probably find a way to bust the thing open if it just ate my key again.

The tablet began glowing purple again as it left my telekinesis. I held my breath as I expected the console to simply close up around my precious new Key again like it had the first time. Instead, the panels remained open, and, not before long, the shield powered down.

"Access Granted," the mare's voice said once more, and the tablet was ejected from its slot back into my magic, it beginning to glow green again.

Pleased, I walked through the opened forcefield.

The room was a large, expansive space, the ceiling towering above me. A giant rectangular pool of water took up most of the floorspace in the room. I peered through the surface of the water, and I noticed that an underwater entrance lay at the far end of the room, making the room a giant pressure chamber. Was it a water dock for submersible ship?

Alter-Rainbow Dash had mentioned submersible cruisers... was this where they docked? Regardless, it seemed that the pool opened up straight into the ocean. Hehe... no thank you.

I gave the water a wide berth.

Another open arching doorway continued on further into the facility, and I pressed forward.

The adjoining room was another tall one. It lead straight up through a series of ramps to another walkway all the way at the top, while another doorway lead away and into another room. I decided to investigate the adjoining room before going up the ramps to whatever lay at the top.

I stepped through a bending hallway and into... another Archway.

It was exactly like the one I had found back on the other island, except contained in a room instead of a large cave. It also had the same panelling in front of it, which I assumed hid the same input port as the one back on my island. Again, it did not seem to be willing to open up and give to me.

Not wanting to go through the headache of analysing the new Arch as I did with the last one, I quickly left the room.

Going back into the tall ramp room, I noticed something that I had not the first time I had walked in. It looked like a display case, caged in by a glass-like material colored the same peaceful green as... quite a lot of the building. Inside, was a strange device that reminded me of the long, damaged white-metal tool I had found back by my habitat. However, this one seemed to be colored yellow, had a thinner frame, longer, and less bulky. Written at the base of the case was the words "T-2300 Plasma Rifle".

I felt that twinge in my horn as I walked closer to the display case. I raised an eyebrow, before lowering my horn and "pushing" into the display case.

The case only gave me one message: "Authorization Level 4 Required To Access This Display Case". They had said my access level was unlimited, right? I interacted once again with the display case, pushing further. To my delight, the display case relented. It messaged me again: "Access Granted," it said warmly. Suddenly, I was kicked out of the interface.

There was a quick, satisfying click as the display case windows opened, granting me access to the "Plasma Rifle" stored inside. Humming, I levitated it out of its case.

Then I made the mistake of toying around with it.

A scream echoed through the empty building as, suddenly, I apparently pulled a trigger with my magic. With an ear-splitting "BAM!", a green beam shot out of the end of the rifle, propelling me upwards ever so slightly, and hitting me in the face. I hissed as I felt a small trickle of blood come out from a cut in my cheek, a rifle butt-shaped bruise forming there. I took a look at where the beam had hit the floor in front of me, and gulped as I saw a gaping black hole in the flooring. I knew for a fact that metal was incredibly tough, so I was quite amazed when I found something that was able to destroy it.

I checked the gun one more time, much more carefully this time. I saw the trigger that I had pulled, affixed underneath a metal guard piece, connected to the gun proper. I also saw a series of small switches above the trigger. They were marked, one said "Safety", which was currently switched to "Off", and another one was labelled "Eject Magazine", which was not a lever, but instead a button. I turned the safety switch to "On", and it made a small click.

I considered my options. I definitely wanted this no-doubt valuable tool with me. After all, who knew when I might need to fight something really big? However, I did not exactly know how to operate it... safely. Although it seemed to me to be something like a crossbow, which wouldn't be more than point it at something I wanted to get hurt and pull the trigger, I also didn't want it to go off while it was in my bag and cause my untimely death.

I hummed, I didn't even think it would fit in my backpack as it was.

I opted to just place it gently by the display case I got it from by now. Perhaps I could find out something about it later on, I didn't believe it would go anywhere on its own anyway.

About two flights of ramps went by before I found yet another object for my attention.

Firstly, another purple tablet rested on top of a pedestal. I gently took it off, and felt slightly disappointed as this one neither seemed to want to accept my pushes into it nor did it glow green when I picked it up. It went into my pack regardless. Secondly, I noticed that the pedestal had a sign on it naming the device's function. It said: "Magi-Tech Repair Station."

I raised my eyebrow, repair station? For tablets?

My eyes brightening, I got an idea. I quickly placed my green-glowing tablet on the station, and just as I suspected, the device clamped in around it. There was a hiss and a hum, and the tablet seemed to brighten for a second. A split second later, the tablet ejected right into my waiting telekinesis.

I quickly pushed into the tablet, going straight through the main menu into the "Access Spell Matrix" section. Just as I suspected, a new option was presented to be available to me. It was labelled "Atomic Re-Organization Overlay". I attempted to interact with it, but all it said was "No valid/legal targets".

Slightly disappointed, but excited nonetheless, I bagged my tablet once more.

Finally reaching the top without further incident, approaching yet another forcefield. Fairly confident, I placed my green-glowing tablet on the security console. Once more, the mare's voice simply informed me of my granted access, before giving me my Key back.

The forcefield powered down, and I suddenly realized how close I was to the building's core of power. I saw it at the far end of the room, a large, encased, green core made out of what I thought I saw was a giant cube similar to the ones before of death and destruction and unimaginable power.

Right in front of it seemed to be a large and seemingly important red button. I raised an eyebrow, and approached the core and its button cautiously. I felt my hair bristle as I came close to the powerful emissions of the core, and I sincerely hoped it did not emit anything seriously harmful to me. Considering I didn't feel sick and I wasn't burning up into a skeleton, I figured I was fairly safe.

The Button was labelled, "Manual Quarantine Protocol Shutdown", it proclaimed. My eyes narrowed as I looked at it, Quarantine Protocol Shutdown? Considering its name and the fact that it was colored red, I seriously hesitated pushing random buttons.

Yeah, maybe not a good idea to turn off a quarantine protocol and maybe infect myself and everything in this place with whatever this facility was built to contain.

I walked away nice and slowly, looking around for another terminal, or perhaps a place to place my tablet...

...When the world suddenly lit up red as a piercing alarm rang through the building.

"WARNING - Unidentified space vessel closing at high speed on a low-orbit approach. Quarantine procedures in place, automated firing sequences authorized. Transmitting warning message..."

My eyes widened as I felt the intense emission from the core worsen, feeling strangely hot as the ambient light brightened. I suddenly felt the need to...

RUN!

I had still made sure to take the Plasma Rifle along with me as I ran back through the facility for the only exit I knew of: the front door.

The elevator whirred as it levitated me up to the higher level, and I winced as the mare's voice came back in over the intercom and the alarms seemed to speed up, "Error - Unable to broadcast warning message to incoming vessel: Network Error -106, Unable To Connect to Communications Network. Proceeding with beam activation procedures."

I finally saw the bright lights of day outside as I charged out of the front entrance, stumbling out into the sand. I turned around to look at the facility, the red lights still flashing.

...What I had thought was the building's fortified main tower had... tilted, and I saw a large port covering the end of the... cannon. It was a humongous gun. Something larger than even the Equestrian navy's largest monitors, and it was aiming for some... target that I could not see.

It was actually aiming far above the place where my home island was, straight up into the air a good few degrees.

"Unidentified Space Vessel is continuing its approach. Automated firing sequences authorized. Starting firing sequences."

I could hear a crescendoing roar coming from the gun behind me, and I subconciously ducked as the gun... fired.

It was a brilliant blaze of green, pure, focused energy, and the sound made my ears start to ring. The beam passed far overhead, disobeying gravity, and I thought I could see an explosion in the distance as I assumed the beam hit its target.

"Target hit with glancing force. Damage dealt: Significant. Unidentified Craft Crippled, projected to crash into the planet with extreme force. Projected survivors: 0. Damage sufficient. Returning to neutral state."

There was a loud groan as the cannon turned around, returning to its tower-like state I had seen it in the first time, and the red lights finally switched back off.

Then, the sky turned into a meteor storm.

I turned around to see a gigantic, burning fireball coming down dangerously close to straight towards me. It was at least as large as a mountain, and I could see some of the "mountain" around the blazing fury of the fireball. It was... not a mountain... and it wasn't an asteroid. I couldn't exactly tell what it was, but it was obviously whatever the Quarantine Enforcement Platform had targeted.

Chunks of the object tore off from the fiery fury, some going down in the ocean far off to the north and south, while others splashed down into the ocean not too far from me. I was frozen in trance, watching the fireball grow closer and closer, unable to take my eyes off the sight.

Closer and closer it grew, until I could actually see the individual tongues of flames of the fireball. Then...

BOOM.

The fireball smashed into the ocean, sending water into the air. The ground under my hooves shook as the fireball plowed through ocean, and more chunks of fire flew off it, landing in the water. I gaped as I just... stared at it.

It couldn't have been less than a mile long, and it was alight almost the whole way down it. A sudden, unfathomable edition to the expansive ocean around me. Though, what came next only topped off what had so far been a day of insanity and discovery.

A humongous tidal wave that rippled outwards from the crashed object, a tsunami of water coming. Straight. For. Me.

I heard a loud moaning alarm from the building around me as the tidal wave blocked out the sun.

"Warning - Tsunami detected."

Abandon Ship

View Online

I cautiously switched off the front door shields with my green tablet, poking my head out into the, now-decimated, island.

The unexpected tsunami had done well in flattening out most of the foliage and turning the sandy beach into a mile of muck and puddles. The sea was still upset, and waves crashed fiercely on the rocky shores. The Quarantine Enforcement Platform seemed to be absolutely fine, with nary a scratch on its green-tinted, metallic surface.

However... the thing that had been shot down... the flaming mountain that now sat comfortably in the sea... it was still there, just staring at me. The fires had died down slightly, however, and I could see a few more features of the strange... craft. Yes... a ship, of some kind.

It seemed like yet another thing from a sci-fi novel, yet another reminder of how far from home I was. It was predominantly white, and I squinted as my mind immediately drew a connection between the... spaceship and the white-metal technology I had discovered before. It was oblong, and was shaped vaguely like a seafaring ship, with a bow and a stern. Except, it didn't have any sails, nor did it have a steam-operated mechanism.

Woohoo... another piece of technology I didn't understand!

I wondered to myself if the ship was made by the same creatures who made the habitat back on my home island (was that still standing after the tsunami?) It sure seemed similar to their rounded, futuristic builds, and the blue glowing spots on the ship sure looked familiar to the panels on the metal boxes. Then again, I could be making the mistake of taking technology I couldn't understand and differentiating it from technology I could loosely relate to. Maybe they were completely different. After all, most trains looked fairly familiar back at home... made out of wood and some iron and spewed smoke, right?

I had only one question: were there other intelligent creatures on that ship? I know the recorded voice from the Platform had announced that it predicted no survivors... but maybe? Just maybe? Surely it couldn't know everything! I just wanted to talk to somepony damnit!

And why did the Platform shoot it down without question? There was, as far as I knew, nopony was piloting the gigantic cannon on the roof, so had the structure been built specifically to magically identify and shoot down anything that came in range?

I briefly considered flying over to the ship immediately, but then the shadow of the Quarantine Enforcement Platform niggled at the back of my head. I hadn't explored it fully, perhaps there was a way to turn it off? If any other ships like it came along, I didn't want them to meet the same fate. They were probably the only way I was going to be rescued from this Tartarus of salt water and burning sunlight and ghostly sea creatures that would come from the deep and swallow you-

What was I talking about again?

Right, the Quarantine Enforcement Platform. Perhaps I could find more answers in there. Besides, I doubted I could safely approach the ship without cooking alive from all the fire licking up its white-metal hull. I briefly wondered where all the ponies in this place got all their metal from to make their technologies and buildings. Back in Equestria, workable metal was a valuable commodity. Gems were plentiful, but you couldn't exactly build a steam locomotive out of diamonds (we had tried). Gold was too soft and melted too easily, and silver was about as common as shale and about as useful as it. There wasn't enough iron on the face of the planet Equus to build stuff like this...

I walked back into the cool interior of the Enforcement Platform, and I, after a small spike of paranoia, switched on the shield behind me. I began my descent through the facility once more. To my immense relief, the building didn't do anything suspicious as I made my trip once more. The levitation ride down the shaft still gave me a pause, but I just took a deep breath at the bottom, and continued back to the point I was.

The now-opened display case where the Plasma Rifle was sitting as well as the deep burn mark in the floor were exactly how I left them, although the burn mark had stopped smoking by now. I began my upwards ascent once more, taking the ramps up to the top of the tall room.

At the absolute top of the chamber, I found another green magical shield hooked up to a terminal. Written in bold above the entrance was: "RESTRICTED AREA: AUTHORIZED PONIES ONLY". Unless the terminal readout was lying to me... I had access to everything here...

The shield powered down and dropped as soon as I floated my tablet next to the terminal. Bow before me, I, the holder of the mighty green tablet!

Whatever the last room was, it sure seemed to be a pretty dead end, with no other exit corridor visible on the walls. The room itself was long, rectangular, with a long walkway going through the center and a lowered floor off the left and right. At the far end of the room was a huge, pulsating... machine. I felt a burning pressure against my horn when I looked at it, I could tell that it was the major source of power in this building. I raised an eyebrow when I noticed a large, rectangular, and most importantly: red button.

Something told me that pushing a big, red button connected to a source of immense power was a bad idea.

It apparently didn't stop my curiosity as I trotted closer and closer to the glowing, green core and its accompanying glowing, red button. I was soon at the base of the humongous core, and could feel the throbbing of its power on all my sources of magical sensation: horn, wings, and hooves.

What had they, all the iterations of me and my friends from this universe, really been trying to do? I mean, yeah, they were here to cure that strange disease, Kharaa. However, did that really necessitate the dedication of a magical power source this immense to energize this facility, which in itself was a cannon to shoot down anything that broke quarantine? If that was truly what it was, then this... disease... must have been a serious one indeed.

Alter-me had made it quite clear that all that the ponies were here to do was to research a cure. In fact, she seemed desperate to move on as soon as it seemed like they had exhausted most of their options. I wondered how different Alter-me was from... well... me. I thought that if I were in the same situation, I would probably comb every square inch of this place. I wouldn't be able to get over the nightmares of leaving a job incomplete, after all!

A notable detail to the Red Button was a label "Restore Facility Operational Status - Primary Quarantine Override". I hummed, raising a hoof. The Red Button didn't say "Detonate" on it... so...

I bet it would make a satisfying "Ka-Chunk" sound if I would press it...

I reached out, felt the button under my hoof, and then pushed forward. And yes, it did make a fairly satisfying "Ka-Chunk" when I pressed it. The other sounds it made, however, were not as giggle-inducingly fun. Namely, the "thack" as a shield appeared around my hoof, freezing it in place, and the sound of metal links as a strange, tentacle-like arm shot out from the apparatus. "Please hold still," a voice said from the button, before the metallic arm extended a long, sharp needle.

I gasped as the needle turned and shot onto my hoof, and began drawing blood. As soon as the needle retracted, the restraining shield dropped, and I shook my hoof as I tried to shake off the feeling of being invaded. I looked back up at the Red Button, just in time to see the metallic arm retract back into the frame behind the button.

"Subject identified: Director Twilight Sparkle. Access level: Omni. Status: Infected."

Infected...???

"Warning: Infected individuals may not deactivate the Quarantine Enforcement Platform. Security clearance accepted, returning facility to normal operational status. Error. Unable to deactivate the primary power coupling. Automated Quarantine Enforcement still authorized." a voice from the core declared.

I jumped a little as the lights brightened suddenly, and the sounds of whirring became audible in the walls.

"Facility Operational Status restored, rebooting user consoles," the main facility voice declared.

Suddenly, all of the walls around the room I was in rotated, revealing banks and banks of consoles similar to the ones I had found earlier. Displays lit up, and I heard several startling mechanical noises from all around the facility.

"Error: Unable to communicate with other installations on the planet. Error -106, Network Unavailable. Please contact your network administrator. Unable to restore operational status on other facilities, all other facilities retain emergency hibernation status," the same facility voice added.

I looked at, what looked like the primary control console that had unfolded out from the walls. I gagged, my eyes laying on something I had hoped I would never see.

A body. A very dead one.

I slowly and cautiously approached it, brows furrowed as I examined it. Only after my second pass did I finally recognize the pony the body belonged to: in my world, it was the Captain of the Wonderbolts, Spitfire. Her brilliant yellow body was sunken, gaunt, and stiff. She was still wearing a uniform, one quite unfamiliar to me. It held a shade familiar to the rest of the building, slightly greenish gray. There was a small insignia, as well as a patch reading "Her Majesty's Royal Marines".

Her hooves were wrapped tightly around a purple tablet, which, of course, still glowed a dim purple. I took out my plasma rifle, cautiously using my telekinesis to... push the purple tablet out of her dead hooves. I screamed, however, as, when the rifle's... end bit tapped her hoof slightly, her entire body crumbled, turning to dust. I coughed a little as the plumes of dead cells flew into my face, and when I regained my sight, all that was left was an ancient uniform and a lonely, purple tablet.

Long-preserved bodies tended to crumble when touched... I guess a thousand years would do that...

I turned the uniform over, finding a metal pin insignia of Celestia's cutie mark, engraved with the numbers: 03142193-KLA02-N122. I took the purple tablet as well, frowning as I heard a beep from my makeshift backpack. I took out my green tablet, which currently had the words: "Downloading new data..." on its display.

I frowned, and after a moment, the two tablets made an identical beeping sound. My tablet then changed its display to: "Download complete." and then back to its original display of General Access Keydom.

What's a download?

Couldn't be anything extremely important, I put my tablet back in my backpack and took a look at the newly-revealed primary control console. How did I know what it was? Well, mostly due to the fact that it was big, central, and had the gigantic neon words "PRIMARY CONTROL CONSOLE" floating above its interface. I prepared myself, since if the last terminal I had used was any indication, this thing was about to communicate telepathically with me.

I tapped the gigantic floating "Control Console" image, and I felt the twinge in my horn as the world collapsed around me. The first screen the terminal presented to me was another main menu, much like the other terminal's. There were, however, large flashing red lettering spelling out "FIRE ON SIGHT AUTHORIZED" over the "Targeting" option.

I went into "Targeting" to find a plethora of options. The top and currently highlighted option was "Fire On Sight" many of the other options were meaningless acronyms such as "ACS" "ASB" "HID" "MICRO" and "PSB". I selected the last option on the list, since it was labelled "Deactivate Targeting", and then went into that option.

"Access Denied. Infected individuals may not deactivate the Quarantine Enforcement Platform. Infected individuals may not leave the planet."

It kept going on about me being infected. Again, I didn't feel sick! At all! I don't even know how I would've caught their thousand-year-old disease! Biology told me that any disease would die out eventually as wildlife and ponies became immune to it.

I grumbled mentally, and returned to the main menu. I selected the next option on the list "Access Local Files". I hummed as a great number of files were presented to me. Well... time for some reading, hmm?

I noticed a small button at the top of the menu labelled "Upload to Tablet". I did remember there being a file function on my green tablet... could I read them on there? Or maybe I could have them displayed... like... not telepathically? As much as I would enjoy being able to read without moving my eyes or without time moving, I really wanted to relax under a tree and read with the sea breeze on my ba- you know what? Maybe I didn't wanna read by the ocean. Maybe sitting in my cool, shady habitat would be better. Yeah. Not-ocean was better.

I hit the upload button, and I registered a telepathic beep from my green tablet. Waiiit... was that what it was doing? Huh.

For now, though, I moved to the most exciting-looking entry on the list to read now. It was titled "Enforcement Platform Engagement Log". The text appeared in front of me.

0142 02/10/1498 ANM

RED ALERT: Hostile units inbound towards the planet. All defensive systems have been activated. Prepare for orbital defense maneuvers. Friendly units in orbit: HMS Vance, HMS Lancer, HMS Celestia, HMS Predator. Hostile units: Five (5) Maelstrom Insurgent Transport Ships, Seven (7) Maelstrom Destroyers, Two (2) Maelstrom Gunships. Initiating Planetary Support Battery (PSB) Protocols.

Firing Sequence (Manual): HMS Lancer has spotted and marked an enemy transport, adjusting firing path. Target acquisition: targeting crew and life support array. FIRING. Good effect on target, enemy hull breached, significant personnel loss. Damage: Sufficient.

Firing Sequence (Manual): HMS Lancer has spotted and marked an enemy gunship, adjusting firing path. Target acquisition: firing at enemy anti-fighter systems. FIRING. Good effect on target, targeted weaponry destroyed. Damage: Sufficient.

Firing Sequence (Manual): HMS Lancer has spotted and marked an enemy gunship, adjusting firing path. Target acquisition: firing at enemy ASB. FIRING. No effect on target, enemy shield overcharge has deflected artillery beam. Damage: None.

Firing Sequence (Manual): Firing again at surviving enemy gunship, firing path on target. Target acquisition: firing at enemy ASB. FIRING. Good effect on target, enemy ASB offline. Damage: Sufficient.

Firing Sequence (Manual): HMS Lancer has spotted and marked final enemy transport ship, adjusting firing path. Target acquisition: orbital thrusters. FIRING. Good effect on target, enemy craft downed and burning up in orbit. Damage: Sufficient.

All enemy craft destroyed, facility returning to operational status.

0549 08/10/1498 ANM

Planetary Quarantine Alert: all stations go to alert status. Infected Individuals are not allowed to leave the planet. Infected individuals are not allowed to deactivate planetary quarantine status. Fire on Sight is authorized.

0312 10/10/1498 ANM

(Automatic) Cannon has fired on a craft attempting to reach orbit. Reason: Infected individuals are not allowed to leave the planet. Target status: Destroyed. Projected survivors: Zero (0). Craft name: HMS Lancer. Crew: 98 Reported Onboard. Complete detonation of power reactor after direct hit. Craft obliterated.

1341 15/11/1498 ANM

(Automatic) Cannon has fired on a craft entering orbit. Reason: Planet is under quarantine. Fire on Sight authorized. Target Status: Severely damaged. Projected survivors: Five (5). Craft name: HMS Hoofington. Crew: 20 Detected Onboard. Self-Warping Quarantine Enforcer Unit-1932 and 1022 dispatched to location to detain or terminate survivors as needed.

0238 19/11/1498 ANM

(Automatic) Cannon has fired on a craft attempting to reach orbit. Reason: Infected individuals are not allowed to leave the planet. !NO CONTACT WITH TARGET! Target Status: Unharmed. Projected survivors: One (1). Craft name: N/A (Craft is an unnamed Royal Marines dropship). Crew: 1 Reported Onboard. Craft used a teleportation device to confuse targeting sensors.

1442 23/01/2283 ANM

(Automatic) Cannon has fired on a craft entering orbit. Reason: Planet is under quarantine. Fire on Sight authorized. Target Status: Severely Damaged. Projected Survivors: Three (3). Craft name: (CULTURALLY-SPECIFIC UNTRANSLATABLE CONCEPT). Crew: 6 Detected Onboard. Target was on the peripheral of the targeting range of this platform, cannon failed to hit designated mark, and instead disabled ship's thrusters. Ship has gone down in a Dead Zone. Self-Warping Quarantine Enforcer Units have been notified, but no active search is ongoing.

1235 24/04/2498 ANM

(Automatic) Cannon has fired on a craft entering orbit. Reason: Planet is under quarantine. Fire on Sight authorized. Target Status: Damaged. Projected Survivors: Zero (0). Craft name: (Translated) Aurora. Crew: 157 Detected Onboard. Target was large enough for it to require multiple charges to completely destroy it. Unable to charge more than once before craft could theoretically escape targeting range. Orbital thrusters targeted to bring the ship down to the planetary surface. Confirmed damage to detected escape pod bays to prevent crew survival. Ship is still mostly intact.

Wait... that last one... was that the spaceship just outside? Of course, by just outside I meant two miles away. The document described the last ship as too large to be destroyed in one charge, and I'm pretty sure the mountain-sized wreck was... sufficiently large. It was also the last one described in the list... so...

I checked the dates. There was a thousand-year gap between the missed target and the destroyed one. Did nopony really come to this place in a thousand years? Of so, then why all this activity now? I lost some hope upon reading how detailed the reports were... I had a feeling that there really weren't any survivors from the big ship outside. Well... figures. The universe seemed to be determined to keep me lonely.

From Princess of Friendship to the Princess of Being Utterly Alone. Worst of all, I don't think I could ever go back to my own time...

...

There were many other entries on the list, some of which I actually recognized! Classical works, a few twenty-thousand word essays on Starswirl the Bearded (perfect for midnight reading). Books. Some nice reading material for my lonely, friendless nights. Friendlessness. Yep. It's fine. It's fine. It's FINE. I was a strong pony. I didn't need friends! Right? RIGHT!?

Okay? You know how FINE it is now? It's FINE. It's very fine.

Another interesting-looking entry on the local files list was called "Ground-To-Air Gunnery Platform Modular Schematics". I went into the entry, and the machine projected the image of what I recognized as the Quarantine Enforcement Platform, but with none of the island attached to it, fully visible. I have to say... I didn't expect it to be that big...

Ground-To-Air Gunnery Platform.

Installed on Research Zone BP-4546b for defensive and quarantine procedures.

Construction material: Made out of DuraSteel construction amalgam. Imported metals used in construction. Made to be impervious to most kinetic and plasma weaponry.

Power: Designed to be wirelessly-powered by the Thermal Power Reactor in the Active Lava Zone. Emergency power is available on-site using existing ocean currents, emergency power is insufficient for ASB and PSB weapon operations.

Utilities: Personnel barracks to be installed. Moonpool located on Floor B, submersible vehicle recharging, drydocking, and repair systems in place and operational. Control center located by Primary Ion Conduit.

Hmm... another facility you say? In an Active Lava Zone? So... like a volcano? Well, as long as it wasn't underwater and on an island or something, it would be fine. After all, who built stuff underwater? Right?

Maybe I would be able to deactivate the gun if I could disrupt the power station. My basic knowledge of electronics told me that if you stopped the power source, the rest of the thingie would stop working. If I could turn off the reactor, perhaps I could stop the gun from firing?

Why did I wanna stop the gun from firing? Well... because I had a strange feeling... a pretty crazy feeling, actually.

I didn't actually think there was other intelligent life on the entire planet I was on. Alter-me and the rest of the ponies who once lived here had come from elsewhere, using ships kinda like the one that got shot down right in front of me. Coming from... Space. That theoretical thing that existed outside of the planet: Space. Astronomers back at home theorized that other planets like ours existed out in Space. I had laughed at them, of course. All that was out there was Luna's stars and the Cosmic Creatures.

Well, and the Moon of course.

However, here I was. I definitely wasn't on Equus anymore. The huge, red moon in orbit made that much apparent, not to mention the foreign creatures that I had come into contact with. Perhaps the Equestria of this timeline had gone beyond Equus, travelling through this theoretical Space to other planets, crafting those spaceships alike those of Spike's comics to travel. All intelligent signs of life I had seen so far were not from this planet, they were all from their own planets! They had used their own spaceships to come here... which meant that the only way to get here (or get off of here) was by one of those fascinating ships.

And if I was gonna get rescued, I couldn't have this gun-thingie shooting down all of my rescuers.

Secondly, these systems kept insisting that I was "Infected". I figured that if these ponies were so interested in finding a cure for this disease, it was fatal. And while Spitfire could've died from anything, I had a hunch that she died from this "Kharaa", since the recording had stated that she was infected. If I was really infected with a deadly disease, I wanted to know a little bit about it. If there was any treatment for it, it would not be in their military installation (this was an artillery station, so I figured that they couldn't have been using it for all that much research). Medicine would be in another facility on the planet, and this power plant was the only other one hinted at.

I nodded mentally, before going on to peruse the rest of the files. Maybe I could find the location of another facility in this place in their, preferably one that did research. They would have the answers.

Oh. Right. My other objective: Survival. Preferably, find a way to go back home. That way everything would be hunky-dory. Although, my more logical side reminded me that it was most likely completely impossible.

A teensy-weensy bit of hope, me, just a bit of hope.

There were a bunch of other files, filled with a bit of inane data I couldn't make sense of (I guess there was some context the original ponies in this facility would have to understand). I did notice a log named "Research Zone BP-4546b - All Personnel". I entered it with curiosity.

CREW LOG - PERSONNEL REGISTRAR

Director of Operations Twilight Sparkle: Infected (Kharaa contagion)

Commander of Military Operations Rainbow Dash: Uploaded (Physical manifestation destroyed)

Director of Genetic Research Rarity Belle: KIA (Cause of death: Kharaa contagion)

Whelp. The disease was most definitely deadly. Great.

Chief Technical Officer Pinkie Pie: Uploaded (Physical manifestation destroyed)

Director of Ecological Research Fluttershy: KIA (Cause of death: Kharaa contagion)

Director of Botanical Research Applejack: KIA (Cause of death: Kharaa contagion)

1st Lieutenant Spitfire: KIA (Cause of death: Kharaa contagion)

2nd Lieutenant Glimmering Shield: KIA (Cause of death: Kharaa contagion)

My eyes nearly glazed over as I stared at the rows and rows of text continuing down for an eternity. I counted at least two-hundred staff, though I wondered if this list was only for this local area... and if all of the ponies involved in this place were listed.

Also that had most definitely confirmed my theory that the rest of my friends had once been stationed here. And, if the system was correct, I was correct in my assumption that they were long gone. However, I found the words "Uploaded" and "Physical manifestation destroyed" interesting. The terminal wasn't saying they were outrightly dead... what did "Uploaded" mean anyway? I had seen it a few times before... but in this context the word made no sense.

And "Physical manifestation destroyed". What could that mean? Did it mean that their bodies had been incinerated? That would make sense... I guess. Back home, doctor ponies would burn bodies during plagues and other pandemics to keep disease from spreading. Perhaps that's what they were doing here? If so, why did no other KIA reports say that the bodies had been destroyed? Why was this "Uploaded" status only seen with "Physical Manifestation Destroyed".

I shook my head mentally, exiting the file and continuing down through the central control terminal. More green-tinted lines scrolled by my mind's eye, most of them being incomplete files or meaningless information. Eventually, I exited the file system, looking for anything else I could access from this control terminal.

There were other options, although the red flashing text of "FIRE ON SIGHT AUTHORIZED" still bugged me to no end. One of them was "Moonpool Functions". Closing that big pool of water downstairs off from the Ocean sounded good enough to me... and I sincerely hoped there was a way to do that from here. Failing that, maybe I could at least learn something about the specific individual mechanics of this place.

An image of the giant pool of water downstairs was projected onto my mind. Interestingly, I saw several mechanisms hidden in the ceiling of the room in the projected version of it. When I mentally poked them, the terminal lit up with the text over them "Docking systems".

I mentally poked around the functions of the moonpool area itself. There was a function to turn the lights in the area on and off, and there was another function to "Enable/Disable Sonic Repellers". ...Sonic what-nows? They were currently set to on... but I was not sure whether or not I wanted to turn it off.... So, I simply passed over it, adding it to the ever growing pile of things I didn't understand.

"List Registered Vehicles" was an option that next caught my eye. I triggered it with my magic, and up popped a list of several red, glowing boxes. I counted about twenty boxes, all of them bearing a series of numbers and letters that I can only assume to be some form of a serial number. All of these boxes held a mental image of... some kind of oblong... thing. The vehicles looked like they were winged, with two outstretched, stiff metallic "wings" going outwards from a oblong body. It shared its boxy look with the rest of the black-metal technology, and I could see features like hatches and windows on it. Below these images were the words "Griffco Mobile Submersibles", and then the text [REFITTED FOR USE BY EQUESTRIAN MILITARY].

A few of the boxes differed from the others, a bunch of them appeared to be much smaller versions of the others. This time, they missed the wings, instead being small, contained boxy little things with two rings connected to either side of the vessel. They looked to be coloured yellow, and had a visible array of mechanical arms folded into its sides. Unlike the others, they had no hatches or windows, and I wondered if they were automated just like so many other things in this place.

All of the red boxes had the detail attached to them "No Contact", all except one, which was a green colour instead of a red colour. It was one of the larger vessels, with the serial number SKP-01850900. It had the appended detail "Decommissioned for Maintenance", instead of "No Contact" like the rest of them. It also was shown that it was currently docked... and there was an option to deploy it remotely.

I tried that option, it being the only thing available on the screen. I felt quite put out as it gave me a familiar answer: "Error. Code -106. Network not found. Please attempt to access the system directly."

Well... I guess I had less reason to be dissapointed. Unlike the other "errors" it had given me, I believe I was actually in the same location as this one. Maybe I could actually attempt to access this one directly. I kept the pool in mind. While I had no intentions of piloting a submarine in these waters... there could very well be supplies inside, and perhaps more insight as to what was happening around here.

I backed out from the moonpool menu, seeing nothing else to really be done. There was another option in the main screen, "Networking". I predicted it would probably tell me something about how this "Network" was not working and how I should contact an administrator. And it did do so, slamming me in the face with a -106 error again. However, there was another interactable option next to the glowing error message.

"Power Networking"

I triggered it with my magic, and, surprisingly enough, it brought up a screen that was not just a blank white with another error on it! It was, instead, a featureless green with several lines of text.

Primary Power: ONLINE.

Receiving power from Sector A-1 Thermal Plant: 50 MegaSparks/S.

Quarantine protocols enabled - Quarantine Enforcement Platform at top power priority.

Power networking is stable. Quarantine protocols prevent manual depowering of current facility.

Another interesting tidbit of information was not written, but instead transmitted through my magic. It was similar to the interrogation results from the portal on my home island. A location, the origins of a spell. Considering the nature of this page, I felt like I could assume it might be whatever teleportation spell was bringing energy up from the "Thermal Plant".

Catch is, I sensed it to be a kilometer... straight down.

I had said earlier about needing to be a madmare to build underwater, but it seems that is exactly what the constructors of this place decided to do. Build deep in the bowels of the unrelenting, unfeeling oceans. But why? But why, I asked! How was making power all the way down in the depths of the ocean so much harder than building one up here? With all those... monsters I had seen outside, it could not have been any easier than just building up here.

I shook my head, taking one more perusal through the options available from the main menu. Half of them returned with that same error, while others led to screens I could not understand or I could really describe in words. I eventually backed out of the terminal, coming back into the world of vivid reality.

I looked behind me, spying once again the pile of decayed dust and an intact uniform that was once the body of Spitfire. I frowned, walking over to it. I was no superstitious mare, but I had respect for the dead. Sure, she was at least one thousand years long gone... but that didn't mean I couldn't give her a funeral.

Her uniform was a different story, however, as I spied its grey fabrics and rather sturdy and cosy look. Its old owner was a thousand years long gone at this point, and I was in a survival situation where I didn't know when warmth or fabric could save my life. Besides, these Equestrians were centuries ahead of the Equestria I knew, who knew how much they might have advanced in the art of the dress in that time?

I jently shook the dusty remains of Spitfire off the uniform, before gathering the dust into one big pile. Then, I began to shrug on the pegasus mare's old uniform. Surprisingly, aside from a distinct musty smell, it seemed to be mostly unharmed. The fabrics of the uniform clung closely to my body, but did not in any way suffocate me, although the collar was a bit too high for my liking and the wingholes were not exactly made for my oversize alicorn wings.

Beggars can't be choosers.

Then, muttering a silent apology to the dead pegasus, I scooped up Spitfire's dust into a big ball held together by my telekinesis. Then, I reattached my backpack (I had taken it off to put on my uniform), and began to head out, wondering if I could find any functions for that moonpool.

On my way out, I wondered what my next move was going to be. It definitely was not to go down a kilometre below this blasted ocean in search of some enchanted localization signal I had divined from the terminal. If I wanted suicide, I would have done so a long time back on my home island. I suppose that, if anything, this facility had done wonders to my survival chances. My old shelter was nowhere near as spacious, lit up, or as sturdy as this one was, despite this one being seemingly older (then again, I guess the other one might have been aeons older and I wouldn't be able to really tell... although that possibility was remote.)

So I guessed my first plan of action was to move camp to this island instead. This old facility would prove to be more than enough to suit my needs, and was also not infested by Crabbies. Although, perhaps I would also need to find a way to migrate some of the plants over there that I had been using as my food source. I did think I saw more Water Trees outside, so I would be good on a temporary source of intermedial supplies...

I looked at the moonpool as I arrived in it, pursing my lips. I was still carrying Spitfire's remains, which I deigned to spread across the beach outside (I had heard it was a way of giving a funeral to a pony's ashes after cremation, so I guessed it was as good as anything). And as I looked down into the all-too-calm waters of the moonpool, I felt that jolt of fear in my heart again.

I decided that I would put Spitfire to rest before I came back down here to... try and... stay far away from the water as possible.

There was a definite strong breeze outside as I stepped outside of the Enforcement Platform again. Some dust flew off my delicately put-together ball of Spitfire Sand as I took in the vista outside once again. The flaming mountain that was the alien ship towered over me, and I took a deep breath as I once again wondered at the size of the place.

The only reason I had to call it a "ship" was its vague relation to science fiction's flying saucers, and its similarities to the Airships that would constantly dock and fly from Canterlot. I noticed the mighty ship was slightly submerged in the water. The area where it rested must be shallower than I expected, as the ocean so far had been a deep dark deathtrap.

I rubbed my forehead with a hoof. At least I could vaguely grasp the workings of the black-metal machinery so far, I couldn't even fathom how the white-metal technology on the island worked! How was I supposed to comprehend this behemoth before me!?

Calm down, Twilight, calm down. I'm sure everything will be okay. Panic is the first step towards death and yada yada.

I looked at the floating ball of Spitfire's corpse. Well... sorry you had to be put to rest by somepony you didn't even know all that well. Let's just hope some other ponies are alive somewhere in this Celestia forsaken universe.

With a sympathetic frown towards the uncomprehending ball of ash, I hovered it over the choppy, tsunami-disturbed seas and let the dust slowly trickle from my telekinetic ball. Like an hourglass slowly counting down, the ball slowly crumbled out and then depleted from my magical grip. The dust settled on the ocean water, and was carried and then washed underwater by the waves.

"Sorry..." I said, before turning away from the stormed shores of the island.

Now that all that ceremony and gloom was done, it was time to get down to business. I briefly considered making a flight back to my shelter on the other island, packing up the rest of my stuff and flying it back here. After all, the sun was starting to go down and a storm looked like it was going to roll in. I didn't have enough supplies here to survive comfortably, unlike back on the other island.

I decided I would fly back home and recover my belongings for a flight back. And if those stormclouds on the horizon overtook me by then, then I would still have the shelter of the abandoned habitat on the other island. So, I spread my wings, and took flight.

Wind began to pick up as I flew towards my island. Waves crashed beneath me, the ocean upset after the tsunami. It was only while I flew that I wondered if my own island had been upset by the tidal wave the white-metal ship made when it crash landed. I also prayed to Celestia that nothing of mine had been irreversibly broken. Sure... it wasn't anything that I couldn't replace (except maybe the other white-metal tablets), but I had still put a lot of work into that stuff dammit!

I found the island about where I had left it. I took note of its relative position to the giant shipwreck. It was behind the ship's stern (again, applying terms I didn't know applied or not), and I could see the gaping maw of several cone-shaped openings of some sort. I couldn't fathom what they might be for. I realized that the ship could be a great way to navigate my way around this mostly featureless ocean. It was now a gigantic, glowing, incomprehensible landmark.

...I would've taken a mountain or a particularly large tree any day of my life.

It was only as I circled the island to land, as I looked down to try and assess any damage, that I noticed something new had landed on my island. It was round, and made out of white-metal. A big glowing glyph of some kind marked its side, and had the look of a curly bottom with a line going up and then flattening out horizontally.

It was beached on the shore of the part of the island facing the gigantic shipwreck. It had several orange floats tied to the bottom of the sphere, and was bobbing slightly in the waves that crashed against the shore, pushing it further and further up the beach. A long, heavy plume of black smoke belched from the top of it.

I began to descend slowly (it was windy, didn't want to risk wiping out on the landing with all those rocks), and eventually I landed softly on my hooves on the gravelly sand of the beach. I frowned, walking slowly towards the sphere, slightly afraid it might open up and attack me.

Fortunately for me, it seems that this thing was not planning on killing me anytime soon, as I arrived at the base of the pod shortly.

It was about three times as tall as me, about the height of my habitat on this island. There were several yellow-colored rungs going up the side of the pod, and the rungs were designed in the same frustrating way as that one ladder back in my habitat. I flapped my wings a bit, flying up to the top of the ladder (the winds were still high here, but not as bad as up in the air).

As I suspected, there was a hatch here. After all, why make a ladder going up here unless it was a great place to sight-see from. The hatch had a window made from glass, and was currently completely blackened with burns from the inside.

...This thing was on fire, wasn't it?

I grunted and groaned as I yanked on the yellow-coloured handle for the hatch, and eventually some locked up mechanism in the hatch snapped loose, and I was flung by my own force off the top of the pod as the hatch popped open. I landed painfully on my back on the hard sand of the beach. I frowned as I looked up at the sphere, and saw a more solid plume of smoke billow out from its opened hatch. I saw a few tongues of fire lick up from the depths of the sphere through the opened hatch.

And, to complement the mood of the fire, lightning struck on the horizon, and rain began to fall in droves as the clouds rolled on in.

I sighed. I doubted anycreature inside that thing was alive. If it was even meant for passengers. Hay, for all I know it was meant to drop cargo down and it had spontaneously caught on fire. Or hay again! Maybe it was meant to be on fire! Maybe it was an incendiary bomb that the white-metal architects had dropped on me to end my life!

I DIDN'T KNOW!!!

Hahahaahah! I didn't know at all! It didn't make any sense! There was no reason for all these things to be happening around me! No reason for these mysteries to decide I was the lucky mare to try and figure them all out! I wasn't special! I was just a washed up survivor! Why did the ship decide to come here to get shot? Who built this habitat if that cannon has been firing away for the past thousand years!? What was this stupid sphere meant to do? Was it a raft? I didn't even know if the builders of that gigantic ship even knew what a raft was!

I felt like tearing my mane out as I continued to twitch and squirm on the beach, my brain buzzing and wincing as the mysteries continued to swirl. Rain came down in droves, and the fire inside the pod turned into wisps of smoke.

Well... guess I wasn't heading back to the other island in this weather.

I calmed down eventually, taking those deep breaths my friends would tell me about. Although, it was rather hard to take a deep breath in this weather, as every time I opened my mouth I would get nailed with about a bajillion raindrops. Seriously, I thought some of these would hit me so hard they would puncture holes in me. Maybe some of them were and I was bleeding out already!

I shook myself up, realising the crabbies probably had taken over my shelter already. Wait... had I blocked up the door before I left? I didn't even remember at this point. All of the information in this day had overloaded me.

I walked over to the sphere again, realizing the fire inside had died down. I carefully flew up towards the hatch again, curling forelegs around the "ladder's" rungs to help from being blown away. Eventually I made it on top, and I felt my tail being blown in a straight line by the wind as I left the cover of the sphere. I looked down through the open gap into a dark interior.

It was blackened with soot, and several sparks rained from several gadgets and gizmos around the main cabin that I couldn't recognize. Two chairs sat against the walls, which reminded me of rollercoaster seats with their harnesses and buckles.

...one of the chairs was occupied.

My eyes popped open despite the driving needles of the rain as I spotted something harnessed into one of the seats. I couldn't see diddly squat past the rain and the blackened soot inside, so I cautiously put a hoof inside the hatch, lowering myself down into the sphere's interior.

The sounds of howling wind eventually died down as I came inside the interior of the sphere, starting up a light spell on the tip of my horn to illuminate the inside of the sphere.

Aside from the burn marks and the slight layer of water on the floor, the pod was mostly structurally intact. The interior felt similar to the white-metal construction all over the island. Except this one was... newer... and there was also a lot more fancy blinking lights and random text scrawled everywhere.

It was blatantly apparent that there was a fire that had ravaged this area, as everything connected to the floor up to the ceiling was blackened with burn damage. A murky, yellowish liquid intermixed with the rainwater spilling into the cabin, leaking from an exposed pipe of some kind. Sparks fell onto it, and a few licks of flame came from it.

Kerosene, maybe? Did that catch and light the place on fire...?

I looked to the seat that I had seen occupied. My fears and suspicions told me that no living beings were in this place, or else I would've been talked to already.

I was painfully, heartrendingly right once again.

A skeleton sat in the harness chair to my left. It was not a pony skeleton... it was... much taller. It had a long, upright barrel, a rounded, flat-faced skull, and a long pair of forelegs that ended in strange, clawed appendages that reminded me of griffon claws or diamond dog paws. They had long, slender hind legs ending in flat appendages. All in all... this thing reminded me of a tall monkey.

My hoof slammed the floor in frustration as I gazed upon the skeleton. Another dead body. This ocean wanted me to be alone so badly! Why!? Why couldn't I have just one friend!? Somepony to share my thoughts with!

I growled to myself, examining the thing the skeleton was wearing. Did I mention that? Oh, yeah right the skeleton was wearing some kind of orange and black patterned suit. Real fascinating stuff yeah.

I tried to push my frustration aside in favor of rational thought, examining the suit itself. It was a long, rubber affair, obviously built for the creature that was wearing it. It was mostly featureless aside from its design, but it did end in rather strange-looking boots, and there was some goggle-like equipment attached to the neck portion of it. The bottom half of it was very, very burnt up and crispy.

I tried to find a lace or something that kept it together, and eventually found a zip that kept it together like a... like a wetsuit that divers would use. Huh. I wonder if that was what this was meant to be...

...Nah. Who in their right mind would go swimming in these waters.

I must admit I didn't feel as much shame as I should have as I dumped the skeleton out of the rubber suit. I was rather angry at the skeleton for not surviving long enough for me to put out the fire and rescue it. Or maybe it was more just my frustrations and my wet, cold body getting to me as I began to work sloppily around the cabin of this advanced raft (the only thing it could be, as it was made for passengers.)

The suit wasn't made to fit me like Spitfire's was, but its materials might be useful. I noticed a cabinet sitting at the back of the cabin, below a bunch of displays that said meaningless things in the alien language. I curiously went over to open the cabinet, wondering if it was anything like the boxes that I had opened the first time I came to this island.

Lo and behold, that was indeed the case.

Inside were two of those Bricks of Disgusting Flavor, those rations that I had trouble stomaching. There were also two, long silver-colored cylindrical devices with red, rounded caps. I pocketed them for later, notice the water was beginning to rise in the cabin as the rain intensified outside. There were two bottles of water in here as well, and I figured that if they were anything like the water in the crates outside, they were drinkable as well.

I noticed another cabinet on the wall, one with a big red cross on the front. From experience, I had deduced that the symbol for medicine was similar for both ponies and the white-metal architects (I needed to call them something else. Perhaps now that I knew what their skeletons looked like I could give them a name).

I fondled the cabinet for a handle of some kind, only to find it was a narrow slit built into the side of it, meant to be grasped by something smaller than a hoof. A tool of some kind, maybe? Anyway, telekinesis did perfectly to wrench the cabinet's lid open.

Fortunately enough, there was another small, rectangular casing inside that held similarities to the medical kit back by the white-metal construction. I took it, looking it over.

I wondered for a moment. Despite not using magic in their construction, these white-metal people had managed to do things ponies needed magic to do. I briefly wondered if they had already found a cure to what ponies were working on thousands of years ago. Maybe it was as simple as popping some of their pills...

I shook my head, self-medicating was not a good idea generally, especially when you didn't know what the labels said. It was wiser to just use the bandages in the kits. At least I knew what they did. ...And if they weren't doing what I think they did, then I should already be dead or at least feeling some of the negative effects.

I had no comprehension of what the rest of the things around the cabin did. There was this box affixed to the wall with a red, cylindrical button-like protrusion on it and wires heading into the ceiling. It was currently spitting sparks, and hitting the button did absolutely nothing.

There was another more rounded, smooth box against the wall next to the supply cabinet, but I couldn't exactly figure out how it worked either. I pulled and tugged on what looked like a handle or a tab of some kind located in the middle, but it didn't seem to want to open up. Or maybe that wasn't the case at all, and it was just made that way.

Again, I didn't know!

There was a big display screen of some kind sitting above the cabinet. Several lines of alien text were written on it, some were colored white and some were colored red. There were also several cylinders of some kind attached next to them, a few of them sparked and buzzed as well...

However, unlike some of the other parts of this place, they reacted to me touching them with my telekinesis. In fact, they pulled out slightly on me tugging. Some more work later, and the one entire cylinder popped out from its socket and crashed into my face. ...I really needed to watch how hard I tugged on things when it came to white-metal technology.

The cylinder was about as tall as me, and had a handle on the top and bottom. Several grooves along the side revealed glowing blue... stuff.. that I couldn't exactly recognize. I put it aside, tugging out the other ones. Some of them were completely locked into place, and those were the sparky-sparky buzzy ones. The others came out. Funnily enough, when the final one came out, there was a whirring sound as the lights went off on the display and everything seemed to lose its mechanical life.

I sat there confused for a bit, before I realized and made the logical conclusion that these cylinders were involved in the sphere's mechanisms somehow. Maybe they were power sources or something.

I looked around one final time. Aside from a panel with a bunch of wires hanging out, there seemed to be nothing left that I could understand inside this sphere. The rain had leveled off into a steady beat of roaring thunder and driving rain. The place I was in was rocking slightly, and I realized it might not be the best idea to stay here forever, lest I be in this sphere if it came away from its beaching on the island.

I climbed the ladder again, using wings and magic to help me up the unintuitive design of its rungs. I forgot how painful it was until I stuck my head up out into the rain again, feeling the pounding needles of the storm thrash against me. I summoned my telekinesis, picking up the extremely heavy cells up again. I was proud to know that my magic was beginning to pool up into full force again, as I believed those cylinders only weighed half of what my magic could hold.

I struggled and stumbled up through the storm up the slopes of the island, lightning and magical glow being my only lights in the storm.

I eventually saw my habitat up ahead, still there in all its rusted glory. I bit my lip as I soldiered on towards it, the storm battering me about left and right. I remembered the quicksand sinkhole in front of my habitat just in time as I gingerly retracted my hoof from a dark, gloopy dark spot in front of my door. I ducked inside, hearing the skitters of Crabbies inside my habitat already.

I groaned, setting the cylinders down somewhere safe and taking out my knife. I stabbed, ripped and tore through the crowd of angry crabs, using telekinesis to toss them aside. I had bandages, I would survive a few scratches from them.

It seemed some of them remembered the raid on their nest from a few days ago, and skittered off once I came to reclaim my home. The others, however, were eventually beaten back manually with my knife and my magic, running away scared as some of them were stabbed and some of them were vaporized.

I dusted off my hooves, bringing my cylinders to sit as new blockades in front of the entrance into my habitat. The floor inside the large room was flooded again, of course. The rain outside was more intense than it had been before, and I sincerely hoped this was the worst storm it could muster.

I sat up on the desk in the middle of the room, slowly dripping dry. I sighed, laying my tired head back on the cold, hard top of the desk.

...I needed a better sleeping area.

I shut my eyes to try and sleep as the sound of the rain smashing into the roof consumed everything. I would go back to the Enforcement Platform tomorrow with all my stuff. I knew there I could live a lot more calmly. Less crabbies there invading the place, more shelter, no flooding...

I briefly wondered about the strange creature that had been in that sphere outside. It had been my counterparts on this world that had lead to their demise, I guess. I knew there was no I could save them or their ship (and no doubt, countless fellow species members aboard it), but I felt strangely guilty about it. Like I had aimed the gun myself.

I had not, but still...

Speaking of guns. I still had the last bit to explore on that gigantic artillery installation. The moon pool, and whatever was still docked with it. Perhaps if I had the time after setting up my camp in the black-metal structure tomorrow, I could attempt a flight towards the giant shipwreck. Maybe I was too pessimistic. It was mostly intact. There had to be beings that survived the crash.

I closed my eyes to sleep that night with that hope, the cylinders heavy enough and crowded enough to keep my door safe. I cast a noise cancelling spell as the last thing for that night, keeping the sounds of the rain away...

First Immersion

View Online

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.

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.

Subnautica: A Sparkle in the Deep

by The Original Gaston

Salutations

Tropical Eden

Habitat

Ancient Aliens

Abandon Ship

First Immersion