"Yep." Raven walked straight through the portal. On the other side was a fairly massive building, appearing to be some kind of facility for space research. It was swarming with workers from all sorts of different species, including some humans, ponies, and Sontarans. They seemed to be from many different dimensions. The portal they stepped out of remained present, unique to that world, as the majority of areas the time the portals in the Nexus were one-way. It was held in place by a large, metallic arch, with circuitry running from it into various other rooms of the facility. As they appeared, many of the workers started to stare, talking amongst themselves about how the two new ponies clearly did not work there. It was probably just a little uncomfortable.
"You know my vote," Az said plainly. Navaja nodded. "I say we leave. You know, so we don't all die for material gain."
Cannonball nodded. "Good. Pack it up and let's get the hell out of here." Right at that moment, the door above the elevator exploded inward, and Gaston dove in with a dozen pegasus wraiths in hot pursuit. "RUN!"
Once everyone had grabbed onto him, he used his magic to teleport everyone. The usual shtick happened. Everyone's vision went pitch black for a a split second, then when it returned, they were on the bridge of their ship. Azrael, having exhausted a lot of magic, fell to his side seconds after they arrived, temporarily unable to move. Navaja stumbled, looking positively sick from the teleportation. It was an effect that had a chance of affecting anybody who teleported with Azrael, but was very short-lived. He groaned, "Ugh... pain."
As they made it to the Nexus, Blackened looked about. "This is completely surreal," he remarked to Raven. "Could take a bit of getting used to." He seemed to not notice the workers around them.
This wasn't the Nexus, but a station they reached via the Nexus. Raven rolled her eyes. "Yeesh! Take a picture, guys, it'll last longer. Blacky, Maya always said there's a big, tall biped with blue skin we need to talk to if we ever need to find a way around. See anything like that?"
(Well, s*yay!*.) In response, he looked around intently, searching for a large, blue figure. When his sight lined up with what appeared to be a figure that matched her description, he pointed it out to Raven. "That's it, I'm sure."
Raven squinted at the creature. He was easily seven feet tall, appearing to be human, but with blue skin and no hair whatsoever. He dressed in business casual, probably a Friday there, and was making his way away from them, carrying some kind of electronic tablet. Raven nodded. "Think that's our alien. Also. Holy *squee!*, there's so many aliens!"
"I suppose these aliens are a dime a dozen..." He began to move towards the suit-wearing alien alongside Raven.
As they approached, the alien turned to face them, slightly annoyed. In a mildly nasally voice, he spoke, "You don't work here. What do you want?"
"Sorry to bother you," he responded to the alien. "But, would you be so kind as to provide us with some directions on how to get to space?"
"And why would we-" "I'm Maya Heartstrings' daughter," Raven interrupted. The alien blinked in surprise. "Seriously?"
Fortunately, all of the crew save for Olga had teleportation experience, and the diamond dog was unfazed. Dawn looked a little queasy, but she quickly recovered. As they stood on deck, the reality of what they were facing became clear. Thousands of ice wraiths of the earth and unicorn types were advancing on the ship from every side. Hundreds more pegasus types swarmed the sky, along with dozens of creatures that any pony would instantly know to be the legendary windigos. Flying with them, twice the size of the ship and much faster, was... "Holy sh*t," Flair said in quiet astonishment. "Is that a...?" "Ice wraith dragon," Nova confirmed.
Navaja came to his senses and went pale at the realization of what they were facing. "Uhm. Amigos. We need to leave. NOW."
"Battle stations," Cannonball said calmly. "NOW!" ****************************** The shield crackled and the ship shook violently as the first windigo attacked. "Dammit!" Gaston swore, "We can't take many more of those!" ******************************************************************** Cannonball fired the engines, and the ship rose into the sky. Nightshade grabbed Gaston and Flair and ran below, grabbing the Orb they had recovered from the abandoned cloud city, and the warp sand teleportation device she had received from the Architect's ally. She had already explained the plan to them, but their sudden departure meant that they'd not had time to set it up. With Gaston's skills and Flair's magic, the teleport was ready in minutes. In that short time, they'd take a seven more hits from the windigos, and countless more from the wraiths. The shield was flickering, fading fast. Nightshade headed back up, yelling to Flair to activate the teleport. *********************************************************************** They had cut it close, but they were home free now. The device they had rigged up would transport them all, with the ship and treasure, directly to a private hanger in Canterlot owned by Nightshade's father. When Nightshade gave the command, he activated the device. Nothing happened. He tried again. Nothing. Again. Still nothing. *********************************************** As the shield flickered one last time and finally went down, and the ship remained unmoved, Nightshade finally remembered the rules of the warp sand orb. The magic couldn't be used to escape final death. Somepony was destined to die, here and now.
Azrael finally regained his ability to move and stood back on his hooves, confused and annoyed. "What's happening? Why in Tartarus aren't we gone yet?" "Excelente pregunta," Navaja replied, extending a blade as he prepared for the wraiths to break in. "We. Need. To leave."
"We can't!" Nightshade said. "The teleporter is being blocked! Gaston's working on it, but until it's fixed..." She launched a volley of explosive bolts at wraiths landing on the deck, then rushed forward and drove a sword into the eye of the nearest windigo. "...We fight." *************************************************************************************** Flair stood at the bow, eyes glowing as he targeted the swarming monsters. "Wielder of the flame, reduce these evil souls to ashes! EXPLOSION!" The fiery blast tore apart two windigos, and more than a dozen wraiths. "I can't keep this up forever! There's too many of them!" **************************************************************** Cannonball charged at the dragon, landing a mighty punch that stunned the beast... but only for a moment. Within seconds, it had recovered and slashed at the old bat with its mighty claws. Cannonball dodged-- barely-- and delivered another blow, then another. ******************************************************************************** Olga stood at the stern with Rose's dogs, tearing apart wraiths as fast as they could land. Rose herself was below deck with Rain, hauling up a crate of explosives. ******************************************************************************** Nova had, for the first time in many years, unsheathed her dragon-forged silver sword, and was circling the ship, taking out the wraiths trying to breach the hull. ****************************************************************************** Dawn, as far as she could remember, had been a scientist, not a fighter. The details weren't clear to her, but she knew for certain she didn't want to be one of things again. She grabbed a crossbow, and despite her lack of training, managed to hit a few targets with explosive bolts.
While on the deck, Navaja and Azrael could be seen holding off packs of the wraiths, with Navaja doing quick spins and jumps to slice up the monsters with his blades, and Azrael delivering heavy strikes, throws, and even one nasty belly to belly suplex, shattering them. After a dozen glory kills, Azrael was hit in the side of the head with a thin ice spike, disoriented by being stabbed in the brain. The offending unicorn wraith made an attempt to close in on the stunned zombie, but Navaja made a gutsy save, running and vaulting off of Azrael's back, and then forcing his blades into the eyes of the wraith, killing it instantly.
