Chapter 3: Gather Specimen
Pinkie Pie leaned back into the chair at Twilight's station, bored, but at least her preoccupation had taken her mind off the horrible lack of delicious treats. She stared at the monitor which was displaying Mother's progress in decoding the alien transmission. Seconds started turning into minutes. The feeling of passing time faded and the screen's pixels blurred, becoming a dancing set of lights and colors. Against the windows of the bridge, the winds of the softening storm seemed to hum a caressing lullaby.
Suddenly, she jumped in her seat, snapping awake. The tired pony yawned and looked around, uncertain of how long she had dozed off for. The lights of the monitor drew her back in and she shook off her drowsiness while she scrutinized the translation progress so far.
"Hmm..." she noted with curiosity. Pinkie Pie turned on a nearby comm unit and called for Twilight.
Inside her bubble, Twilight was also sitting down spiritlessly, her head propped up by her hooves. She gazed outwards, her eyes dry and unblinking, watching as the steady winds rolled the fog over the twisted rock formations of the surface. She always had one eye on the direction the others had taken off in, keeping a vigil and waiting for their return.
The sound of Pinkie Pie's voice startled her, and she haphazardly spun her chair back to the control console and switched on her comm. "Yes, Pinkie, what is it?" she asked.
"The transmission... Mother's deciphered part of it. It doesn't look like an SOS..." Pinkie Pie said ominously.
Twilight nervously glanced about. Almost harshly, she responded, "Well, what is it then?"
"I'm not sure. It's really unclear," Pinkie Pie glibly answered. The pink pony rubbed her chin while pouring over the display. On the monitor, a pixelated, makeshift gallows had been constructed, ready to execute a two-legged pony with missing facial feature. Below the image, the partially decoded transmission read:
WA‒NING
‒ASHED ON ‒N‒HA‒ED PLANE‒OID
‒A‒GO IS VE‒Y HOS‒ILE, VE‒Y AGG‒ESSIVE, VE‒Y DEADLY O‒GANISMS
S‒AY ‒HE F‒‒K AWAY O‒ YO‒ WILL ALL DIE
EVE‒Y‒HING YO‒'VE EVE‒ LOVED WILL DIE
"It could mean ANYTHING," Pinkie Pie mused out loud. After a moment she declared, "I'm going to go out after them."
Panic shot through Twilight's eyes. "What's the point?" she hastily spoke into the comm. "I mean... by the time it takes to get out there, they'll have already found out the meaning of the transmission, right?"
Pinkie Pie wasn't sure how she should take that reply. The breathing of the two ponies were the only noises that broke the long stretch of silence between them. Twilight finally decided to flick off her comm, convinced she had gotten through to her crewmate. She exhaled with relief and turned her chair to face out of the bubble again.
But then Pinkie Pie's voice came through once more. "Are you sure you haven't seen my ice cream? Because I looked all over for-"
Twilight twisted and jammed down a mute key. Once again, she went back to staring in a meditative way at the hellscape of the planetoid.
The portable winch was securely positioned and hooked into Rarity's suit. They placed the device right next to the decaying and broken grating that she had found. The large platform that the trio had climbed upon was actually hollow, having internal, vertical tunnels which trailed down into some unknown darkness. The unicorn hung over the open grate, ready to be lowered.
"But you have WINGS!" Rarity protested yet again.
"You first," Rainbow Dash casually insisted, and turned on the winch.
The device cranked steadily, and slowly it lowered the nervous pony down into the abyss. She kept her head down, looking about frantically. The glow of the headlamp on her helmet followed her vision, searching and scanning the ghastly walls of the shaft.
Over her suit radio, Rainbow Dash's voice came in. "Can you see anything?"
The shaft began to open up into something larger. "I don't... a... a cave, of some sort," Rarity answered. Each meter she dropped she could feel a sweltering humidity growing and it rubbed against her suit uncomfortably. It was a stark change from the dry cold of the planetoid surface. "Ugh... it's like the tropics down here," she whined. Some of her tattered mane collapsed over her eyes and she clawed at her helmet's visor recklessly, despairing at her cruel fate.
Like a curved funnel, the shaft flared out into a preposterously monstrous chamber. Rarity could hardly believe the size of the room; the derelict had seemed quite large on the outside, but not capable of holding a cavity this gargantuan. The walls rolled down into the floor in a smooth curve. The bottom of the room itself was divided into small, recessed pits by many large, raised, bony ridges. Each pit was coated by a laser-like field of glowing blue mist, emanating from a framework buried in the walls and corrugations of the chamber. The cerulean illumination was the only light aside from the unicorn's headlamp.
Rarity fortunately touched down on top of one of the ridges. "Alright, I've landed," she radioed to her crewmates. The winch stopped. "You can come on down now," she said.
"Uh..." Rainbow Dash's uncertain voice came back, filtered by the low quality of the radio transmission. "Why don't you check it out for now? We'll wait up here," she suggested. The line that connected to the winch went slack, allowing Rarity the freedom to move about.
"What? But I- ugh! Fine!" the frustrated unicorn sighed.
Carefully, she walked in tiny steps forward along the ridge and peered down through the thin, blue fog. It was hard to believe that whatever this was, it was still active after both the ship crashed and the crew had time to fossilize. Then she noticed something odd beneath the barrier. Many things, in fact. She realized that this curious mist wasn't just for lighting and decoration.
"The area... is pocketed with small recessions," she reported to the others, "and they're full of... leathery objects. Eggs, or something." She stopped her movement and bent down, reaching a hoof out towards the strange, blue field delicately. As her hoof got closer to the barrier, the mist itself began to produce a whining, raised pitch. She moved her hoof about, taking it a little further away, a little closer, and the strength of the noise corresponded to how close she was to the mist. Trembling, she very cautiously pushed her hoof through.
The sound reached its peak, but otherwise nothing else seemed to happen. Into her radio, Rarity said, "There's a layer of mist just covering the eggs that reacts when brok-!"
Her balance teetered from leaning forwards too far and she tumbled down into the pit with a yelp. The noise from the blue field screeched for a moment more before abruptly stopping.
"Rarity? You alright?" Rainbow Dash asked with some concern.
"I'm okay," Rarity insisted, getting to her hooves. She gazed around. Nothing seemed disturbed, though the egg-like objects looked even larger and more coriaceous up close, without the distraction of the barrier in the way. They were nearly a meter tall, bigger than any egg she had ever seen in her life. "I'm alright, I just slipped," she informed the others.
Now that she was down in the pit anyway, she decided to get a closer look at one of the eggs and stalked towards the nearest one. Although the surface appeared thick and hardened, there was a softer spot at the top, almost like it was loosely cracked there. She looked over at some of the other eggs and saw that they were identical; the strange tip was obviously part of the design rather than some incident which had befallen this egg in particular. Still, she was unnerved by its foreign nature. Disturbingly, the egg had some kind of dark, thick moisture coming from it. The sickly drops traced a path around the rough contours of the object's surface, not quite seeming to obey normal gravity as they did so. It was like the egg was... sweating.
"Eugh... disgusting looking thing," Rarity complained to herself, sticking out her tongue. She was sure if her suit wasn't sealed it would be the most hideously foul smelling thing to ever reach her nose. Worse than Applejack after spending the day wallowing in a pig pen.
Leaning forward, she tried to avoid getting too close as she began to bring her head over the top of the egg's unusual peak. She wanted a clearer look at it, but no sooner had she gotten her head in place did the egg emit a sharp, rasping hiss. Rarity leapt backwards, scrambling and kicking across the floor until she crashed into the ridge behind her. Fearfully she watched the egg, catching her breath, but nothing more seemed to happen and there was only silence.
Composing herself, she got to her hooves again and stepped forward, pausing suddenly when she noticed the egg seemed to be changing slightly. Its sweat thickened, and more was being produced. There was a light, fluttering noise coming from inside it, and the whole shape of the egg pulsed slightly... as if it were breathing. She focused her headlamp onto the egg more directly, and she could see tiny pushes coming from the inside like an unborn baby kicking in the womb. "I think," she said quietly, shuddering, "that these eggs are still unspoiled... there's movement..."
She was distracted by the top of the egg, which unexpectedly began beating rhythmically like a heart. Frightened, she watched for several moments before deciding to get closer. But she only had taken a single step when the top of the egg started to push open with a squishy, wet creak, and she backed up into the ridge again. The egg did indeed have separate folds on top; four of them. They opened smoothly and uniformly like the mandibles of a hungry insect.
From her cowering position, Rarity couldn't see the now exposed insides of the egg. However, silence and stillness seemed to befell the area again, so she calmed herself down and stood back up. Daring to edge closer, she took very slow and deliberate steps towards the egg, pausing to watch it with every clop forward she made. At last, she was close enough to get a clean glimpse. She swallowed once and raised her head up.
The inside of the egg wasn't housing some alien critter, but instead it seemed to be filled to the brim by some kind of grotesque and fleshy tissue. Pink slime coated everything and ligaments were stretched from here to there, a spiderweb of pulsating sinew. Prominently in the center was some kind of sac or organ which bubbled with activity. It gurgled with a malignant rumble and twitched with subtle spasms.
On top of the platform, by the winch, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy heard Rarity's piercing shriek through their radios. Desperate gulps and gasps for air followed, immediately trailed by a disgusting, wheezing noise.
"Rarity?" Rainbow Dash asked, alarmed. "Rarity!"
The sound of a breathless heaving suddenly came through the radio and they heard her voice again. Horrified, she yelled, "I'm going to vomit inside of my suit!" Her cheeks were puffed out and her lips braced tightly, fighting valiantly to contain the contents of her stomach. When she would stop to take a quick breath, she felt the rising tide of acid again and clenched down, struggling to keep it in.
Her predicament wasn't helped by Rainbow Dash's enthused response of, "Awesome!"
Getting herself under control, she began to feel the unstable sickness pass and took several big breaths. Staggering about from the lingering wooziness, she angrily snapped into her radio, "Rainbow Dash, when we get back... I swear to Celestia that I am going to take the nastiest thing I can get my hooves on and shove it straight down your throa-"
In her unattended stumbling, she bumped back into the egg. When see turned to look, the beating organ inside burst in a shower of guts and sticky mucus. A small creature with many legs and a long tail shot out with a shrill squeal, clamping to the visor of Rarity's helmet. She fell over in shock, kicking about on the floor wordlessly, hearing only the cry of the creature and another sizzling sound it was producing. Her thrashing came to sudden stop and her body laid motionless on the floor of the gigantic chamber.
Rainbow Dash's voice coming through the radio broke the long, dead silence. "Rarity? Rarity? Haha, you puked all over your helmet, didn't you? ... Rarity?"
Twilight was still staring out of her bubble when she saw them. She sat up and squinted to verify. The storm was still present around the Nomastromo, fog and all, even if it had weakened over time. But she was certain. She could make out the distinct outline of their pony pressure suits and the flare from their headlamps. Something clearly wasn't right, however. Instead of three silhouettes trotting back towards the ship, they looked like one mixed blob. As they got closer, Twilight realized that one them appeared injured and was being carried by the others.
Rainbow Dash had Rarity slung over her back as she pushed forward with determination. A frantic Fluttershy floated just above them, gripping one of Rarity's dangling limbs with both her forelegs, but the pegasus barely succeeded at holding the weight up on her own. The two ponies hauled their downed crewmate all the way to the lift at the base of the Nomastromo and set her down on it. Bringing the lift up, they dragged her into the airlock and shut it, beginning the repressurization process.
Flipping on the comm in the airlock, Rainbow Dash shouted, "You there, Pinkie Pie?" She was agitated, yelling to both give herself focus and overcome the machinery that was rapidly and noisily purging the tiny room.
On the bridge of the ship, Pinkie Pie overheard the shout and ran over to some nearby controls. Switching on her comm and tuning a monitor to the airlock camera, she cheerily answered, "I'm right here!"
The airlock finished the purge cycle and began matching the chamber's atmosphere to the ship's. Just outside of the inner hatch, Twilight came running over and turned on the comm there. "Okay, Pinkie, I'm at the inner lock hatch now," she said.
"Right," Pinkie Pie confirmed.
"Hey, Pinkie," Rainbow Dash called in as the airlock repressurization finished. "We're clean. Let us in."
Pinkie Pie looked suspiciously over her monitor. Rarity was sprawled on the floor and something was wrong with her helmet, though the grainy video wasn't distinct enough to determine what. "What happened to Rarity?" the pink pony asked. "She didn't blow chunks in her suit, did she?"
Distracted and anxious, Rainbow Dash replied, "I wish. Look, something has attached itself to her. We have to get her to the infirmary right away."
"Oooooo! What kind of thing? I want a clear description!" Pinkie Pie said with excited curiosity.
"An organism! Open the hatch!" Rainbow Dash bellowed, frustrated by the stalling.
"An orga-what?" Pinkie Pie replied. "Wait a minute, are you tracking bugs onto our clean ship?"
Growing angry, Rainbow Dash cried into the comm, "Rarity could DIE if we don't get her inside, now open the hatch!"
But Pinkie Pie sounded unconvinced. "You know the company rules," she told her captain, "no uninvited guests without approval by an authorized superior."
"I am your superior!" Rainbow Dash roared.
"When the captain goes off ship, the first officer is put in charge," Pinkie Pie genially explained. "I'm going to have to ask Rarity if this is okay."
Fluttershy came on the comm, obviously crying and distraught, hardly able to keep herself together. "Rarity's unconscious! Would you please open the hatch?" she begged. "We have to get her inside!"
"If Rarity's out of commission, that means authority goes to the third officer," Pinkie Pie started to explain before getting thrilled and clasping her hooves together. "That's me! I'm in charge!" she shouted ecstatically.
"OPEN THE HATCH, PINKIE PIE!" Rainbow Dash yelled, only centimeters away from the comm panel.
"Well, if you're going to be like that," the pink pony defiantly said, "then, as acting captain, I'm not going to let you back in. So hmph!"
Trying to bring herself back under control, Rainbow Dash sternly said "Pinkie, this is an order." She was barely able to keep her temper in check. "Open that hatch right now. Do you hear me?"
"Yup," Pinkie Pie responded brightly.
Rainbow Dash watched the airlock door, but it still didn't open. Furious, she screamed into the comm, "Pinkie, this is AN ORDER! YOU HEAR ME?"
Mildly offended, Pinkie Pie replied, "Yup, I hear you, Mrs. Grumpy Dash. But now I can't!" She shoved her hooves into her ears and began singing obnoxiously, "La lala la la lalala!"
The irate pegasus slammed a hoof into the comm panel, nearly breaking it. She was getting prepared to try and bust down the airlock door when suddenly it slid open. Twilight had hit the hatch controls, letting them back into the ship.
They brought Rarity to the top deck of the ship, where the infirmary was located. She laid on a raised cot in the middle of the room and her pressure suit had been almost completely taken off by the other ponies. Only her helmet remained in place. The unknown creature had somehow burned its way through her visor and squeezed itself inside of her helmet. Its spinal ridges were still sticking out of the hole it had left. They wouldn't be able to pull the helmet off with that thing there.
Rainbow Dash and Twilight were in the infirmary as well, dressed in medical smocks and wearing simplistic face masks to protect themselves from anything airborne that they could be exposed to. Standing just outside the sealed door of the room was Fluttershy, Applejack, and Derpy, all of whom watched through the observation window with tremendous concern.
Twilight magically used a small laser-cutter to carefully bisect Rarity's helmet, having determined that that was the only safe way to remove it. The limited beam produced by the cutting device screeched in a high pitched tone as it easily sliced through the metal work of the helmet. When the magic officer had made the final cut, she set the tool aside and enveloped the whole helmet with her magic. With tiny vibrations, it wiggled and shook as she kept adding more and more force until it cracked in half.
The two halves pulled apart and everypony was given a glimpse of Rarity's horrible condition. A small alien creature was tightly clutching on to her face, smothering her. It had a relatively flat and featureless body except for the visible ridges of its spine, and its skin was a pale and putrid brown color. Eight long, finger-like legs reached out from its body and around Rarity's skull, holding the alien in place. The thing's lengthy tail curved down from its back and was wrapped around her neck threateningly. The only signs of life coming from the creature were the extreme tenacity with which it seemed to cling to its victim, and some small sacs that hung to its side and appeared to be respirating.
Besides all that, the time in the helmet had certainly done Rarity's mane no good. Frayed, tangled, and soaked in sweat, it was a hairdresser's nightmare.
"Dear Princess Celestia..." Rainbow Dash murmured to herself with a terrible dread. At both sights.
Passing by the infirmary hall, Pinkie Pie noticed the others gathered there and strode in, curious. "Hey, everypony!" she buoyantly greeted. "What're you doing?"
Not a single one of them acknowledged her, too captured by the gruesome sight within the infirmary.
Pinkie Pie followed their eyes through the observation window and titled her head, trying to figure out what was going on. "Uh..." she knocked on the glass twice, "Rarity! You've got a bug on your face!" she tried to inform her unconscious friend. "It's right... here!" The absent-minded pony stuffed one of her hooves square into her own face to demonstrate.
Twilight walked around the cot, inspecting the creature from several angles. Everything about it fascinated her.
"How're we gonna get that off her?" Rainbow Dash asked.
There was no response from the purple unicorn. She was too absorbed in study.
"How're we gonna get it off?" Rainbow Dash repeated sharply.
Twilight shook back to attention but held up a hoof to her captain. "Just a minute, just a minute..." she said. While she studied the legs of the creature closely, her horn lit up and a nearby medical toolkit opened. A pair of tongs floated out and over to her. "Right... I'm going to try and remove one of the digitals from her face," Twilight determined.
"You're going to do WHAT?" Rainbow Dash asked in stark confusion.
"Finger," Twilight simplified. "Going to try and get his finger off."
"You're going to do WHAT?" the captain said again.
Uncertain, Twilight juggled about some words in her head before settling on, "Going to try and get... one of his legs off. Now, just a minute."
Meticulously, she leveled the tongs in place around one of the many legs gripping Rarity. Steadily she applied pressure and began to gently pull at it.
The face-hugging creature immediately responded by further tightening its tail, clamping down on the poor unicorn's neck. The muscles in the aliens' legs seized up with an astonishing amount of strength, and they dug in to Rarity's skin.
"Wicked! It's tearing her face off!" Rainbow Dash said, thoroughly impressed. She shook her head briskly and shouted to Twilight, "I mean... no! Stop!"
Twilight hadn't missed the threat to Rarity either and released her grip with the tongs. The creature stayed tensed up for a few seconds before relaxing back into a more neutral position.
"It's not coming off without tearing her face off with it," Rainbow Dash noted, making a small aside, "Heh. Awesome." She shook her head again and asked Twilight, "What're we going to do?"
Setting down her tongs, the ruminative unicorn thought for a moment. "We'll have to take a look at her insides," she suggested. She hit several switches on a control board nearby and a glass panel on the wall slid up, revealing a slot for detailed patient analysis. The cot holding Rarity slowly began moving, and shifted into the analysis chamber.
Applejack looked severely worried and turned to the other spectators. "How come they don't freeze her?" she asked. Nopony had a clear response, so she shouted through the observation window instead, "Hey, how come ya'll don't freeze her?"
The cot finished moving into position and the glass panel shut, sealing the chamber. "Alright, you can take your mask off," Twilight informed the captain while magically moving her mask down around her neck. Rainbow Dash complied and pulled hers down as well.
The chamber's scanner rolled up and down, casting a light along Rarity's body. After several passes, various images and detailed readings began showing up on the monitors just above the chamber. The incapacitated unicorn's vitals were alright and at values which would be expected for an unconscious pony. Aside from the strain on her skin from the recent removal attempt, there was no bodily damage done to her. Whatever that thing had done to bore through her helmet, it had been careful enough not to harm her. From a multilayered x-ray image on one monitor, it could be seen that the intruder was up to something with Rarity's mouth, however.
"What's it got down her throat?" Rainbow Dash asked, troubled.
"Considering it got lucky enough to bag Rarity," Twilight conjectured, "I would suggest that's its genitals."
Rainbow Dash reared back in surprise. "That is DARK, Twilight," she told her friend frankly.
Hastily Twilight made a second guess, "Maybe it's feeding her oxygen."
"Paralyzes her... puts her in a coma... and keeps her alive," Rainbow Dash mused out loud. "Now what sort of thing does that?"
Still examining the readings, Twilight didn't even break her stare to succinctly reply, "Parasite."
"It's like... is there any sort of animal that even-" Rainbow Dash continued.
"Parasite," Twilight said a second time, with more emphasis.
"That even... does anything remotely like that?"
Twilight looked straight at Rainbow Dash and yelled with exasperation, "It's a parasite!"
"Well, whatever it is, we gotta get it off her," the captain commanded with authority.
"Just a minute, just a minute," Twilight replied, studying the monitors again. She had a hard time looking away, spellbound as she was by the interesting traits this creature displayed. "I mean, let's not be too hasty. We don't know anything about... it. Now, we're assuming it's feeding her oxygen. If we remove it... it could kill her." She turned back to Rainbow Dash with accusing eyes.
Looking at Rarity once, the pegasus casually shrugged. "I'm willing to take the chance. Let's cut it off her now," she easily accepted.
"You'll take responsibility?" Twilight asked.
"Yeah, sure, whatever," Rainbow Dash agreed.
Both ponies reapplied their masks as the analysis chamber reopened and Rarity's cot swung back out into the center of the infirmary. Twilight went and gathered what tools she would need, preparing a tray. In the observation area, everypony stood or sat quietly and watched the proceedings, either worrying or praying. Throughout it all, the alien stayed still, silent, and menacing, clasped to Rarity's face.
When all the tools were prepared, Rainbow Dash asked, "Where do you want to do this?"
"I'll make an incision just below the knuckle there," Twilight said, pointing towards the precise location. She leveled a laser-scalpel over the target and hovered a piece of gauze just below the site. "Stand by," she murmured as she switched on the scalpel. The end of the tool glowed green and hummed with a sharp whine. Slowly, Twilight brought it in and the beam edged closer and closer to the alien's leg...
When it finally connected to the creature's limb, the sudden slice spilled a vile, olive liquid which poured like a weak faucet. It wasn't nearly as coagulable as would be expected for blood. Twilight instinctively pressed the gauze against the wound, but the fabric immediately began sizzling and burning. A stream of white smoke filtered off its quickly disintegrating remains. The liquid that pooled on the floor had the same effect, rapidly dissolving and eating through the surface.
"Starswirl's beard!" Twilight exclaimed as she withdrew the scalpel and threw down what was left of the gauze.
"That crap's going to eat through the hull!" Rainbow Dash realized, and she charged out of the room in a fervor while throwing off her mask. As she passed the bystanders she yelled, "It's going to eat through the hull, come on!"
"Who's eating what now?" Derpy inquired before getting dragged along by Applejack.
Rainbow Dash dove down the ladder to B deck and raced to the room below the infirmary, stopping at the door. Eyes to the ceiling, she poked her head in cautiously to avoid getting dripped on by the dangerous acid. She hadn't caught sight of anything when an inattentive Pinkie Pie crashed into her from behind, followed swiftly by Derpy and then even Applejack. The ball of ponies rolled into the room and broke apart, equine debris being scattered about. The captain's nose landed mere centimeters from a pool of acid. The drip had chewed through the ceiling, eaten through a heavy pair of pressure suit boots, and was already starting on the floor. Rainbow Dash sprang to her hooves and shouted in a panic, "Next deck!"
All the ponies recovered and jumped down to C deck, the last deck of the ship before the corrosive acid would began burning a hole into the plated hull and exposing the inside of the Nomastromo to the vacuum of space. Upon arriving below where the acid should have been, Rainbow Dash didn't see anything. She fiercely ordered the others to spread out and search, but they had hardly gotten anywhere when Applejack heard a hissing noise.
"There it is!" she pointed out, and she kicked a bunch of expendable garbage off of a nearby table. Quickly, she slid the waste under the hole beginning to form in the ceiling.
The ceiling melted weakly, with drops of the soft, metallic remains tearing off and splashing against Applejack's junk pile on the floor. The cavity that the acid created just wasn't as large as the others on the previous decks, nor was the same corrosive speed present anymore.
"Don't get under it! Don't get under it!" Applejack cautioned the other ponies as they approached and directed them around the hazard.
"Looks like it's stopping," Pinkie Pie commented.
"Derpy, give me... what do you got? You got a pen there?" Rainbow Dash asked the klutzy pony. "Give it to me, quick."
Hesitating, Derpy pulled a silver pen out of her shirt pocket. The captain's aggressive urges to hurry up startled her and she held it out for Rainbow Dash to take.
Grabbing the pen in her teeth, the cyan pegasus hovered up to the ceiling and pushed the pen into the hole, which still frizzled with a small amount of activity.
"Don't get any on your face!" Applejack warned.
But with getting a close look at the damage, Rainbow Dash was confident. She extracted the pen. The end burned, with traces of smoke lifting off of it, but it had barely melted in the exposure to the dying acid. "It stopped..." Rainbow Dash said. "I haven't seen anything like that, except... magic acid."
"Magic acid?" Derpy questioned.
Glowering, Rainbow Dash responded caustically, "Yeah, Derpy. It can just use regular, run-of-the-mill, super acid for blood and not have a problem wi-OF COURSE it's magic!"
"It's got a wonderful defense mechanism," Applejack observed wryly, "You don't dare kill it."
"What about Rarity?" Pinkie Pie wondered.
"What ABOUT Rarity?" Rainbow Dash replied before she sighed at the sheer insanity of this whole situation. She held the pen back out for Derpy and said idly, "Here's your pen back."
Derpy reached over and bit onto the pen, burning her tongue in the process. She spit out the hot tool and bounced around in pain, wildly waving her tongue in the air.
"What do we do now?" Applejack wondered.
Frustrated, Rainbow Dash stormed off with Pinkie Pie in toe and told the engineer, "Leave Rarity to Twilight and get back to work."
Applejack watched them go, uncertain how she could focus on her work with everything that had gone on. Derpy approached her and encouragingly said, "I gueth thee thould get bath to therth."