The Ocean Above Us

“...In all of my time studying under the Princess, I only now realize that the Magic of Friendship is only one of many different types of magic...” -Twilight Sparkle, talking about ADAM.

Nimbus looked over the edge of the rowboat he sat on. A pair of boring, blue eyes looked back, much less interesting than the stars in the sky above. Attached to those eyes was the head of a charcoal grey coated pony, his muzzle pronounced in the way that suggested he was a stallion. A messy cobalt blue mane came down before his eyes, and hung loosely down to about his shoulders.

Just thinking about anywhere near his sides made him shudder. He was a pegasus pony, but had lost one of his feathery appendages during an accident at the weather control in Cloudsdale. At least, he was told it was an accident. The wild storm cloud was just too close to the Pegasus Device to have floated there on it's own. It activating the device right as his right wing was close enough to get caught in the gears of device was more than a coincidence as well.

That wasn't important now though, but it reminded him why he wasn't simply flying to this place. He did receive a mechanical wing, but it was prone to complications when used for long periods of time. That, and the butter yellow mare that sat across from him in the boat. Her long, pink mane nearly blocked out the pair of unicorns that wielded the oars of the boat from his sight. Her blue eyes were concealed as well. This pony was a pegasus that was afraid to use her wings. As shy as she was, she insisted on coming with him.

That thought brought him to remembering why they were there in the first place. Nimbus's adopted sister had gone to some sort of underwater city, Rapture, she called it, with another member of the factory in which he worked. They needed to get away from all of the political turmoil in Ponyville. He hadn't heard from her or his co-worker in some time, and he had decided to take the trip to the city himself. His companion apparently was friends with them as well, and asked to come along when she overheard a conversation he was having with somepony else at a cafe.

Now, he felt a bit nervous, as they approached a tall lighthouse, with a small set of stairs leading up to it. The two unicorns rowing the boat began to talk to each other, just barely audible to Nimbus.

"Do you think this is going to work?" an upper-class female voice said.

"Of course it is," a male voice replied, just as high up sounding, "It already has. The question is, will they?"

"That is a good question."

Nimbus looked around his pink maned companion to get a better look at them. They were both indeed tan unicorns, both having a deep brown mane. The female, who had her back to him, had a longer mane than the other, but both of them had them partly covered by yellow rain jackets and hats.

Nimbus said his first words in the several hours that the trip took.

"Is this it?"

"Well," the mare unicorn began.

"That depends on what you mean by 'it'," the stallion continued.

"If you are referring to where your trip ends," said the mare, "Then that would be correct."

"But if you are referring to where your journey ends," the stallion finished, "Then that would be incorrect."

The rowboat pulled up to a dock, where a ladder led up to the planks above. Nimbus put a hoof to the rung of one and pulled himself up. He was a bit sleepy from the ride and didn't feel like flying. His yellow mare companion followed him up. Nimbus looked in all directions, and found only water, save the lighthouse and the planks leading to the stairway, and in turn, the door.

From the top of the planks, Nimbus looked down at the rowboat as the two moved the oars to return to where they had came.

"Hey, is somepony supposed to meet us here?" he asked.

"Oh, I would hope so!" the mare said, only briefly turning to look up at him.

"This does seem like a terrible place to be stranded, don't you think?" the stallion casually asked nopony in particular as they rowed away, the conversation slowly becoming inaudible.

Perhaps there was something inside the lighthouse. Walking down the planks, he studied the concrete pillar, it's classic design reminding him of Canterlot a bit. A slim, tall antenna protruded from the top, reflecting light onto passerbys.

It was only when he was about to open the door when a rather disturbing realization came to him; those two unicorns were using their hooves to row, not their magic. Why would they do that? The possibilities of why a unicorn would have to use just hooves for something so trivial began to pester Nimbus's mind.

The door creaked open, the view inside revealing nothing but darkness. Taking one last look behind him, he stepped inside, his companion following him. The crash of the door shutting behind them made them both jump, turning around only to find that all light had been drained from the room. His yellow coated friend squeaked at the sound of the door gently clicking, signifying it had been locked from the outside.

Several moments passed, neither of them daring to move in the darkness. With a loud click, several spotlights turned on from above them, illuminating the dark chamber. In it, there was a round object, made of some sort of metal, with the word ‘BATHYSPHERE’ printed on one side of it. It was big enough to fit several average sized ponies, maybe even a larger stallion, like the big one from the weather team. A banner hung from the ceiling, with large, gold letters printed on a red background.

“No Princesses or Kings, only Ponies,” Nimbus read under his breath, thinking about what it might mean. He decided to inspect the bathysphere more, walking around it to get a better look at it. On one side, which he assumed was the front, there was a large glass window, framed in the same metal that the bathysphere was made from, attached to the sphere on a hinge. Inside, he could see red carpeting, and fancy looking seating, as well as a lever.

“Looks like this is our only option,” Nimbus said to his companion, who had been following him silently this whole time. She shook a little at the idea of entering this foreign device.

“I... I-I don’t think that we should...” She began, her voice like a feeble rabbit. The rest of her sentence came out as a mumble.

“What’s that?” Nimbus said, looking back at her.

“I said, I don’t think that we should...” she gulped, “Go in there.”

“Why not?”

“It looks scary, and I’m not sure that it’s safe, and-”

“Oh, come on, Fluttershy,” Nimbus said, “I don’t suppose you’d actually want to just sit in here for the rest of your life?”

Fluttershy looked away, the curl in her mane hiding her face.

“Well, actually-”

Before she could continue, Nimbus swung open the window and pulled them both inside. Fluttershy let out a surprised “eep!” as the door swung shut and Nimbus pulled the lever. She jumped and let out another surprised sound as the bathysphere began to descend, and eventually sunk into the ocean. Nimbus put a hoof on Fluttershy’s shoulder and coaxed her to sit down on the velvet seating, in order to calm her nerves and stop her from having a heart attack. The heart attack almost came again when a screen came down in front of the window to the outside.

As a movie projector that Nimbus had overlooked cast it’s movie on the screen, Fluttershy looked away in fright, while Nimbus himself just casually watched. It showed a still, black and white portrait of a unicorn stallion, dressed in a fancy suit and tie, sitting at a desk with a small oil lamp. A voice was heard.

“I am Andrew Ryan, and I’m here to ask you a question. Is a pony not entitled to the sweat on his brow? No! says the pony in Canterlot, it belongs to the Princesses. No! says the pony in Saddle Arabia, it belongs to the poor. No! says the pony in Stalliongrad, it belongs to everypony. I rejected those answers. I chose something different, I chose the impossible. I chose... Rapture!”

At that moment, the screen was pulled back up and the view of a brilliant city could be seen. Tall buildings, maybe even taller than those in Canterlot, spread far into the the distance that the bathysphere floated closer to the city. It was amazing, beautiful, and... impossible. Nimbus couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Sure, he believed the rumors of there being a city underwater, but he hadn’t expected it to be a city of such a grand scale! He nudged Fluttershy, who still was looking away, and got her to look out the window. Her shock mirrored Nimbus’s. Ryan’s voice continued.

“A city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist not be bound by petty morality, where the great would not be constrained by the small, and with the sweat on your brow, Rapture can become your city as well.”

Nimbus was in utter disbelief at this point. Sure, a pony was entitled to his opinions, and he could go and do whatever he pleased inside of legal bounds, he could even go as far as to reject the Princesses of Equestria, but what truly baffled Nimbus was where this Andrew Ryan would have obtained all of the materials to create this city, if not from the Princesses. He doubted they’d help anypony who had such a strong opinion against them, much less for an idea as crazy as this one.

“A city at the bottom of the ocean, wow!” Fluttershy spoke louder than she ever had that day, which wasn’t very loud at all.

They floated past the buildings, all bearing various neon signs that depicted a variety of necessities a large city would need; Restaurants, general stores, specific stores, bars, inns. This city had it all. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad place. Maybe Nimbus would move in here with his little sister. Who knew?

One thing caught his eye though. In a tunnel that connected two buildings together, the lighting had appeared to have been not working. On top of the tunnel a stallion in a large metal diver’s suit, complete with the domed helmet, stood, working on what seemed to be the lighting inside. As he worked, Nimbus could’ve swore he had gotten the lights back on for a split second. And in that split second, he saw two figures, one a unicorn stallion, and one a unicorn mare. The both had tan coats, and they both had deep brown manes. Fluttershy seemed to be too taken in by the other sights to notice, but Nimbus had known he had seen them before, somewhere else.

In that moment, the lights flickered again, and they had seemingly disappeared.