A Bizaree Adventure in Tartarus
“Are we positive this is going to work?” A light blue unicorn with a red mane and light blue streaks in his mane asked the Moon Princess.
“Almost certain,” There was a brief pause followed by two taps of a pen hitting a pony's lower lip. “Okay. Maybe a twenty five percent chance at failure. Thirty five at most,” A legendary and majestic female voice responded.
“The worst that can happen is nothing...” A squeaky yet undeniably male voice, coming from a light blue pegasus with a quill and pad of paper, asked the legendary and majestic voice owner to confirm.
“The best case scenario, we get so many cute, tasty ponies.” This deep male voice was followed by silence and then a follow up, “...I'd spit them back out...”
“Nyama. We're not doing this so you can get a snack,” A gray pegasus with eyes as magical as they were terrifying trotted into the rather large room that was only lit by candle. Behind him was a red unicorn with a black mane followed behind him. “We're doing this because we need more help around the house. This place is a mess,” Brim looked around disapprovingly.
The squeaky voice cleared his throat and chimed in, “Actually, the reason why we're doing this, Brim, is that I need more helpers with news paper production. As much as I appreciate all of your guys help, the competition has started making machines to start doing work over time, and I feel bad for asking all of you to do the same,”
“We totes don't mind though News,” The light blue unicorn winked.
“Even so Spark, desperate times call for desperate measures. You guys can still help out with newspaper production, but these golems made from Luna's magic and moon stone will help out where we can't reach,”
The magical Moon Princess nodded, a little distracted preparing the spell, “Yes. If we can get all of thee into one area, this should be enough to get us a few golems in one swoop,” Luna explained to the everypony.
“Is there a reason why I'm here?” The blue dragon, Nyama, pointed a claw to himself.
Luna shrugged. “Thee is bored?”
“Can't deny that,” Nyama giggled and continued watching the ponies.
Suddenly, another gray pony with a crimson mane and scars up his hooves trotted in with two earth ponies behind him, a red earth pony with apples on his flank and a gray pony with a black mane and a purple streak in his mane, pulling a crate full of boxes. “Okay Luna, here's the crate of magical supplies you asked for,”
“Thank you Crimson,” Luna levitates the three boxes filled with mysterious magical elements and runes of the sort. “Can you help me over here, Crimson? I do need your assistance once again,” The gray pony nodded once and trotted over to the moon princess, while the gray and red earth pony just fell over in exhaustion.
“Gah. If she could have levitated all three of them, why did she make us carry them all this way?” The gray pony groaned.
“Almost everypony we need is here,” Princess Luna announced. “I do ask that we all take our positions. Spark, Phantom, Brim, and Crimson. Take the center of the room,”
“Don't stand too close to me Phantom,”
“Wouldn't dream of it,”
“Can you chill, bro?”
“He started it Brim,”
“You two are so cute. You should just kiss,”
“Ew, Crimson,”
“You did actually start this one Spark,”
“Oh hush Nyama,”
The red unicorn, Phantom, turned towards Luna, “Who are we waiting for?”
“We are waiting for Shifter and Maple,” Luna counter on her hoof.
“Wait, why are we getting Shifter involved?” Phantom raised an eyebrow.
“Thee knows several different languages, two of which we need,” Luna explained.
“But why do we need to know different languages-” Brimstone, the gray pegasus raised his hoof to ask a question, but was cut off by said ponies entering the room.
“They're here! Did you prep Shifter on what he needs to do?” Luna gestured towards Maple. The gray cyborg pony nodded.
“Affirmitive Princess Luna,” Maple saluted. The Moon Princess however responded with a boop on the pony's nose.
“This is not the base Maple, we're friends here,” Princess Luna reassured Maple.
“Oh. Right,” The cyborg blushed despite his mechanical side.
“And everyone's okay with this?” Shifter, a changeling with a cute sea green mane asked, looking around to everypony for assurance.
“You got it Shift Shift!”
“We can trust Princess Luna, Shift,”
“Everything will be fine Shifter,”
“If only this helps rebuild my kingdom faster as promised Luna...”
Shifter nodded, his unsure expression turning into confidence. “Alright! Then let's do it!” Shifter bounced over next to Brim and Phantom.
All ponies then looked over to Princess Luna. “Okay! Let's make sure we remember the spell, wouldn't want to send all of thee to the moon like our sister, right?” Princess Luna laughed alone only getting a chuckle from the blue dragon.
Maple trotted over to the rest of the group, sitting between Spark and Crimson. “Alright! Is everypony ready?”
“What do you need us to do Princess?” Brim asked.
“Just stay relaxed and breathe,” Her horn began to glow and the earth began to tremble. The room around the six ponies began to dissolve, slowly but surely catching on fire. A loud roar was heard, and the six ponies almost jumped out of their skins.
“Is this normal?!” Phantom called out to Princess Luna. She nodded vigorously.
“Okay everypony! You're about to make the jump! Get prepared!” Luna shouted. Spark, Brim, Phantom, and Crimson all looked puzzled, but Maple and Shifter cowered to the ground, covering their eyes with their hooves.
Suddenly, a giant mouth, taking up half the room, opened up beneath the six ponies, four terrified girly-, I mean masculine screams erupted from the group as the giant mouth gnashed its teeth close, swallowing them up before diving back into the earth.
In the giant monster's wake, the ceiling was ripped from reality, screams of a million souls trying to escape from the monster's eyes cried out, and one last roar was heard underground, forever haunting the nightmares of everypony present.
Everypony's mouth was left agape, except for Princess Luna. Big Mac, the red earth pony, and Juan the gray earth pony both passed out, woke up during the catastrophe, and then fainted again at the sight of the monster. Nyama, usually the one to make a quick witty remark, was speechless. Newsworthy's eyes were full of tears, not yet comprehending the entirety of the situation. The first one to break the silence was Princess Luna.
“Whew! That went better than expected-” Luna was almost done speaking before Newsworthy dashed in front of Luna's vision.
“What the buck was that!?! Where did they go?!?”
“Tartarus,” Luna answered simply.
“What?! Why?!”
“To get thee these Moon Golems. Our step brother, Prince Dusk, should have some in his armory,” Luna reasoned out.
Newsworthy looked like he was on the verge of an aneurysm, so the blue dragon, in a more calm voice chimed in, “I think what Newsworthy is concerned about is that you just sent six of our closest friends into the pits of Tartarus without so much of a warning when we thought this was a simple to spell to create golems with your magic,”
Princess Luna made a guffaw sound and then responded, “Make moon golems? Does thee know how long that takes?” Princess Luna chuckled to herself, “Besides, they're completely fine. Prince Dusk is our step brother and wouldn't put them through anything too daunting,”
Nyama and Newsworthy both looked at each other with worry when they heard the word 'daunting'.
Princess Luna nodded, reading their minds, “Oh yes. Knowing our brother, he will probably ask them to go do some of his daily chores for him,”
“You could have at least told us, Princess,” Nyama added a sarcastic chill to the word Princess. Luna didn't catch it.
“But we did. We told Captain Maple to tell everyone in the group,”
Nyama and Newsworthy both looked doubtful still, but what else could they do? Six of their friends were in the pits of Tartarus. But if Princess Luna said this Prince Dusk was on their side, who controlled Taratarus, they should be safe.
“It's not like there's a civil war going on in Tartarus,” Princess Luna says rather non chalantly.