Operation Fizzled Shadow
The rain beat heavily on the canopy of trees above him, and lightning flashed in the distance.
He cursed the rain, and the EQI for giving him this assignment on such short notice. Equestrian Intelligence obviously didn’t know the meaning of “retired”. The rain came down in sheets, blanketing him in icy water and pelting the brown felt fedora perched atop his head.
He had been tapped to recon an intelligence blacksite in the mountains near Ponyville that hadn’t reported contact. Due to it’s low profile nature, it did not keep in regular contact with EQI Central Command, and only checked in once every seven days, with a coded letter fireported straight to CentCom. In their thirty five years of operation, they had never missed a ‘ping’.
It was disguised as the corporate headquarters of a subcontractor for the Ponyville municipal area Weather Patrol, under the name CloudVein Rain Solutions. They actually functioned as such, manufacturing additional clouds for irregular or schedule-variant weather cycles. As it was high in the mountains, most of its staff lived onsite, leading to little intrusion from outsiders.
He could see it coming into view now, materializing out of the soaked darkness on the ridge in front of him, the mansion-like main building tucked between the cliff and a sheer rock wall to the mountain above.
Chamber stopped under the shelter of a tree, reached into his “go-pack”, and drew out the recorder inside. This pack had been supplied to him by an EQI contact, prepacked for recon missions such as this. The recorder was standard-issue, a Baltimare Aethertronics GX7 “Chronicler” camcorder. He switched it on and turned it to face him, framing his face in the lens, or so he hoped.
[“Reached the insertion point. 10.10 PM. Will recon and report any anomalies, although it looks pretty normal from out here. Oh and Cel, ahem, Princess Celestia for the record, you owe me. How you can repay me we will discuss when I deliver my report. I’m thinking Seasaddle penthouse condo." Smiles at camera and turns it away.]
Chamber levitated the camera in front of him as he galloped across the open field to the courtyard. The front door was locked, as he had expected. He instead headed for a small garden shed at the edge of the courtyard. Inside the rickety building, he placed the camera on a table and shook the water from his hat.
[“Well, ladies. It’s finally here; the shot you’ve all been waiting for. The wet mane Chamber Check org-xtravaganza! Bowchicabowchikabowchika…” Takes off hat and shakes out mane. “Drink it in girls, ‘cause that’s the last you’re gonna be seeing of me for a while.” Picks up camera. “Now, it’s the road before us.”]
On a hook near the door was a spare key marked ‘side door - lounge’. Chamber grabbed it and opened the shed door. Heading out into the wet night, he approached the main building. Detouring around the perimeter showed him the side door to which the key belonged.
Instantly he knew something was wrong. It wasn’t the physical arrangement of the room, which looked like a fairly ordinary lounge, with overstuffed sofas and a fireplace, unlit. Rather, it was a feeling, a gut sense that something was not quite right. As he headed into the hall and toward the atrium, he became more and more convinced that something was wrong. There was nopony anywhere, not even muffled voices from the upstairs living areas. All the lights were off and the reception area was deserted, not even a night guard. “Strange…” he muttered to himself.
Proceeding back through administration, he headed toward the rear wall of the structure, where a set of stone steps led to the building’s basement. He reached the bottom of the stairs and scanned the dusty, cobweb strewn maze of boxes, barrels, and minutiae for the boilers.
Two large square boilers were crammed into one corner, ostensibly to provide heat to the workers above. In reality, only one functioned as such, the other was the entrance to the true purpose of the site.
Chamber walked up to the one on the right. The flames inside were an illusion, disabled with a key and hoofprint verification. Retrieving the key from his pack he inserted it into the slot on the boiler’s face marked “service” and waited for the rune to light up, inviting him to place his hoof on the cold metal for verification. As the indicator winked into life on the dark grey surface, he heard a loud boom from somewhere underground. It clearly wasn’t thunder, so Chamber reasoned that it must have come from inside the site.
Hunkering down, he drew from under his coat a small sidearm burnished in a light rust-colored scratch resistant finish. The small .380 automatic was standard daily carry for officers at the site, with larger weapons issued only in emergencies. Chamber had brought his personal version of this weapon for ammo commonality in case something went wrong. He hoped still that it wouldn’t come to that.
Chamber readied the weapon, checked the load and reholstered it. He hoped it would stay there.
Activating the entrance, the fire melted away, revealing another door at the far end of the boiler tank, almost indistinguishable from the wall. As he crossed towards it the outer boiler door closed, and the one in the wall swung open automatically to admit him. He only had a second to glimpse the flames springing back to life before the door closed behind him once again.
He was now standing in a cramped reception area, with rows of filing cabinets, charts dictating rules of conduct in the facility and maps of the different areas pinned up behind a cramped reception cubicle. No one was on duty.
[“Strange. Nopony home. Proceeding“]
Chamber advanced, recorder aloft, past reception and down the hall, passing cells for processing the intake of prisoners or sensitive documents. As he rounded a corner he paused, scanning the words stenciled above the doors in this branching hall. One was marked ‘Intake - Bio and Aetherhazards’ and another ‘Administration and Research Annexe’. He was about to choose the second one when he heard a voice croak from the first branch, “Hello, anypony there? I can hear you, come closer.”
Approaching the cell from where the voice had appeared, he recoiled. Inside was a pony, or rather, the husk of one. It was clad in a tattered vest with a prisoner number stenciled on, with numerous lesions and abrasions crisscrossing its chest, limbs, and face. It was strung up on a rack. A dirty, rusted thing that looked like a torture device from the Canterlot Historical Gallery, certainly not something EQI would use.
Its eyes stared from a skeletal face to survey him, “You’re not one of them. I’m not a prisoner, I’m an executive. You’ve got to send for help. It’s here. They tried to hide it. But it got out anyway. They can’t kill it, and you can’t kill it. Nopony. Nopony! NOPONY!” he raved, eyes bulging, struggling against his bonds, “Go now. Send help. Wipe this place from the earth! Jegervund. JEGERVUND! GO.NOW!”
Shocked back into action by the poor pony’s yelling, Chamber replied “Wait…the Jegervund is a myth. Are you telling me…”
“I know what did this to me! It’ll find you. It’ll kill you. Go. Get help now. Pray that they can find a way. GO now!”
Chamber wheeled on the spot and headed back down the hall, “I’ll get help. Just hold on!” he called back, “I’ll get to the bottom of this.”
He just hoped that it wasn’t too late, and moreso, that the poor shell of a pony behind him wasn’t right.
Author's Note
What did you think of chapter 1? Hope you liked it. The next chapter will have more action and creepy things. I just need to finish it.
Also, three things, the term Aethertronic is my term for magical electronics, such as Twilight's EKG machine, the hospital's xray, and Vinyl's turntable and Ipod (from the IDW comics) Also, I call spike's fire-sending spell fireporting, and conclude that it is magic that certain ponies can perform, too. Finally, I'm testing out the POV camera stage-direction-y thing for this chapter. (the text in brackets). If you don't like it, tell me and I'll omit it. Just playing with the style.
Enjoy.
No flames please.
See ya.
Chamber Check
P.S. It seems to delete the word when I try to highlight and italicize things. Is there any way around this? Thanks.
The grey stone walls amplified the chill of the dank underground passage, and somewhere, air exchangers hummed, filling the facility with freshly-recycled oxygen.
The captive pony’s screams still rang in Chamber Check’s ears as he continued further into the mountain.
Into the annexe Chamber walked. He paused in the middle of the small circular two-story atrium, armored shutters with the researchers’ names stenciled on them surrounded him. Searching for the one he was looking for, he crossed to it. The label stated that this office was the property of ‘Blue Line – Security Chief’ He tried to work the spell he had been given to raise the gates, but it failed. Frustrated, he tried again. Nothing. He was about to try a third time when a voice spoke from behind him.
“It’s not going to work, the Aethersphere is too corrupted. Magic’s going haywire across the facility.”
Chamber turned and surveyed his eavesdropper. A research unicorn in a dirt-stained lab coat stood before him. With a graying mane and round spectacles, he looked more at home measuring test tubes or lecturing a college class then hefting a large section of pipe, as he was currently doing. He studied Chamber for a moment, dark hazel eyes staring through the cracked lenses of his glasses, “Are you…our reinforcements?” he asked, cocking an eyebrow. His accent was all Manehattan law school upper crust, intricately pronounced and careful, in contrast to the mess of matted tan fur and dirty labwear from which it came.
“Just recon. Honestly, we didn’t know anything was wrong until you failed to check in.” Chamber responded.
“Yes, it all happened so fast and disrupted things so brutally that it was all we could do to survive, let alone get any kind of message to headquarters. But I have good news. We managed to contain it, I think, in the lower levels. The rest of the survivors are doing one last check of the seals. Now all we have to do is figure out how to get rid of it.”
“A prisoner in intake told me it was a Jegervund, but that can’t be. That’s just a foal’s tale, like the boogeyman or the oldenpony. What did you actually find?” he asked. Chamber deliberately held back the prisoner’s disputed identity. He didn’t know if he trusted this pony. Something slimy lay under his air of friendliness, although Chamber figured it might be his own prejudices getting in the way. Though a child of privilege himself, he had never liked prep-school yuppies much.
‘Little above my pay grade actually,” the pony shrugged, setting his pipe on the ground with a sharp clang, “I’m just from R&D. All I know is it was fast and I didn’t get a very good look at it before Blue Mane, or whatever that security head’s name is shoved it into cold storage. I’m going to go up to my office. Once the rest of the team gets back we can go for help.”
Chamber nodded, following the pony to one of the shutters on the opposite side. He removed a key from his pocket and inserted it into a lock on the shutter’s stamped metal front. After a click, he asked “A little hand with this, buddy?” Chamber obliged, and together they lifted the shutter to the ceiling.
A cramped office lay within, its white walls almost unseen beneath molecule sketches and spell diagrams covered in revisions and crossings out. It was all the small room could do to contain the small wooden desk within.
“Honestly I didn’t know if we were going to get any help at all,” the researcher said, “I don’t think I caught your name.”
“Chamber Check, and you?”
“Higgs Field, delighted to meet you. Drink?”
“No thanks, best to keep my senses sharp.”
“Oh don’t worry, just sparkling water and peach juice. I don’t drink. If you’ve got any smokes, though, I’d be delighted. My pack got crushed in the struggle.” He replied, producing a metal coffee container from his desk and pouring some of the amber liquid into a chipped glass on the desk’s edge.
“Canterlot Royal Heights Specials alright?” Chamber asked, pulling the gold-wrapped pack from his jacket, “Got another glass?”
‘Mmm, clove. Expensive too. I like you already.” Field took one and lit it as Chamber passed him a lighter. In response, he passed Chamber the cap from his jug, the makeshift cup filled with liquid.
“Got a taste for them years ago, and they’ve been the bane of my bank account and my health ever since,” Chamber commented, lighting his own and drinking deeply from his cup, “Mmm. Only better smell in the world then clove is gun oil. Wish they made cologne out of that stuff.”
“To me it’s oranges,” Field replied, ‘Don’t like to eat them, only the smell. Where is that team? I’m enjoying our chat but to be honest, the sooner we get out of here the happier I’ll be.”
“If you stay here I can use the emergency groundline to contact HQ. Oh, and,” he said, taking his camera from on the desk and switching it back on, “I’ll need your name for the visual record.”
“Higgs Field, Assistant Head of Research and Development. I’m all right. I don’t know the names of any of the other survivors. I’m new to this facility,” he said into the recorder’s lens.
“Good,” Chamber replied, turning to leave and stubbing the cigarette into Field’s heavily-laden ashtray, “Lock the shutter.”
Chamber turned as the door rattled into place behind him and headed down another hall, this one rougher dug than the others. After twisting and turning through several dank corridors jammed with crates, he found it, a small room wherein the groundline was kept. It had been retrofitted into a room near the ‘skin’ of the mountain, necessitating its awkward placement in relation to the rest of the facility. It was a grounded magical conduit straight to the outside world, shielded from tampering spells and other Aetherspheric disturbances. Chamber knelt down in front of the polished stone slab that constituted the interface and keyed it up, performing the activation spell Celestia had shown him. Runes lit up on the slab’s surface, and he keyed the code, not for EQI headquarters, but the direct line the princess had given him.
After a few seconds, the regal face of Equestria’s ruler hovered, gaseous, in front of him, looking anxious, yet still possessing that poker-faced confidence that he had come to associate with Celestia over the years. It spoke, “I take it things are more serious than we thought for you to be contacting me by groundline instead of Aethertronically. Why have communications been disabled?”
“Something got out down here. I don’t know, but the whole magical energy field of this place is just…off. They think they’ve trapped it in cold storage and I’ve found one survivor, unharmed. I’ve heard the word Jegervund thrown around. What do you know about it? I thought it was just a fairy tale.”
“What’s a Jegervund?” the eager but confused face of Twilight Sparkle, Celestia’s favorite student, morphed into the device’s visual range, “I’ve never heard much about them, honestly. Although I’ve never studied foal’s tales in much depth, except the ones I was told.”
“Twilight is here visiting her family and stopped to see me,” Celestia explained. “She will gain much worldly experience from seeing how this turns out. What do you know?”
“Well, in the legend, the Jegervund is a magician, or a trickster, in some versions of the story, a goblin-like creature. Basically, it was a creature so far gone, so drenched in evil, that it ‘melted’ the Aethersphere around it, literally sucked the magic from the air and spit darkness back out. Using this corrupted magic, it would create puppets, drones to do its bidding, to spread its evil across the land. They’re supposed to be an allegory for the corrupting power of hate; I didn’t think they actually existed.”
“There is a lot about this world that we do not yet understand,” Celestia said, bowing her head, “I have not heard of one being discovered, and something like that would certainly have been reported to me had it occurred. Regardless, your orders now are to retreat with your survivor to a safe distance while we send in a containment crew. The best of luck to you, Chamber Check.”
“Thank you, m’am, Chamber Check out.”
The link fizzled dead, and Chamber sighed. His job, at least, was over.
Picking up his recorder, he headed back into the hall. He had only gotten a few steps when a splitting headache slammed into him. Doubling over, he heard a voice. Not so much heard, as known, as though the words were forcing their way into his head, bypassing his eardrums entirely.
“I do thank you for informing the outside world of our little…triumph down here. It has been quite convenient that they’re not sending a Quick Reaction Force. Gives us more time to…talk,” the voice said. Chamber clutched his head, he knew that reedy, slimy high society accent, “I’ve sent a…colleague of mine to escort you back. One of the survivors, actually. He’s a bit…rough around the edges but I think he’ll grow on you as he has on me. I must say I quite like you. Nose to the grindstone, so driven to your mission, all that ooh rah commando stuff, it’s all so fascinating, not to mention you’re a pony of exquisite taste. I…greatly enjoyed our talk but I have deadlines just like anypony else so I have to say…goodbye.”
The headache ceased. But before Chamber could stop to comprehend what had just happened, he heard a noise from down the hall. Scampering behind a crate, he peered into the gloom ahead. He stifled a gasp at what walked out of it.
Or rather, stumbled out of it. Up ahead was what looked like a pony, although it couldn’t possibly have been a living thing. Large sections of its torso and flank had been replaced with crudely worked metal, sewn roughly to the flesh with large sutures or dull metal staples. It’s one organic eye stared lifelessly outward, the half of its face covered in metal hosting just an empty socket. The tattered combat vest still draped on its shoulders bore the nametag ‘Blue Line – Security’. It staggered towards him, jerking forward as though it were in a skipping film, jittery and inconsistent in its steps. It looked like whatever had taught it how to move had only the faintest glimmer of how a pony should walk. It was moving, but it was just slightly…off. It jerk-stepped towards him, letting out quick, shattered, hyperventilating breaths as it did, as though its lungs were filled with shards of glass. It was the most horrifying thing Chamber had ever seen.
Immediately, Chamber drew his sidearm, raising it and sending two rounds straight towards the abomination closing on him. The small-caliber rounds impacted with wet slaps, not even causing the thing to break its stride.
And still, it got closer.
Author's Note
What did you think? I would have posted this yesterday if my newly-installed copy of windows hadn't wanted to install 125 updates and I had to wait until morning. I hope this chapter was sufficiantly detailed. I do realise I can rush through certain parts in my excitement to get to the "meat" of the story.
Enjoy, comment (although, as always, no flames), and Brony on!
See ya.
Chamber Check
