"Or, we could not do that." Easy hiked a brow. "I'm not quite up to making light, which we'd need, and keeping us both breathing, and swimming against a current all at the same time."

I had been ready to jump into the water, but that was off. "Do you have an alternative to figure it out?"

"Not exactly, but I'm saying let's limit this a little." She sat and brought her hooves close together. "Let's just see if there IS a river we can't see. If we find one, great, we know it's there, but we don't go into it because I want to live, Boss."

Well, the logic was sound enough... "Alright, let's do that, then we can make some of that pure water, since I don't imagine that will take long."

"I love how doing the most expensive part is just 'something we do because we have some extra time'." She rolled her eyes as she approached the shore. "You live in a different world, Boss. Sometimes I wonder."

She had a point, I had to agree. Did pony legs work like human ones for swimming? I was about to find out. "Let's go for a little dip." And not drink too much, I decided quietly. I stepped into the water, expecting ground beneath the dark surface. I was suddenly cold, but not wet.

As it turns out, you can't really be 'wet' if you're entirely in the water. One of the curiosities of the universe. With a gasp, I broke the surface, kicking with hooves and paddling with hands to keep myself buoyant. "Alright..." My hooves felt different than feet for moving water, but they were moving water, and I was floating, so that was good.

"That was an interesting way to get in." Easy slipped in without the sudden dunk, paddling towards me. "Now for some air." Bubbles appeared around both of our heads. "And I'll be the light." Her horn glowed all the brighter. "Which is why we're not doing the thing you wanted."

"I already agreed." I splashed some water at her in petty vengeance. "Let's go see what there is to see."

She stuck out her tongue, clearly more amused than irate. We both sunk beneath the surface. The air bubbles around our heads served as goggles, allowing us to see what was around us fairly well, though we were just looking for either walls or an incoming river. One or the other, all we needed to find.

Working against the current wasn't as hard as I feared. The pond we were in wasn't moving that quickly, with the speed only picking up where the water got constrained in the rivers. That did mean it was likely going faster closer to where it was coming from.

The ground was easy enough to spot, and the walls came into view, keeping the water safely contained. "Follow the walls."

"Ok," she replied, but her voice was distorted by the water in a way I had to assume mine had also been. It was like she was further away, shouting through a tunnel at me.

I swam up to the wall and felt along it, pulling myself with clever human fingers instead of swimming to quickly scoot along the wall. The current was getting stronger the further I went. My hooves started to be pushed away from the wall.

"I'm going up," came her shout. "I'll keep your air going." She swam up and away, leaving me there.

Was doing all that really that hard? I couldn't speak from experience, and keeping clung to the wall was becoming a challenge, so I focused on that, clinging and walking with my hands towards where the pressure grew only stronger and stronger.

Darkness. It wasn't a wall. There was a hole, and water was pouring out of it, into the water of the stream. It was also colder, which made sense enough to me if it came from higher in the mountain. There was a source, and it wasn't here. I let go of the wall and my fingers sang with the pleasure of not having to hold the rest of me. I was pushed out some distance before I began to swim upwards.

I broke the surface, which felt odd. You don't normally have a bubble around your head when you do it. "Easy?" I looked around for her, ah, there she was.

Arguing with ponies on the shore.

That was less than good. I got to swimming to the closest shore there was.

"You can stay right there." Another pony emerged at the point I had been swimming to. "We have questions, and you will answer."

Ah, delightful... "Is there a reason I can't answer them on land?"

"Call it a security thing." The stallion rolled a hoof. "You aren't drowning, whatever you are."

His horn glowed, lifting my phone and a few other bits and bobs in my pocket into view. "What, exactly, are these?"

"My things." That wasn't a lie. "Can you put them back where you found them?"

"What are you?" The pony leaned forward a little before righting himself. "Strange new thing just breezes into town, taking our mares, our heroes, and shoving their nose into our business." He waved a hoof over the pond. "Now he's even in our water like it's nothing."

"I'm just trying to help." I wanted to raise a hand, but staying afloat with strange legs meant keeping my hands a little occupied. "Did I do something to you?"

"We don't need your help." His magic casually threw my things aside. My phone bounced off the ground, landing close to the water, but not in it. A yelp pulled my attention to where they had shoved Easy over. "Now, look, you're going to come up now, nice and slow, and we're going to educate you a little. I'd say it wasn't personal, but..."

"You probably shouldn't have done that." The bubble around my head vanished, as I guessed it would. She needed her magic for other things.

"I haven't started yet. Come on." He backed away a step, gesturing to the ground.

I'll admit, I expected the next thing to happen was Easy losing her cool. Ponies continued to surprise me. With a dull thump, a new one crashed into the pony I was talking to, sending him crashing into the water with a great splash. Work Pants stood there, heaving. "Sir, please, move quickly!"

A frustrated female cry told me my prediction had only been slightly off. Flames and sparks began to explode from her direction as I swam past the dazed stallion as quickly as I could. My world went lopsided. The pony in the water with me managed to lash out with a hoof, connecting with my skull in a distinctly painful way.

Feeling me, he started to pull me closer. "Y'ain't going nowhere!"

The pony was stronger than me, I was already certain. My advantages: fingers, grip strength, and the ability to wiki things. The last one would not be helpful in that situation, I quickly decided. Instead of trying to swim away from his grip, which I doubted I could manage, I lunged for him.

I'm sure he expected a kick or a punch. He did not expect my hands at his throat, or the pressure when I began to squeeze with everything I had. He made a muffled startled noise and thrashed at me, but I was too close to make that easy. I was clinging to him as we sank beneath the waves, neither of us swimming.

Now, in the movies, choking is simple. You grab on, the person's out like a light in no time at all, possibly dead in a few seconds. That is not quite how it worked. Maybe if I knew how to stop the flow of blood to his brain? There was a specific artery for that, right? I didn't know it, especially not in that moment. I was busy squeezing and holding as hard as could, getting buffeted as a reward as he desperately tried to fight me off.

His movements suddenly slowed. Was I doing it right? He was still trying to hit me, but it wasn't working very well. Soon I was holding an unconscious pony. I did it! I had actually choke-held someone, from the front. That was... extra hard, I think. Maybe pony arteries were in different places, or I was just that desperate.

Teeth closed around my shoulder. It hurt a bit, but it was effective as drawing me free of the water suddenly. Work tossed me to the side, then quickly fished out the other pony and tossed him in the other direction. "Hard Line, stop this! Stop it right now! This isn't us."

Hard, the pony I just choked, coughed to life, recovering rapidly. "What? Work? I told you to stay out of this!"

Work pointed down the shore, where Easy was huffing for breath, her assailants fleeing in a panic. "You're only getting the team singed, and yourself possibly killed. He's trying to hire us, not hurt us. We should be thankful."

"Yeah no." He scrambled to his hooves, taking short gasps of air. "He ain't one of us. We don't take charity."

I stood up about as quickly as he had, wobbling a moment. "Look, this is good work, that will help a lot of ponies."

"You aren't a pony." He squinted at me with obvious displeasure. "Mostly?" One brow raised.

Oh, right. I had no boxers anymore after all that. "I need tunnels laid down through the city. I need it done quickly, well, and to last. Can you do that?"

Work gestured to him. "He can, if he'd listen to reason."

"You're spouting nonsense. You were blacklisted, Work. Blacklisted ponies don't just get a sudden hire from the guild like nothing happened. You're full of lies and so is that thing, whatever it is." He thrust an accusing hoof at me, his stance recovered from his traumatic experience.

I threw a hand wide. "We had dinner with Miss Mason. A charming mare, mostly. She's eager to get this project underway, and was ready to throw one of her other teams at me. I'm the one that insisted Work get the job, Work and his team. Are you on his team or not?"

"Maybe not after this display," grunted Work before sighing softly. "Hard..."

Hard stomped a hoof down. "Don't you go looking at me like a disappointed father, I have enough of those, thanks. Look, he's lying to you, getting your hopes up." He started to move around Work, but not towards me. "Whatever, you'll see. If you have the bits in hoof, come talk. Otherwise, stay gone."

"Are you alright?" Work came towards me with a concerned look. "I'm so sorry, Sir."

"It wasn't your fault, but I'm going to start moving towards my clothes." Going commando sounded better than being entirely naked.

Cold and wet slapped across my face. Pulling it free revealed my boxers. Easy was smirking at me from behind them. "You dropped those? Good thing they floated up. Work, nice to see you. Thanks for the assist. I would have gotten here eventually."

Work dipped his head towards Easy. "Miss, good to see you as well. I'm certain you would have been far more rough with him, but I don't want my team being... more hurt than they already are. Sir, please tell me this project start soon. Nothing short of its actual start will convince them that there is hope to be had."

I was soon clad in wet boxers, a mild improvement. I decided the phone was the next priority, still free of the water, thankfully. "We've run into possibilities that may make this easier, potentially. We need to find the actual source of this water."

"If I can help?" Work inclined an ear. "The sooner we can begin, the better."

Easy threw an arm over Work suddenly. "Hey, if you're looking to get hired, you have to go through the manager."

Author's Note

As it turns out, he did NOT go kill himself in underwater caves. Go him! There are other problems to be faced, like how to locate that source.