My vision cleared as I stepped out of the portal onto the other side. The portal behind us had turned a red color and deactivated as Pinkie and Trixie stepped out of it. There was a silent acknowledgement that going back wasn’t an option. Yet, the sandy and dusty hallway we had entered only led around a corner into a dark hallway. The only light in our current hall were two lit and everburning torches The sinister, red glow of the portal had a certain finality to it. Thankfully, there were no limitations upon us that stopped Trixie and I from simply lighting our horns to illuminate the way. And, with that in mind, we rounded the corner.

The first thing that assaulted us was not, in fact, a physical thing. Instead, it was the smell, the smell of… what WAS it?

“Do you girls smell that?” I asked , eyes scanning the walls of the room.

“Smells like oil!” Pinkie remarked cheerfully. Oil could mean burning and fire, and by extension, light. We found the oil trough and lit it, the fire from the oil warming the chilly archives. The room also lit up quite brightly, enough to shed some light into the nearby rooms. However, this did not come without the consequence of GIANT SPIDERS TRYING TO KILL US!!!!

“Oh NOW you try to attack us~” I huffed, our party encountering a singular pair that proved quite tough. They two arachnids skittered about the walls of the room and were twice the size of any pony. The first of our attackers leapt at me with incredible speed and strength. From the front, its full weight was poised to land itself entirely atop me, but it misjudged its prey. The creature let out a screech as it had Marshall Edge driven into its body. My hooves skidding against the ground as the beast was barely being beaten back by me, its hairy and powerful legs reaching for me as its fangs chomped and drove forward at my body.

“I’ve got you, Rarity!” Pinkie called out in reassurance as her body slid underneath the both of us. Her limbs glowing red with the attack crystal’s power, and she kicked out! The spider soundlessly got bucked straight across the room, Marshall Edge slicing straight through its spot on the body as I held it strong. This did, however, lead to the two of us getting splattered in gore.

“Eeeewwwwww….” Pinkie said as she looked over herself. A mere glance up barely saved her in time from the second spider. She eeped and projected strength in her legs to bounce over the other in the pair. With its current target having escaped its grasp, the spider turned to me. I dived back as the humongous arachnid tried to land and square its weight on top of me. But, before it could continue, it froze and shook in pain as multiple icicles rammed into its side. The beast could not sustain the frenzied magical assault on it and fell down from its wounds. It scrambled about on the ground and curled up, barely clinging to life as it died. The other gargantuan arachnid made no further movements. Our group warily waited to see if they were getting back up, keeping our distance. Yet, as minutes went on… They didn’t.

“Whew!” Pinkie giggled lightly, the tension melting away from her. “ Sorry for teasing you earlier now, Rarity.” I gave her a flat face as she squeed innocently. Only now seeing my uncomfort for spiders had a basis. A sound of disgust exited my throat as I watched the spider juices now lining my chest, and Faust knows where else...

With that out of the way, I examined the room we were currently in a bit better. It was a square room with three pathways, to list: the one to the left we just came from, the one to the north that led to the archives, and the one to the right that was most likely the exit. Decrept shelves and scrolls lined the walls leading to the archives. The fire from the oil had heated up the room, and combined with the dry atmosphere, was certainly uncomfortable.

“Be on guard, girls. I don’t want to be too optimistic in thinking those were the only giant spiders.” The girls sharpened their gaze at the thought and nodded, their smiles and relief becoming cautious frowns. Pinkie was ruining the imagery wearing glasses with hairy eyebrows, an obnoxious looking nose, and a moustache.

We ventured into the archives, and might I say they were not what I was expecting. The age and cobwebs really showed on the worn away bookshelves and structured halls. There were, of course, more spiders as well, and they were dealt with accordingly. I would dreadfully need a bath after this. Notably, the giant spiders crawling about the archives remained neutral until we bumped right into them. It was curious, they displayed an almost pony sort of restraint until we came in close. The first floor of the archives itself reminded me of the standard Canterlot archives, a square room with lined shelves of not only books, but other items. Two stair cases on each side of the room lead further upwards. A webbed-over door at the end of the room was probably where our arachnids were coming from.

Pests needed eliminating, and I needed to vent some frustration from how long tonight was taking. We had nothing to remove the blockage of the burrow, and I had no wanting to chop away at the webbing. So I took to killing the pairs of arachnids around the singular floor. I would occasionally bring on a scolding or two from the girls for purposely leading them to combat. It was hard to take the two seriously, given one’s nature and the other’s failures. So I disregarded it, and when I had my fill of the dead creatures, we went about searching the archives for clues to the artifact that I needed in my possession. Whether it would be the stone for Luna’s statue or Celestia’s statue, I needed it.

We went up the left staircase first, which did not actually lead up to another archive room. The hallway to the other archive room, I assume, was blocked by some caved in boulders. The paths we could travel led to small singular rooms, and were along balconies that did not leave much room for combat. Nevertheless, we pressed onwards and entered the left room on the second floor. It appeared to a laboratory or chemical room of sorts. Housing many multi-colored substances in jars and other scientific tools.

“Oooooh! Look at this!” Pinkie exclaimed aloud, digging up a note for us. It was a largely plain piece of tan paper.

“I have completely explored all 113 floors of this archive.” Pinkie got a funny expresion upon hearing this and exclaimed loudly “113 floors?! Holy Moly!” I smiled in moderate amusement and kept reading in her place.

“I narrowed my search down to the rare books and chemistry wing. A broken display case and a burrow dug into the back wall behind some shelves. That was when the swarm came from the upper hallways.”

“The swarm?” I asked aloud. Whoever was here, was probably referring to the spiders, but I was unaware they had a specific name for their entirety.

“I had to hold out against them for three hours until I collapsed the tunnels on both the western and eastern hallways.”

“That would certainly explain the mess back in the hall.” The girls peeked out the door to confirm this and nodded. Pinkie’s eyes lit up in realization and she exclaimed.

“I know WHO was here!” A smile came upon my face and a smooth response came to her from myself.

“Do tell, Pinkie.” Pinkie, however, was not going to give up her information…

“Find more notes and I’ll tell you.” This did not sit well with me, either she did not know, or she did not think the information was important and was just trying to distract me. Still, my curiosity won out, and I searched the room with the girls, looking for more notes. I noticed in the bottom left the room had a large hole in it, filled up with webbing. I kept my distance and kept looking for the notes

But, there were no more to be found in that room, and we went across the top of the room we came from to enter the right-most one. The bottom and right of it had large holes filled up with webbing. What caught our interest, primarily, was the line of display cases, and the broken one in the middle with the tan paper inside it. The faded word “grimoire” was etched onto the display case, but there was only the tan paper.

“I have found the grimoire… but something else has found it first. I negotiated for the book, but it came at a high price. I traded an offering of the moon which is made from a rare and precious lunar metal. I could have taken it by force, but the creature was unhostile and seemed to understand my words. I bartered the offering for the grimoire, and now it is time to leave this place. I can sense that Equestria will need me soon.”

“Luna… so this is where you went.” The pieces were certainly coming together now, but Pinkie was a bit upset that I got it without her needing to tell me.

“YOU RUINED IT!” The mare pouted before smiling and explaining.

“I wanted to tell everypony who it was.” I giggled, a lightness returning to my features at Pinkie’s exclamations.

“Well at least now we know where the offering is located.” A pleased blush rose to my cheeks along with a smile. The offering was here, and since the other rooms were out...

“The offering is back there…” I stated, arriving back at the burrow.

“Want me to burn it down?” The webs looked to thick, and there were many more flammable items.

“No, the webs are too thick, we need to do something else…” Pinkie’s eyes lit up as she exclaimed “Chemistry puzzle!”

With that bit of curious behavior, she pulled Trixie along to find something that could be used to destroy the burrow without bringing the archives down on our heads, hopefully.

They found the book on something called, “alkahest.” Before I could learn the chemicals to make it, I was interrupted.

“Since I have studied chemistry, I just need Pinkie to tell me what to use.” Trixie explained, and I nodded, approvingly. As long as she wasn’t being smug about it, I had no problem with her being useful. Still, I expressed my doubts.

“If you say so.” We returned to the chemical lab, where I took a backseat to the process of the chemistry. I rested Marshall Edge by my side and closed my eyes, enjoying the moment of respite.

“ONE OF THOSE!!” Pinkie exclaimed, I cracked open an eye to see the two hilariously messing about by the table. Pinkie was quite loud, something Trixie was adjusting to, but not yet completely. They didn’t spill anything yet though, so clearly they had some sort of cohesion to their mad process.

“Ok, what next?” Trixie asked as she finished pouring the chemical.

“That shiny thing! Right there!” I closed my eyes and shook my head, what was the point of looking at the chemicalbook if she was going to identify this stuff by appearance…? More than that though, how WAS she identifying them by appearance? We had only gotten the name- wait, excuse me, Pinkie Pie.

“They’re all shiny…” Trixie flatly said.

“What was the order to mix these?” Trixie asked, continuing off from there.

“Red first?” Pinkie said with a bit of hesitation, oh Faust don’t let them blow me up.

“No, I really need to…” Trixie said, but was interrupted.

“Purple third?” The chatterbox Pinkie said, then lit up as she remembered.

“Oh YEAH!! I remember I put the letters side by side!” Pinkie smiled, and then listed them out for Trixie. Pinkie always did have a strange way of doing things, and I leaned my head back, trying to tune them out...

“ R, A, P, E, Ruby, Aqua…” My eyes shot open, the letters… The letters.

No! Nononono! Don’t think about it again!

“Stir it up and add a” Pinkie’s voice vanished like dust in the wind.

I was losing control, my mind was slipping back. I was a prisoner again, their captive, and…

‘Hey guys! He did say to leave her alive. But I didn’t hear him say we couldn’t…’

I’m… I can’t, I’m all out… I had fought them to what I thought was to be my last breath. But they couldn’t even kill me, no, they couldn’t grant me that mercy!

‘NO! STOP! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!’ I screamed and screamed, but they didn’t, they wouldn’t.

‘Gag her so she’ll stop screaming!’ It was a sign that they knew wrong, that they knew the terrible thing they were doing had consequence.

Block it out… stay calm… It was so hard…

‘I’ve never seen a mare this pretty!’ Their disgusting chilling voices, they stuck out even now. How they sounded like ordinary ponies, how anypony could be…

‘Hey!! You’ve had your turn!’ Disgusting, disgusting disgusting disgusting! Tainted!

“And done!” Pinkie’s voice reached out to me, mingled in with the voices of… I gasped quietly, the memory shattering as I remembered where I was, what I was supposed to be doing. They couldn’t let me see me like this, the tears, the scars, they would have to hide again. If I let them see there would be questions… I couldn’t. To go back would break me like it nearly did. I put on a strong face, stepping out the room and hearing the girls step out with the alkahest shortly after. The mission would come first. There would be a time for tears later.

Author's Note

Being a female soldier carries its own risks.