I Met a Pony In Hell (And We Kicked Ass Together)

by shortskirtsandexplosions

Rating: teen
Tags: Comedy, Adventure, Applejack, Gore, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Human, Other, Lyra
Length: 40180

So like, this pony and I met in Hell, and we totally kicked ass together. Also there's a hot chick

In a dark place named Tartarus, a subterranean hellscape between worlds, humans and ponies are paired together at random to survive a gauntlet of horrible monstrocities while the future of their realms hang in the balance.

Now, are you buying that? Good. Cuz I'm friggin' tired of having to explain it all on top of dragging this annoying-ass unicorn around the effing corridors of purgatory along with me. You'd think the damn, burning yahoos who run this place would give us rest stops to drown ourselves in beer or something. Friggin' A.

Oh, and some ponies and humans spill blood together and stuff. I dunno. Stop playing BattleDuty: Future Football and read this, or whatever. Like I give a crap...

Published 2012-07-24 10:04:03 UTC
Last updated 2012-07-24 10:04:03 UTC

Chapter Two: The One Where a Sexy Siren Shows Up... Also Apples

Chapter Two: The One Where a Sexy Siren Shows Up... Also Apples

“Just how do they expect to make Tartarus a worse place from all of these violent combat exercises?” Lyra remarked as we marched onwards. “I mean, if they were simply torturing us in one of their dungeons, perhaps such repetitious experimentation would make sense. But do they actually plan to abduct souls from the two worlds every millennium and turn them into dying warriors for eternity? Just how does that accomplish the will of Sisyphus' Dark Lord?”

I groaned, my body slumping as I trudged a few steps ahead of her. “For the last time, Lyra, I haven't got a clue. Maybe this is the Comic-Con of Hell. I mean, we’re already dressed stupidly for it.”

Her face scrunched in thought as she trotted behind me. “Tartarus was a dimension forged to contain the most detestable monsters in Equestria. What they want with humans like you is beyond me, unless of course your realm somehow dabbled with this place as well. Does human civilization have records of the existence and purpose of Tartarus?”

“Kind of. It’s a place in the Greek Mythological Underworld, a lame boss at the end of Halo 2, and probably the name of several sex clubs in Germany.”

“Huh?”

“Nnnngh... Look, I really can't help you with your questions, Lyra.”

“Is it because you don't know, or because you've never practiced magic?”

“How many times do I have to tell you?” I groaned and frowned back at her. “There ain't no magic where I come from.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

I sighed and walked a little faster.

She galloped until she was at an even pace with me. Her soft face smiled from beneath her silver helmet. “Humans are such remarkable creatures, and you've got an amazing range of emotions! No race is ever born so vastly different and unique by total accident!”

“Just because I was born with webbed toes doesn't mean that fairies live next door to me, Lyra.”

“You have fairies in your world?!”

“No—I... Nngh...” I ran a hand over my face, sighed, and glanced down at her. “I was being sarcastic. Look—Lyra—can we just be quiet for a little while? I really, really need to think.”

Lyra blinked. She gazed at the vast, barren, unblemished platform stretching before us. She looked at me again. “Think about what?”

“Just can it for a little while!”

She bit her lip and hung her head in a lethargic trot beside me.

I took a deep breath and painfully drank in the sights above and before us. This was the largest chamber we had entered by far. For the past hour, we had been marching across the subterranean immensity of the place. To me, it looked like some impossibly huge furnace that had burnt out years ago. A dim glow permeated the rusted landscape. I couldn't even begin to guess the nature of the light source. Then again, everything was ass-backwards about that place. Lyra was right about a few things: Tartarus existed only to make people fucking miserable. I had no doubt that something hideous somewhere was watching every move we made. That was kind of the reason why I wanted absolute silence, besides the fact that I was this close to ripping Lyra's tongue out.

I couldn't be too harsh on the pony, really. After all, she did save my lousy butt on several occasions. For the record, I saved her mint green keister a whole hell of a lot more, but that wasn't the point. The point was: we were both in a really shitty situation. The entire time, she was curious about the reason for why we were being forced into these death games by Sisyphus. Me? I couldn't possibly give a fuck. I knew that we had to get out of there, either by bashing holes in the wall or ripping our way through the waves of meatbags that were constantly launched our way. I was concerned with making it out alive. Lyra, it would seem, was preparing to write a book report on the whole fiasco. I wondered if all horned ponies like her were so brainy. Hell, no wonder unicorns became extinct in my world. Ew, God, what was I thinking?

“Nnnngh!” Lyra's voice strained. “Nnnnngh... Hnnng!.”

I sighed. I looked down at her with a bored expression. “Really? Must you do this again?”

“I'm sorry, Shawn, but I g-gotta try!” she exclaimed, her face tensing as her horn flickered on and off with bright pulses of green light. “After all... nnngh... we very rarely get quiet, peaceful moments like th-this... Hcnnnkt...”

“Just give it a rest, will ya?” I sighed as we marched towards a steep wall of soot-stained metal stretching high above us. “You're never going to teleport anywhere. There's no point in trying.”

“I was halfway through material translocation lessons just days before I was abducted,” Lyra said, once again tensing. Her cheeks ballooned as if she was swimming deep underwater. I suppose it would have been a cute thing, if I wasn't so damn pissed off at the time. “Twilight Sparkle said that I had the potential to relocate myself grand distances if I just concentrated!”

“Looks like you're passing a kidney stone. Stop before you burst a muscle that you may need to endure a troll attack later.”

“But if I could teleport somewhere, I'd surely lose the collar strapped to my neck!” she exclaimed breathily, her lips curved. “Wouldn't that be great? Imagine if we didn't have to stay within thirty feet of each other during our fights with the enemy!”

“Please. We're in Hell; don't tempt me with fanciful dreams-come-true.” I stopped. We had both come upon the solid wall of metal. Before us, a wrought-iron ladder stretched up, up, up along the face of the obstruction. It had to have been no less than an eighty foot climb. “Whewwwww Jesus. Do they make things any less epic in this shithole?”

“Who's this 'Jesus' you keep speaking of? Is he an important person where you come from?”

“Lyra...”

“Or is it some sort of healing incantation? You always shout it along with 'Christ' whenever you get hurt—”

“Hey!” I snapped, forcing her to jolt in her place. I pointed up the metal wall. “Listen, we've got bigass ladder to climb. Tell me, are those hooves of yours good for anything beyond mashing carrots?”

“Uhm...” Her green cheeks blushed slightly as she lifted a pair of dainty forelimbs in front of her. “You tell me,” she said with a nervous smile.

I sighed. I scratched my chin as I gazed up at the tall, tall ladder. “I don't suppose you're magical-floaty tricks could get us both up there?”

“I'm sorry, Shawn. Only a telekinetic unicorn like Twilight Sparkle could do something like that,” Lyra said in a low voice. “I'm afraid you're stuck with a pony who was merely a musician before she was brought to this awful place.”

I took a deep breath, then cracked my limbs. “Okay then. Get on my back.”

She blinked awkwardly. “Huh?”

“You dumb or something? Isn't it obvious? I've gotta carry you. So... uhm... hop on board, or something.”

“Ahem. Y-your scabbard's in the way.”

I glanced at myself. Grumbling, I repositioned the sword so that it hung against my front and not from my back. I already didn't like the feel of it, but I wasn't about to waste time complaining. “There. Better?”

“I... I hope I'm not too heavy,” she murmured as she trotted towards me.

I squatted down, facing away from her. “Don't worry. I'm sure you're no worse than a green Labrador or—Snkkkt—Holy shit!”

“Wh-what?!” She gasped as she hung massively from my spine, her limbs wrapped around my shoulders and ribs. “Is it too much for you to—?!”

“No.” I wheezed, hissing through my teeth. “It's all good! Lemme just...” I grasped onto the ladder, one iron-wrought rung at a time, and steadily pulled the two of us upwards with white-knuckled grips. “Ohhhhh-kay. Yeah. We're doing this. We're doing this...”

“You sure you can handle it, Shawn—?”

“I said we're doing this!” I grunted, getting used to the strain on my back as I pulled us higher and higher. “Don't make me change my mind! I'm sure gravity wouldn't agree with us.”

“Oh. Uhm. Okay.”

She was trembling slightly. Lyra steeled herself and clutched to me tighter. I felt her heartbeat pulsing quick and steady through our separate sets of armor. I knew that I had a slow climb ahead of us, but it didn't matter. I learned long ago—even before being whisked away to that godawful place—that the harshest things in life were best confronted impulsively. Tenacity doesn't come to a person through careful thought as it does through intestinal fortitude... or something. I'm sure I read that somewhere...

“You're so dependable Shawn,” I heard her exclaim beyond the heated strain of my climb. “I can't say that enough. I'd be slain by orcs if it weren't for you—or even worse. I shudder to think.”

“Then don't think,” I grunted. Every time I glanced above us, the ladder seemed to stretch on further and further. So, with a sigh, I stared straight into the metal surface beyond the rungs. “As a matter of fact, don't talk. I need some silence right now.”

“But you never let me talk!” Her body shook slightly from where she hung off me. “When will you at least let me thank you like you deserve to be thanked?”

“You can express your gratitude by putting a sock in it.”

“Sock? What's a sock?”

“Unngh...” I sighed, trying to keep my arms from popping out their sockets.

“Is that anything like a Jesus?”

“Do all ponies ask these many questions where you come from?”

She giggled. “We can't help it. It's in our blood. We love to socialize. Don't humans desire the same?”

“Where I come from, I desire my paycheck a few days early to pay the utilities.”

“Yes—this 'Detroit of Michigan' you hail from—it sounds absolutely fascinating!”

“Nnngh... not really, no...”

“And all of the humans we met: you knew them?”

“Yes, Lyra. I knew them. Now can we please—?”

“You went to a learning institution together, right? Or were you working companions?”

“We went to a place called a 'community college.' If they had those in Ponyland, then I'm sure you'd be well aware of tobacco products.”

“It must have been absolutely dreadful for you,” Lyra said. “To... To have seen Blake suffer in the end like he did.”

“Blake only got what was coming to him.”

“Shawn!” I felt her entire body shake with a heavy gasp. “How... How could you say such a thing? He was your friend!”

“He was an idiot,” I grunted, pulling us higher and higher with straining arms. “He made stupid mistakes in the real—er—in the human world. Only he didn't have a motherload of mutant freaks chasing his ass down then. Believe me: if none of us were ever brought to this nasty place, he would have bought the farm from one thing or another.”

“But he was an associate of yours,” Lyra's voice said in a wavering pitch. “Surely you feel some sense of loss at his terrible demise.”

I exhaled a heavy sigh. “I'm just glad it wasn't you or me. We're alive, Lyra. It's best that we take advantage of it.”

“Being alive means that we have to remember how our friends perished,” she said in a low whimper. I felt her chin resting on my flexing shoulders as a cold shudder ran through her limbs. “Thunderlane was one of the most handsome stallions in Ponyville. Every filly had a crush on him in secondary school. He had dreams of flying away to Stratopolis and becoming captain of the northern border guard. At last year's Hearth's Warming, he and Blossomforth were crowned king and queen of the annual Snow Festival. They... They looked so happy together.” She sniffled, and I felt a warm drop of moisture bathing the side of my neck. “I... I just don't know how to break it t-to her that he's gone. On top of that, Cloud Kicker died s-so horribly...” She choked on a breath and whimpered, “Both of Blossomforth's closest acquaintances have been claimed by this terrible place. It's just so... so wrong...”

“Lyra...”

“I'm sorry, Shawn.” She sniffled and gripped me harder as her breaths evened out. “I... I will compose myself. I just wish we weren't on the run so much. So many horrible things have happened. It's so easy to forget.”

“So forget them,” I said. “Focus on the path ahead.”

“I... I wish that I could, Shawn. I guess I'm... I-I'm just not as strong as humans.”

I clenched my jaw. I looked ahead at the wall of metal passing beyond the black rungs we were ascending. I imagined the cafeteria where so many of us were sitting when the abduction took place. Blake was fiddling with his new Playstation Vita, as if it was the most important thing in his pathetic life. Barbara was talking on the cell phone with her mom, complaining about her latest car payment. Little did she know that she was going to end up disemboweled—screaming—just hours later besides the corpse of a pony named Carrot Top. Kyle was pouring over several mountainous pages of homework, working to get his transfer to that snobbish liberal arts college in north Michigan. All of his nerdy knowledge of Shakespeare couldn't make him dodge trollish arrows quickly enough.

And then there was Kelly, her shapely legs kicked up on the edge of a dining table as she poured through some book of boring German philosophy. The cold electric light of the commissary shone across her mahogany skin, as if illuminating the sexiest picture imaginable just seconds before she too would be carted off to the proverbial rectum of the universe. Somewhere, someplace, that sexy siren could only have become a worthless, smelly pile of guts like Blake and the rest.

“Humans are just as meaty beneath the skin as everyone else,” I heard myself say. “Being sentimental about everything only lasts as long as we have a head on our shoulders to make up sentiment to begin with. The way I see it, we should be concerned with saving our own asses, so that we can indulge in our feelings later.”

“Do you really believe you have that, Shawn?”

“What, an ass?”

“No. Feelings.”

I was silent for a while in our climb.

“I'm... I'm sorry.” Lyra's grip of me shook slightly. “That wasn't right of me to say. Please forgive me, Shawn.”

“Whatever,” I muttered. I glanced up at the ladder. The top of the wall was suddenly within reach. I couldn't imagine how I was able to carry both myself and a talking horse up such a crazy-ass height. In the last dozen hours or so, I had been transformed into a veritable superhuman by Sisyphus' magical whatchamacallits. It would have been really friggin' cool if things didn't suck so bad. “If you gotta feel your emotions so bad, that's fine. Just lemme do the ass-kicking and be sure to help me out when I call for it.”

“That's how we've worked this entire time, Shawn. I think I'm more than capable of helping you there...”

“Good,” I said.

“But I wish I could help you more.”

“You can't,” I said as I finally reached the top. “All that matters is that we survive.” I gripped the side of the ladder just beneath the edge of the metal platform and braced my body against the wall. “Okay. Now climb up.”

“Climb up?”

“I'll come up after you. Now move it!”

“Okay...” She pulled herself up over my shoulders. I felt her rear legs planting down on either side of my neck. With a light jump, she landed on the top of the ledge above me. A tiny squeak came from her lips, followed by a shaky murmur: “Uhhhh... Shawn?”

“Gimme a minute,” I hissed, pulling my aching body up over the side. “I'm right behind you.”

“Sh-Shawn?!”

“I said hold on!” I grunted, thrusting myself onto the platform and rolling over until I was lying beside her. With a few panting breaths, I sat up and groaned, “Now what's so damn important?”

She wasn't looking at me. Her wide, amber eyes were aimed towards the surface of the platform beyond me. I turned and followed her gaze.

“Oh for fuck's sake...”

Several monsters turned to look at us, their soulless eyes blinking like a sea of pale pinpricks. We had stumbled upon a huge fucking camp on the side of the platform. No less than fifty trolls and orcs had their buttholes planted around a flickering campfire. At the sight of us, they dropped several cooked morsels of raw flesh and stood up with a flurrying array of unsheathed blades.

“Shawn—!”

“On it!” I reached to my back. My fingers clasped nothing. I blinked, then remembered I had my scabbard hanging in front of me. “Sonuva—Lyra! Shield!”

“Right!” She planted her limbs apart, meditated, and pulsed her horn brightly before us.

Several monsters were already charging, flinging spears and axes our way. I could smell their rusted metal as the weapons spun towards our unguarded craniums.

At the last second, the projectiles sparked in mid-air and fell ineffectually to the ground. Lyra had summoned her emerald shield in the nick of time. I took the opportunity to unholster both of my crossbows, reach around the edge of the shield, and fire a return volley.

Three creatures fell—shrieking—as my metal bolts rendered their rancid bodies to pincushions. As they collapsed into bloody piles, their cohorts jumped over their corpses and charged us from afar, screaming bloody fucking murder.

“There're so many of them!” Lyra frightfully shrieked. “Shawn, what'll we do?!”

“Make less of them!” I snarled, holstering my crossbows and repositioning my scabbard to my back. I unsheathed my sword with a glint of metal in the labryinth's air. “Stay behind me and give me cover!”

“Don't go too far away!” she said as she lowered the shield.

“I wouldn't dream of it!” I charged into the fray, spinning my body and my sword with it. I felt the programming of Sisyphus clicking through my brain, and my body was bathed in troll blood as a reward. I sliced through two shrieking gladiators, parried the scimitars of three more, and waited for Lyra to deliver.

She did. Green bolts of energy soared past me, melting the flesh of several monsters' necks and throats. As they faltered, I tore through them with my blade, rendering their limbs to ribbons as the putrid smell of hellish entrails filled the platform before us.

Then the second wave came, twice as thick and pissed-off as the first assault. I had to step backwards, swishing my sword from side to side in a desperate attempt to fend off their relentless charge. My vision was filled with gnarled faces and snapping fangs. It was like these pieces of shit were born to bite my dick off. I wasn't about to give them the satisfaction. I ducked low, dodging an axe swing, and stabbed my sword deep into the thigh of one troll. He shrieked loudly as I tipped him over into his comrades, knocking them into a quivering pile while Lyra viciously bombarded the group with burning green magic.

I didn't have any time to celebrate. With a vicious kick to my ribs, I was knocked onto my back. I looked up to see a tall orc leering above me. Behind him, the third wave of monsters was advancing. I kicked him in the groin before he could impale me with his spear. Using my sword as a pole-vault, I pushed myself into a back-flip. I landed in a slide next to Lyra, during which I pulled out one of my crossbows and one-handed a volley of bolts into the charging phalanx of death.

“This is absolutely crazy!” she said through the migraine her magical assault was forcing her to endure. “Can we run from this?”

“Uhhhh...” I fired a few more bolts, looked directly behind us, and saw the mad drop of the platform's edge looming below. “I don't think so...”

“Shawn, I'm scared!” Lyra squeaked as the orcs and trolls converged on our location. We could smell their breaths and taste their spit.

“Fuck that!” I stood behind her and raised my sword high. “Shield!”

“But I'm so weak! I don’t think I can—”

“Just high enough so that I can still swing through!” I gripped the hilt tightly as she erected a flimsy emerald barrier at waist's level. “If I have to make a last stand next to a pastel-colored pony, I wanna do it spilling blood!”

“Shawn—”

“Just hold it!” I snarled and swung my blade for all it was worth.

Before I could lop a single skull off those godawful torsos, Lyra and I were graced with the bizarre sight of our immediate attackers being yanked backwards, one by one. The two of us gasped in disbelief. We watched as the confused group floundered, then disappeared even further as orc after orc was being pierced through the chest by the same arrow—over and over—before being pulled bloodily to the ground.

“What in the tap-dancing Hell?!” I exclaimed. There was a loud shout. I looked towards the far right. A woman was perched atop a pillar adjacent to the campsite. She was clad in tight red-and-black armor, and she looked sexy as shit.

“Don't worry, guys! We got your backs!” she shouted in a very familiar voice. She held a ridiculously large bow crafted out of shiny titanium. The vixen notched an arrow attached to a length of metal wire. With amazing dexterity, she fired the projectile from several yards away. The arrow skewered the neck of one of the orcs. With a flick of her wrist, she retracted the projectile along its wire, yanking the orc's body so that he plowed through several screaming trolls. Bloodily, the arrow broke loose and flew back into the bow's notch. With a proud smirk, the woman cupped a gauntleted hand over her lips and shouted into the air. “Alright, AJ! Now! Do your worst”

There was a thunder of hooves. From around the same pillar, an orange pony charged in full gallop. “Alright, y'all!” the freckled thing shouted and flicked her neck. As if on command, several plates of brown armor expanded from a length of metal on her spine until her entire muscular body was covered in tank-like shielding. “High time we cleaned house!” What followed was the most ridiculously southern warcry, as if God just crapped out a Confederate warhorse made from dynamite and awesome. “Yeeeeeee-haaaaa!” She barreled through several bodies, her armored flanks impervious to the creatures' sword-strikes as she stomped-stomped-stomped her way through the entire hideous company.

In the meantime, the woman jumped down from the pillar before her and her partners' collars could stretch too far apart. She shook the arrow and somehow collapsed it into a serrated disc. She fired it with no less skill, and the thing spun on a deadly arc straight through the crowd, decapitating most of the orcs and trolls as they got up from her armored partner's violent charge. When the wired disc returned to the woman's bow, she pulled one of several daggers from her belt, twirled it, and tossed the blade into the throat of an orc dashing towards her side.

“Shawn! We gotta help them!” Lyra's voice shouted.

I snapped out of it, not realizing until then that I was frozen in place. “Sure thing!” I leapt over her shield and swung my way into a group of trolls before they could fire arrows at the armored pony's blindside. Blood and limbs beautifully filled the air. I slid to my knees, swung my sword low, and rendered several ankles to bloody stubs. As a pair of orcs came at my side, Lyra's magic beams knocked them off-kilter. I stood up and prepared to stab them when the orange pony arrived to do an even bloodier job.

“This is for Dr. Whooves!” she growled as she knocked one orc onto his back and rendered his gasping face to mush with her hooves. “And this one's for Ace!” she snarled as she head-butted into the other creature, knocking him—screaming—clear off the platform. Two trolls came at her rear with a pair of spears.

“Behind you!” I shouted.

She pivoted her armored body, absorbing the spears' ineffectual strikes with her armor. “Not so fast, y'all!” she roared and bucked them low in the gut.

As the trolls stumbled, I rushed in with a twirl of my sword. I sliced the arms off one while Lyra's energy blasts neutralized the second. Suddenly, an arrow flew through both creature's necks, retracted along its bloody wire, and popped both craniums off like zits.

“And that!” the pony spat on what was left of the twitching corpses. “Was for Fluttershy, ya lousy, no good creeps!” At that last utterance, a great deal of the furious anger left her face, replaced instead by a retching expression as she sat in a slump, panting steadily in her sweat and armor.

“The Hell are you doing?!” I shouted, spinning with my sword held high. “We can't stop now—!”

“At ease, Shawn,” the woman said as she retracted her bow behind her curved backside. “Show's over, for now at least.”

“Wait, how did you know my—?” I stopped before I could finish that thought, blinking. Breathless, I glanced down the far length of the platform. Twenty-five survivors were running away, shrieking and no doubt pissing themselves. Everything was a sea of bloody carnage between us and the retreating enemy. “Well...” I shuddered and sheathed my sword as my adrenaline slowly wore down. “Sisyphus is gonna carve them into dildos for sure.”

“They can count themselves lucky,” the woman said. Suddenly, she was kneeling down beside the armored pony's side. “Applejack.” She placed a gentle hand on her partner's shoulder. “Applejack, honey, look at me...”

The pony shuddered, her moist eyes clenched shut. “It's like they don't feel a single thang. We were cuttin' into them like there was no tomorrow, just like loppin' heads of corn. I wanna get them back so badly for what they did to my friends, and yet nothin' feels right...”

“I know, Applejack,” she said, smiling warmly as she tilted the pony's face up to meet hers. “You're a pony. You weren't made to do violent things like this. It's only natural to feel so much hurt inside. But I give you my word: one way or another, we're going to avenge your friends, as well as mine. And then we're gonna get you home to your family. I just need you to hold out for me a little bit longer.”

Applejack gulped, and her next breath came in an anguished shudder. “I'm just... I'm just so plum angry, I don't know what to do with myself...”

“Stay close to me,” the lady said, gently stroking Applejack's cheek above the collar. “I'll make sure you don't lose your focus. We're in this together, AJ. Don't forget that.”

“I know...” Applejack shuddered. “It's just that—”

“Applejack?” Lyra's voice mewled like a kitten's.

Applejack blinked. She looked over, and her mouth hung agape. “Well, I'll be...” Her armor retracted one panel at a time, exposing her orange coat as she stood up and marched over to my mint-green partner. “Lyra! Well smack my bottom and call me a mule! You're alive, sugarcube!”

“Oh Applejack, it is you!” She galloped over—giggling—and nuzzled the blond pony dearly. It was a little too damn sweet to look at. “I'm so glad to see that you're safe!”

“Same here, darlin',” Applejack nuzzled her back, smiling warmly. All of the sorrow and uncertainty in her expression vanished the very instant she talked to Lyra, as if she was innately programmed to be the stronger pony in the room. She placed a pair of hooves on the unicorn's shoulders. “Praise Celestia, this whole mess is worth it so long as I can see another one of my friends in one piece!”

“Heehee... Look at you!” Lyra grinned wide. “You look like Captain of the Guard!”

“Yeah. Ain't these some fancy duds? I woke up and suddenly I knew how to use 'em like I was foaled in this here armor. Never thought I'd see the day when I became a one-mare army!”

“Neither have I used so much magic before and—” Lyra stopped in mid-speech. She gulped hard, and her lips quivered as a pale expression blanched across her face. “Applejack... Carrot Top. She and Cloud Kicker and Thunderlane.” Tears welled up in her eyes. “They're... th-they're gone, Applejack. And now... and now I hear that Fluttershy...?”

Applejack clenched her jaw; she said nothing. That was the answer Lyra needed, though it was hardly something she wanted. With a soft whimper, she collapsed in Applejack's grip, her tears blanketing the bloody platform below them. Applejack closed her eyes and held Lyra close, nuzzling the unicorn's neck beneath her chin.

“There there, sugarcube. It's horrible, I know. But we gotta keep pressin' on. What matters now is that we're together. For our friends' sake, if not our own, we need to get out of this here nightmare. We need to get back to our families...”

“It's all so terrible!” Lyra sniffed and hiccuped between sobs. “We didn't ask for this! We didn't want to come here! Why does Tartarus have to exist?! Why can't this Sisyphus jerk leave us alone?”

“Shhhhh... I dunno, darlin'. But t'ain't no matter. Just let it out. It's okay to be sad about it.”

Lyra quietly released several of her tears. In the meantime, Applejack gazed curiously my way with glossy eyes. I turned from the sight and shuffled towards the only other human in the chamber.

“So... uhm...” I scratched my neck, sighed, and looked at her. “You know me, huh?”

“Well of course I do, Shawn,” she said while she was cleaning the blood off her bow. Her dark skin resembled polished mahogany in the dim glow of that abysmal hellscape, and an unmistakable streak of violet hair wrestled my memory back with a kiss of color. “I'd recognize that cold, boring tone in the back of any classroom.”

I squinted at her, my senses coming together as if for the first time in my life. “Kelly?”

“The hell's gotten into you?” Kelly smiled at me, shook the last bit of blood off her weaponry, and stood tall. “Don't tell me you've not waited all your life to kick this much ass.”

I blinked at her. I glanced at the river of dead bodies and limbs beside us. “Yeah,” I said. “But I figured I'd have moved to Indianapolis before decapitating anything.”

“Heheh...” She chuckled and started rummaging through the debris for salvageable weapons. “You always had a dry sense of humor. Only fitting you'd be a total asshole in this place as well.”

“How can you be so nonchalant about all this shit?”

“Simple,” Kelly said, lifting a curved scimitar from a dead hand. She studied it, disapproved of its dullness, and tossed it into the grime and rust behind her. “I've got an awesome pony to look after. Little girl’s dream come true, and I'm not about to fuck it up.”

“But—”

“But nothing. Those freaks are gonna come back. And when they do, I'm willing to bet they'll have twice the numbers.” She picked up a spear and tested its weight in her grasp. “Now, will I be able to count on your assistance, Shawn? Or is your cynicism gonna be another load of dead weight?”

I blinked at her, glanced at the two nuzzling equines, and sighed. “Whatever you say, captain, my captain.”

“Good. First order of business.” She brushed past me, purposefully bumping my shoulder. “Stop staring at my ass.”

“H-hey! I wasn't—!”

She gave a flighty laugh, and continued rummaging through the debris.

I groaned and started picking at the dead trolls on my side of the platform. “I was better off with just the prissy unicorn...”

Chapter Three: The One Where Ponies Do Boring Things and I Get Dragged Into Character Development

Chapter Three: The One Where Ponies Do Boring Things and I Get Dragged Into Character Development

“So yer sayin' you saw Rainbow Dash make it out of here, huh?” Applejack asked.

“Yup!” Lyra smiled as she finished stitching together a “saddlebag” made out of four combined leather satchels looted off the dead creatures. “Along with one of Shawn's friends, Michelle. We saw them go through a glowing door and disappear. In a blink, all that remained was their armor and collars. They have to be home-free as we speak right now.”

“Either that or Rainbow has learned herself some fancy schmancy magic tricks.”

Lyra giggled. “Applejack, you know as well as I do that nothing can hold back Rainbow Dash from winning at everything she sets her mind to. I wouldn't be surprised if she was the first pony to get out of here with her human partner.”

“I reckon that medal goes to Candy Floss,” Applejack said as Lyra trotted towards her with the bags. “She and a feller named Christopher got transported away before our very eyes two days ago. Then Kelly and I helped Cheerilee get through another glowy door along with her partner, Brian.”

“Oh yeah?”

“The passage was only wide enough to accept two of us by the time we got there, and Cheerilee was banged up something fierce...”

“Oh no!” Lyra's face paled. “How bad?”

“Assumin' she gets back safe'n'sound to Ponyville, Nurse Red Heart will fix her up no problem. The magic of the exit chamber was pretty weak, and could only take half of us home. Kelly and I figured we would have a better chance to survive a little bit longer than them two, so we gave the pair a ticket out of here, so to speak.”

“It never fails,” Lyra murmured with a smile. “You'll never stop being our town's most dependable of ponies.” She hoisted the bag up with her telekinesis and gave Applejack a look. “Ready?”

“As ready as I'll ever be.”

“Here goes.” She lowered the pouches over Applejack's armored spine.

“Whew!” Applejack exhaled as she took on the weight. “Heh. These ugly critters were carryin' an awful lot of useful junk with them. I wonder if this 'Sisyphus' character actually wants us to get ahead in the game.”

“Ew...” Lyra made a face. “Only Rainbow Dash would be crazy enough to call this entire nightmare a 'game.'”

“Makes you wonder why she got her flank out of the fight so quickly.”

“Knowing her, she's rounding up the Wonderbolts as we speak! Together they'll find a portal back to here so they can kick all these monsters where it hurts!”

“Darn tootin'!” Applejack said with a chuckle. “That’s just what we all need! Miss Braggin' Sassafras to the rescue!”

The two ponies laughed together. After a few seconds, the smile waned from Lyra's face. She stirred upon a stretch of platform untouched by blood. “Uhm... AJ?”

“Yeah, Lyra?”

“In all of the places you and Miss Kelly have been, I don't suppose... mmmm... I don't suppose you've seen—?”

“No, Lyra.” Applejack calmly trotted over and rested a hoof on the unicorn's shoulder. “But you have to remember, sugarcube, that this Sisyphus feller only grabbed the unlucky few of us who were sittin' around Sugarcube Corner at the time. I'm sure she was too far away to have been zapped away along with the rest of us.”

Lyra sighed long and hard, hanging her head. “I sure hope so, Applejack.”

“Hey...” Applejack forced Lyra to look up at her. “She's waitin' for ya, darlin'. Just like my family's waitin' for me. Let's be glad for that, and work our way out of this mess one hoof at a time, ya hear?”

Lyra nodded, biting her lip. “I-I think I can do that...”

“And then the two of us can take turns pluckin' Rainbow's feathers for her gettin' out of here so darn quick-like!”

“Heeheehee! Yeah! We'll make them our souvenirs!

“Hahahah!”

I sat in a slump against a metal pillar as I gazed at the two colorful equines laughing in each other's presence. With a groan, I rubbed my aching forehead and looked across the body-strewn platform beyond. “And I thought having one talking horse was annoying enough, much less two in the same chamber...”

A leather satchel flew against my head.

“Ow!” I frowned and looked upwards. “The fuck gives?”

“I do, from my heart,” Kelly said as she marched over with a matching satchel of her own. “I grabbed these off one of the bigger orcs. Take a look inside.”

Begrudgingly, I did so. I opened the leather flap and saw several clunks of stringy meat rolling around inside.

“Shit looks edible,” Kelly said with a mouthful from her own bag. She chewed on a few strips as she sat down against the pillar beside me. “We're gonna need all the strength we can get, especially now that we have two quadrupeds to keep up with.”

“Judging from the tight armor they gave you, perhaps it's best you lay off the beef jerky.”

“Hardy har har.” She pointed again. “Eat up before I make you swallow my fist instead.”

“Sure thing, captain, my captain.” I took a morsel and lifted it to my mouth. At the last second, I hesitated. I glanced at the two equines, then back at Kelly. “Uhm...You don't suppose it's pony, do you?”

“Nahhhh,” Kelly said between swallows. “Not the same kind of texture as horse meat. Trust me: I've watched the Discovery Channel one too many times.”

“Ah...” I nodded. I turned the morsel over in my fingers, gulped, and stammered, “Could it be people?”

“Mmmph...” She gulped and bit onto another strip. “I sure hope not.”

I shuddered and dropped the pouch to the floor between my knees. “I think I'll wait until after my goldfish memory forgets this conversation.” I rested my head against the pillar and sighed. “What I wouldn't give for a nice tall beer and a rerun of Quantum Leap right about now.”

“Heh...” Kelly swallowed another bite and smirked at me. “And here I was about to give you a pep talk, Shawn, but you surprise me. I didn't think you were confident enough to expect getting out of here.”

“You call this confidence?” I muttered as I gazed up at the distant ceiling of the dimly-lit cavern. “This is more like mental constipation. I swear, the moment I stop clenching my buttcheeks, my head's gonna shit out every fear and anxious thought I've ever conceived until I'm curling on the floor and calling for 'Mommy.' After all, who can blame me? We've been sent up gang-bang creek without a single condom, Kelly. Maybe now you can see why I'm pretending that I'll be alive to scream about this over Facebook in the next foreseeable future.”

“No,” she said. “But I can see why you pursued an English Major.”

“Could you at least tell me one thing?” I gazed lethargically her way. “Just what in God's name crawled up your butt and started injecting ecstasy into your guts? Cuz there's no way in fuck that a sane human being like you could be so calm about all this bullshit.”

“I'll tell you what it is if you tell me something else.”

“Try me.”

She closed the satchel, swallowed a last morsel, and smiled. “Were either of us doing anything better with our lives before this nightmare started?”

“Oh, terrific,” I groaned and rolled my eyes. “Next, you're going to tell me that this Sisyphus douchebag is 'doing us a favor.'”

“No, though I'll admit he's a tad bit more agreeable than the jerkoffs we've dealt with in the college admissions office,” she said. “Look, Shawn.” She pointed at me. “You're no warrior badass, and I'm no femme fatale. Despite the way things look, I'm just as scared shitless as you are. When I first dropped into this place, I didn't know what to do with myself. I saw the kind of creature I was collared to, the nasty freaks that were charging us, and the blissfully deep canyons beneath the platform. Guess which one of those three things I wanted to toss myself at first?”

I squinted. “What kept you?”

Kelly looked across the way at our colorful partners. “Applejack was just as freaked out as I was. I couldn't shake the fact that if I abandoned her, she wouldn't last one solitary minute against all those monsters, no matter how strong she was. So, I stayed around, and I fought. I did it because I wanted her to be safe. And you know what? I felt pretty good about it. It so happens that I was rewarded too. I got to see Chris and Brian make it home safely.”

“Assuming they made it home at all,” I said in a grumbling voice. “When Michelle and that flying gay pride flag made it through the glowy door, all Lyra and I saw was their armor and collars rattling to a stop in place of their bodies. Who's to know if Sisyphus just sent them to pony Hell?”

Kelly shrugged. “You're right, Shawn. I've no clue. A lot of what we're dealing with relies on fate.”

“Fat load of crud that's gonna do us...”

“Somehow I had no doubt that would be your response.” She winked and leaned back. “The fact is, I discovered that I was here to do more things than save my skin. It's been—what?—how many days? Three? Four? In all that time, I feel like I've gotten stronger. Other people—and other ponies—are alive now thanks to what we've done since we were dropped here. Hell, Applejack and I could have gotten away sooner, but we decided to let Brian and Cheerilee pass through the last door we saw while we fended off the enemy.”

“Were you out of your fucking minds?” I frowned at her. “You had a chance to get out of this hellhole! What stopped you from diving in with them?”

“The door didn’t have enough energy to take all four of us home. Besides...” Kelly looked at me with a heated glare. “There's more to life than saving one's skin. I didn't believe that before coming here. Now, in spite of all the horrible things I've seen, I consider myself a better person.”

“What's the point in being a better person if you end up living it as a corpse?” I said coldly.

“Is surviving all that matters to you, Shawn?”

“It was before we came to this cesspool,” I said, stifling a yawn. “It will be when I get back... assuming I do.”

Kelly giggled, a strangely childish sound for her. “I can't believe you've spent the better part of four days with a bright-eyed pony and still you're the same nihilistic asshole I always veered away from in the hallway between classes.”

“Yeah, and if you ask me,” I said with a wry smirk. “I think you've gotten a little too close to 'Golden Crisps' over there.”

“Applejack.”

“Whatever.”

“Seriously, though,” Kelly leaned forward in a squat and rested her arms on her knees. “You never bothered getting to know your unicorn friend as more than just a battle partner?”

“Whether we be in a barnyard or Hell itself, a horse is a horse. Ahem. No thank you.”

“Pfft! I'm not asking you french kiss the damn pony, Shawn!” She smirked. “As weird as they may look and sound, these are very kind, very intelligent, very interesting creatures!” She pointed across the way. “Applejack, believe it or not, runs an apple orchard just outside a town that her grandmother helped found. Their world is a place called Equestria, populated by several species of living, breathing, talking horses.” She smiled brightly. “Did you know that they have a goddess incarnate named Princess Celestia who raises the Sun with her own magic? What's more, her sister Luna has total control over the moon. Then, once a year, there's a great migration of dragons that flies across the land to lay their eggs.”

“I get it,” I grumbled. “They don't just live in stables, they're from Space-Narnia. What do you want me to do, Kelly, write up something for National Geographic?” I glared tiredly at her. “Look, all I want is to get out of this place one way or another. If Lyra gets back home to prance with Mr. Ed, fine. At least I'll be rid of her constant whining.”

“Heh... heheh...” Kelly leaned back. “So you're telling me that she's the whiner.”

I blinked. “I beg your pardon?”

“I think you're only hurting yourself with this stand-offish-ness, Shawn,” Kelly said. “And Lyra too.”

“How so?”

“Think of it. I know that all you want to do is survive. I won't harsh you for that. It's only natural, after all. But sooner or later, you gotta wake up to the fact that you just might not make it out of this place in one piece.”

“Oh, I'm quite aware of that.”

“Are you?” She raised an eyebrow and looked sharply my way. “Cuz you hardly seem prepared.”

“Do tell...”

Her face took on a soft expression as she said, “This Sisyphus creep has paired us up with these ponies for a reason. They think the awkwardness will hurt us, will turn our companions into crutches. I don't think he knows what he's actually done. Applejack has benefited from my practical-mindedness, and I've been incredibly blessed by her sweet nature and sincere emotions. If I die, I want nothing more than to be surrounded by this bond I've made, because it could very well be the last thing I feel.” She gulped and looked steadily at me. “You and Lyra may be experiencing your last days, Shawn. Do you really want those hours to go by so coldly, so lonesomely?”

I sighed. I stared into the mess of dead orcs and trolls before us. “We're all alone, Kelly,” I muttered. In a blink, I thought of Blake's panicked eyes, of Barbara and Kyle choking on their own blood. “Being brought here has only reinforced that. So save me the damn lecture, will ya?”

Kelly was quiet. Eventually she nodded and said, “I just wish I could save you, is all.”

I said nothing.

Applejack trotted up around this point. “Okay, y'all. I'm fitted up something proper.” She shook her sides, showing the leather pouches tethered to her body. “Reckon ya got yerself a regular packhorse, heh.”

“I helped!” Lyra said with a nervous smile.

“Hmmm...” Kelly stood up, smiled, and ruffled Lyra's mane. “I'm sure you did! Guess now's as good a time as any to head out. Shawn?”

I was already standing up, grumbling. “Tell me something I don't know.”

“Well, alright.” Kelly bent over and smiled at the pretty ponies. “Shawn's done nothing but stare at my butt since we reunited!”

I barked, “I have not!”

“You think I should just give him my leg plates and let him get it over with?” Kelly winked and marched on.

Applejack laughed to herself.

Lyra was blinking. “I don't get it...”

“What she means, sugarcube...” Applejack winked at the unicorn and trotted off to stay within Kelly's collar range. “...is that stallions ain't the only creatures with an extra leg.”

“Really?” Lyra turned and gaped at me before putting her helmet on. “Does it have toes too?”

“Don't you even start,” I grumbled as I marched after Kelly, the group's self-appointed leader. “God, I hope we get to fight trolls soon.”

Chapter Four: The One Where Everyone Acts Way Too Happy For Where They Are

Chapter Four: The One Where Everyone Acts Way Too Happy For Where They Are

Naturally, all we fought for the next few hours was boredom. A day in Tartarus is a lot like a day on the battlefield. Well, at least I would assume as much. You get long periods of absolute silence and nothingness while you march across empty expanses of metal platforms, unsure of what may be around the next stretch of rusted surfaces. Then, when the orcs and trolls and god-knows-what-the-fuck-else finally decide to jump on your dick, it all amounts to a frenzied battle of blades and blood that lasts the total of five short minutes at best.

Needless to say, it risks driving someone batshit crazy. Every soul has different means of coping with this. Me? I counted the cracks in the platform beneath my boots. Kelly talked about various bits of nonsense. Applejack whistled a lively tune. And Lyra...

“Nnnngh!” She strained in mid-trot, her face tensing up as she forced several strobes of green energy through her horn. “Hnnnckkt!”

“Careful, darlin',” Applejack drawled as she trotted between me and Kelly with the sacks of looted supplies. “Yer liable to burst a blood vessel if ya keep strainin' yerself.”

“I swear!” Lyra panted, panted, and contorted her face again as if she was giving birth. “I'm so close! I can feel my leylines lining up just right!”

“I'm lost.” Kelly glanced over her shoulder from where she led our little party. “Are unicorns capable of having long-distance cybersex with their mental penpals or something?”

“She thinks if she concentrates hard enough, she can perform a teleportation spell,” I said with a droning voice. “Then she'd lose her collar.”

“You're shittin' me!” Kelly grinned wide. “Ponies can do that?!”

“Evidently not this one,” I grumbled.

“I can too!” Lyra squeaked, almost hyperventilating as she strained her face again. “I just gotta get the spell right...”

“Lyra, sugarcube, I love ya like a sister, and I'll support ya in everythang you do,” Applejack said, “But perhaps you should rein it in a little?”

“You realize you're a pony that just made a horse-riding pun?” I said to her.

“Jee,” Applejack gazed at me with bored green eyes. “I couldn't hear myself from the overgrown monkey flinging his own manure around.”

“Hah hah hah!” Kelly paused to lean on a rusted pillar. The titanium bow rattled on her back as she wiped a tear loose and resumed her march. “Whew! I swear, AJ, you'd sooooo fit in where I come from. I almost wish the portal would send you back to my apartment so we can watch the O'Reilly Factor together and count how many times the dude’s chin wobbles.”

“Well, I'd be mighty happy to have you visit the ol' farm as well, Kelly!” Applejack gave a warm grin. “I've always fancied samplin' Granny's pie on someone with yer amount of taste buds.”

“Pfffft. Yeah right.” Kelly winked. “You just want someone tall like me to pluck the apples off the trees and save your hind legs for once.”

“Aw shucks.” Applejack chuckled. “You read me like a flippin' book, don't you?”

“Only cuz you're full of such interesting words. And when I say 'interesting words,' I really mean 'adorable freckles.'”

“Hah!” Applejack rolled her eyes, though she tried to hide the blush to her cheeks. She glanced back at her unicorn acquaintance. “I swear, I've never gotten along with a perfect stranger this well since I was a filly. If only things weren't so ugly around here, ya reckon?”

Lyra turned and smiled brightly at me. “Hey, Shawn! Remember that one time you said something about how much a dead troll smelled and I laughed?”

“No,” I grunted. “And I'd rather not talk about it.”

“Okay.” She quietly hung her head.

I saw Kelly's disapproving eyes. I shrugged wildly at her. She sighed, shook her head, and cleared her throat. “So... uhm...” Her voice echoed across the wide platform as we approached a solid wall of metal, perforated in random places by geometrically perfect ravines. “Did ponies know about this place? Tartarus, I mean.”

“Heck yeah,” Applejack said with a nod. “Well, none of us have ever stepped hoof in these wicked parts before, but our history books are plum full of texts that mention the place.”

“Yes,” Lyra remarked with a nod. She gulped and explained, “Long ago, when the alicorns settled Equestria, they had a bunch of nasty monsters to contend with.”

“When the who settled Equestria?” I asked, making a face.

“Alicorns,” Kelly spoke back to me. “Y'know... Extra large ponies with pegasus wings and unicorn horns who are imbued with the intense magic of both nature and the cosmos.” She squinted. “Surely you've let Lyra tell you all about it before...”

I merely glared at her.

My partner continued. “So... uhm, there were a bunch of nasty monsters in the place. Alicorns like Celestia and Luna tried to coexist with them, but things didn't go so well. The creatures only wanted to kill and destroy and do so many evil things.”

“So Celestia had them all banished to a different realm,” Applejack added. “As far as most Equestrians know, it was a giant underground prison of sorts. But never did any of us think it was this flippin' huge.” Applejack's armor rattled as she looked up at the high wall stretching before us. “Come to think of it, we never once thought that other dimensions could exist with things like you—erm, that is—with people in it.”

“What about humans, Kelly?” Lyra asked. “Do you have any knowledge of Tartarus?”

“I'd love to tell you, but I do believe Shawn here is our resident hipster with pathetically nerdy knowledge to toss around.” Kelly waved a hand blindly. “Shawn?”

I gave a long sigh, slumping in my armor. “Ahem. Tartarus is sometimes mixed up with 'Hell' in western society. As far as I know, the original Tartarus was some place in Greek Mythology where the titans were sent after Zeus and his siblings took over as gods of Mount Olympus.”

“Titans?” Lyra made a face.

“Greek?” Applejack made an even weirder face.

“Look. It's simply a big bad place with multiple areas of ironically-themed suffering, okay?” I said. “Like—take 'Sisyphus' for example. Heh. I swear, that name is the biggest fucking coincidence ever. Ahem. In human mythology, Sisyphus was a mere mortal who was sent to Tartarus as punishment for dissing the gods.”

“Oh, I know this one!” Kelly glanced back at me. “He's the one who had to roll a boulder constantly uphill for eternity!”

“Yup,” I said with a nod. “He's also the subject of a certain Algerian Frenchmen fapping off to his own pretentious bullshit and pretending it's 'existentialism.'”

“Algerian?” Applejack squinted.

“Fapping?” Lyra blurted.

“Oh gods.” Kelly face-palmed in mid-stride. “I think you broke them, Shawn.”

“Uh huh...”

“I think you broke me too.”

“Boo-fucking-hoo,” I grumbled, then gestured ahead of us. “Check this shit out. I think we should double back.”

“What for?” Kelly glanced back at us. We stood still as she marched towards the flat wall. A ridiculously thin and nightmarishly dark corridor led down through the solid metal structure. We could barely see the dim light of an enormous chamber on the other side that matched the one stretching behind us. “It's just a passage. I'd say we head through single-file. Two of us mind the front and two of us mind the back.”

“I dunno,” Applejack said, scratching her chin. “Looks mighty shady to me.” She glanced at the rest of us. “Reckon it's a trap?”

“A pretty boring one if you ask me,” I said.

“Shawn...” Kelly sighed.

“What?”

“I-I think I can be of help here,” Lyra said, marching up with her glowing horn.

“You're not gonna try teleporting again, are you?” Kelly asked.

“Believe it or not, she knows what she's doing,” I said. “Lyra's got some sort of—I dunno—spatial sensory thingy with that horn of hers. It's kind of like Daredevil's radar sense, only a lot fruitier and sporting a mane.”

“And it's become a lot more powerful since I got here,” Lyra said as she scanned the thin corridor with a beam of light, her face calm and meditative. “While Applejack became a warhorse and you two turned into an archer and swordsman, I became something of a high level sorcerer.”

“Who can't teleport,” I said.

Kelly slapped me upside the head with her bow.

“Ow!”

Lyra giggled. “It so happens that I can make shields, zap bad guys from long range, and open complex doors. And, not only that...” She flashed her horn one last time and breathed easily. “I can scan for dangerous obstacles. This corridor's safe. There's nothing to be afraid of in there.” She glanced back and blushed slightly. “So... uhm... I'm actually good for something after all.”

“Uh huh,” I nodded and walked past her. “Thanks, Lyra. Now, if we can just see what's on the other—”

“It's much appreciated, honey,” Kelly said, kneeling before Lyra and running a hand lovingly through the mane behind her helmet. She smiled into the pony's amber eyes. “Don't sell yourself short. We all have a part to play in this mess, it would seem, and we couldn't get very far without your talents no less than Shawn's or Applejack's.”

“Yeah, sugarcube,” Applejack said and nuzzled Lyra softly. “Way to make sure the coast is clear.”

“Jee...” Lyra dug at the floor with her hoof as her cheeks burned red. “I was just doing what comes naturally to me. It isn't much...”

“But it's just what we needed,” Kelly said. She stood back up, half-smirking and half-glaring my way. “After all, it's good to know when you're appreciated.”

I looked back at her, then rolled my eyes.

“So, who's going through first?” Applejack asked. “Reckon I should, cuz I've got the most armor and all?”

“You're also carrying most of our things,” Kelly replied. “I should go first. I can shoot anything that might show up on the other side.”

“You sure about that?” Lyra looked up, blinking her bright eyes. “I have the magical sensory perception. Maybe I should go.”

“I'll go!” I growled, unsheathing my blade as I marched firmly down the corridor. “I've got the sword. Let them run at me first.”

“Oh like you're that brave,” Kelly chuckled.

“I've endured the three of you having your little after-school special, haven't I?”

“Hey! Shawn!” Lyra panted and galloped into the corridor after me. “Wait up! Don't get too far!”

Applejack took up the middle. “Kelly, are all males from your world one load short of an apple bushel?”

“Only the ones who aren't worth mating with,” Kelly warmly replied.

Ahead of the group, I grumbled as I pierced the thin, dark corridor with my heavy sword. “God, I can't wait to make something piss itself at the sight of me again.”

“You know, Shawn,” Lyra tried whispering to me as she came close to my heels. I could sense her stupid, adoracute smile without looking. “I think Miss Kelly kind of sort of likes you.”

“Lyra, the only thing 'Miss Kelly' is in the mood to like is a selfless eunuch who'll join hands, sing songs, and pretend there's a rosy shade to this cesspool adventure we're on.”

“Aaaaaaaaand,” Lyra childishly cooed, “Are you any one of those things?”

“Fuck no.”

“He's about to be the first one if he doesn't watch his mouth!” I heard Kelly's voice echo from behind.

“Okay, people, ponies,” I grunted to the walls. “Could we can the flippant conversations until we're someplace where there isn't a lot of acoustics?”

I heard Lyra's and Applejack's giggles as if they were emanating all around me. Somewhere in the midst of all that was Kelly's own titter, and I felt like falling on my sword right then and there.

Thankfully, the world opened up for me. I felt the tight air giving way to a large expanse just as wide as the one we had come from. This didn't alarm me, though, for straight across the way at a distance of approximately one hundred feet, I saw—

“The door!” I exclaimed as Lyra, Applejack, and Kelly emerged alongside me. “Thank friggin' God! It's the next chamber already!”

“Kind of strange that we haven't faced a horde of freaks already,” Kelly said in a low tone, her eyes shifty.

“You can have your freaks and eat them too,” I replied, taking a bold step forward. “Onward to freedom, ladies—”

“Shawn, wait!” Lyra blocked my ankle with an outstretched hoof.

I stumbled back as Applejack stepped forward with a squint. “Something wrong, sugarcube?” she said.

Lyra stared at the stretch of metal surface in front of us. “Nothing is as it seems.”

“The fuck are you going on about now?” I asked.

“Let her speak her peace, Shawn,” Kelly said.

I sighed. “Yes, captain, my captain.”

“You guys remember how I said I can detect obstructions?”

“Yeah...”

“Well, I thought I sensed something beyond the corridor earlier. At first, I thought I was just imagining things. But you all seemed so sure of my ability and—well...” She bit her lip and clenched her eyes shut. Her horn glowed, and a haze of effluent green mist magically wafted over the platform. In a few seconds, they collected in several key places, highlighting before us an elaborate array of emerald circles in the rusted floor.

“What in tarnation are those?” Applejack remarked.

Lyra exhaled sharply. She leaned against Kelly and gained her breath in time to explain, “Minor dents in the floor. Thing is, there're so many of them, and they are all evenly spaced.”

“Means it can't be accidental,” Kelly murmured in thought.

“Perhaps it's nothing?” I said with a shrug. “Maybe this was once the foundation to a larger platform built above this one and all the support struts are gone?”

“Seems like a mighty strange place for such a thing,” Applejack remarked. “I've raised plenty a barn in my day. One rarely ever comes across stuff built like this.”

“I just thought I'd point it out,” Lyra remarked. “It could be nothing.”

“Guess there's only one way to find out.” Kelly reached back and expanded her bow.

“What are you doing?” I asked her.

“Watch and learn, sad-sack.” She gave her arrow some slack with the metal wire, notched it, and fired at the middle of the floor.

The projectile flew true and ricocheted off one of the many circles. Almost instantly, that tiny section of the floor burst open, giving way to a nine-foot tall serrated spike shooting up out of the ground.

Lyra shrieked. I winced. Even Kelly jolted, almost losing grip of her bow.

“Whoah Nelly!” Applejack reared her front limbs. She stood again, breathless, and gulped. “That could have been one of our flanks on that there spike!”

“I-I had no idea it was something that nasty!” Lyra squeaked. She was trembling. I knew this because she was squeezing my leg tight. She looked up at me, saw my hard gaze, and slid away. “S-Sorry...”

I sighed and looked at where the arrow was lying. “I wonder if all the circles are like that?”

Kelly looked at me. She looked at the field of glowing green dots. Swiftly, she retracted her arrow on the length of her cord.

As it rolled over the various circles with the lightest, scraping touch, it triggered spike after spike so that a literal wave of fang-sharp madness was rising up out of the ground and receding before us.

“Well,” I sighed and sheathed my sword. “Back to the corridor.”

“Not so fast.” Kelly grasped my shoulder and held me in place before I could fully retreat. “The door's on that side, remember?”

“Uh, yeah?” I pointed at the glowing circles. “Did you happen to notice the Maquis de Sade's honeymoon suite lying in the way?”

“Reckon we're not lookin' at the big picture closely enough,” Applejack said, scratching her chin as her green eyes washed over the area. Finally, she blinked and pointed to an area where the green circles weren't present. “There! You see it?”

“Mmmmhmmm.” Kelly nodded, retracted her arrow fully, and notched it again. “And how.” In a single breath, she fired the projectile. The arrow landed in the splotch of metal unlit by Lyra's green energy field. Absolutely nothing happened; no spike emerged. “Hmm.” She smirked proudly at the rest of us. “Well, that answers that.”

“What answers what?” I asked. I then looked at the stretch of floor and the various unglowing spots within steps, half-steps, and suicidal leaps from one another. “Oh, Hell no...”

“Lyra.” Kelly knelt down in front of the unicorn and gently grasped her shoulder. “You think you can keep this magical field lit up so that the spikes will remain visible?”

“Uhhh...” Lyra gulped. “Maybe. Perhaps for a little while.”

“You've not let us down this far,” Kelly said. “You've proven that you're more than capable of alerting us to the dangers ahead.”

“But...” Lyra bit her lip. “But I-I don't know if I can concentrate on the energy stream that long! Even when I try to make shields, they don't last forever—”

“Lyra...” Kelly smiled and caressed Lyra's face. “I know that you can. I wouldn't ask you to do this if I didn't know that you'd keep us safe. So what do you think? You up for it?”

Lyra trembled briefly. She took a deep breath and smiled. “Okay...”

“Thatta girl.” Applejack strolled up to the edge of the green, glowing circles. “No sense in wastin' time, ya reckon?”

“Wait.” Kelly pointed. “Why should you go first?”

“Well, I figure I'm wearin' the horseshoes.” Applejack glanced back over her armored shoulders. “Gives me an inch or two over you, right?”

Kelly blinked.

Applejack blinked back. Her face contorted as she snorted forth a guffaw. “Hahahahah... Well, it was just a thought!”

“Heheheh... You damn crazy horse.” Kelly gave a thumb's up. “Don't get any holes in you. How else will I get my fifteen-month-old cousin to ride you when this is over?”

“Land's sakes! Just the gumption I needed!” Applejack jumped ahead.

I winced visibly, barely squinting to see the orange pony landing safely in a spot and then bouncing to another one. “Gaaah! Don't—... But—... You—...!” I turned and gawked at Kelly. “Th-th-this is insane! I hope you do realize how unbelievably, shitlessly dumb this is!”

“Y'know, Shawn.” Kelly stuck her tongue out at me. “For such a rabid troll-killer, you really are just a troll.” She held her breath, swung her limbs, and propelled herself into the sea of green circles. She landed after Applejack, pivoted on her heels, and followed her partner's swift, zig-zagged, leaping path towards the other end of the platform.

“Guhh—Ichkk—Careful!” I hissed, waving my arms frantically. “Don't get too far away from each other's collars, ya stupid bitches! Gawd!”

“Heeheehee...” Lyra managed a giggle as she darted her eyes my way in the middle of her magical projection. “You really do care for them after all!”

“What I care for is having to clean up after less dead meat between here and freedom—And for the love of Thom Yorke, will youplease pay attention to what you're doing?!”

“Hey!” Lyra grinned wide. “You heard Miss Kelly! I got this! What could possibly go wrong?”

“Yeeaugh!” Kelly slipped and teetered back, back, back on her heels while her arms flailed.

Lyra and I winced. The green circles below started to dim and flicker.

Applejack spun about and shouted. “Anchor!”

“Right!” Just as Kelly was starting to fall backwards into a stream of circles, she whipped out her bolt and fired it Applejack's way.

Lyra's head and mine pivoted with the arrow's trajectory.

Applejack opened her mouth and caught the length of the arrow in her horse teeth. She yanked with all her strength, all the while keeping her four hooves locked within the empty space between her nearby circles.

Kelly's fall was stopped at the last second. She panted with relief, hanging briefly in a forty-five degree angle. She slowly coiled the wire attached to the arrow in her upper arms until she was once again standing upright. “Thanks a million, AJ.” She curled her finger towards herself.

Applejack nodded, tossed her head high, and spat the arrow skyward. “Careful, girl! Must be a burn havin' to balance with only two legs.”

Kelly caught the arrow, sheathed it, and nodded. “Gives my hands the luxury of slapping myself from time to time.” She motioned her ally ahead. “Carry on.”

“Yupperooni!” Applejack swiveled, shook her tail, and took a massive leap. She landed on the safe side, exhaling with relief. Slowly but surely, Kelly followed, one cautious jump at a time.

Lyra cooed, “Praise Celestia.” She smiled up at me. “They're really amazing, aren't they?”

I was only then starting to lose the shivers in my upper body. “Feh...” I nevertheless folded my arms and stood tall, glaring their way. “They're fucking lucky is what they are.”

Lyra glanced at me, at Kelly, then at me again. She cocked her glowing horn to the side. “Don't you ever believe in victories, Shawn?”

“I believe in stupid people living long enough to make smaller, stupider people,” I grumbled.

“Hmm. How nice.” She motioned towards the green-glowing platform. “You're up next. Ready to live longer?”

“Hmmph. Fine. I—” I made to perform my first suicidal leap, when I suddenly stopped to jerk a look towards her. “Wait, did you just give me veiled insult?”

Lyra blushed with a smile, her eyes avoiding mine. “Maaaaaaaybe...”

I blinked at her. “Huh...”

“W-was it funny?”

“Not really, no.”

Lyra's ears drooped. “Oh...”

We heard a scraping noise across the way, followed by the sound of Kelly's victorious shout. “Woohoo! One small step for bootyliciousness!”

“Hahah!” Applejack bounced in place, her armor rattling. “Alright!”

“Here, girl!” Kelly knelt in front of her and held a palm out. “Gimme... Gimme... Uhm...” She glanced at her five fingers and at Applejack's forward hoof. “...Omega!”

“Heheheh... Whatever you say.” Applejack slapped her hoof against Kelly's hand and grinned my way. “Your turn, Shawn!”

“Yeah!” Kelly cupped her hands around her mouth. “Come on in, the water's fine!”

“You're both a pair of maniacal fucktards.”

“Love ya too, sugarcube.”

“Heeheehee...”

“Don't worry,” Lyra said. “I got your back.”

“It's something a little lower than my back that I'm afraid of,” I said as I approached the glowing circles below my feet. “Whew... Sweet Jumanji, this is insane...”

“Want me to go first instead—?”

“No,” I pointed at her, swung my hips, and—“Hcnnkt!”—leapt into the first clearing between circles. “Whew. You just—uh—you just keep doing what you're doing and I'll...” I saw the circles dimming below me. Growling, I frowned her way. “Lyra...?!” I blinked.

Her expression had paled. She was looking beyond me in absolute horror.

Pivoting around from where I stood in the middle of death, I followed her gaze. I felt my insides turning to ice. A solid line of orcs and trolls were marching down a series of steps to the left side of the exit door. They chanted bloody murder.

“Dag nabbit!” Applejack hissed. “Such timing! They planned this! They must have!”

“We're separated,” Kelly grunted. “Perfect!” She whipped out her bow while Applejack tossed the saddlebag off her armored self. “Shawn! Lyra! Get over here quickly!”

“Wait, you're not hopping back?!” I gestured madly towards the churning horizon of murder. “They'll be here any second! You can't fight them on your own—”

“Which is why you should hurry your asses! The door behind them is the only way out of this chamber!” Kelly's voice rang back. “We'll hold them off!” No sooner had she said this when the entire horde came charging down with their metal scimitars kissing the air. The entire chamber was drowned out with the noise of the approaching army.

“Awwww fuckin' A!” I hissed as I looked all around me, trying to find the clear areas between the circles. They were becoming increasingly indiscernible as the glowing magic fizzled and faded. “Dammit—Lyra!”

She was staring wide-eyed across the expanse, her trembles rocking her body. “So... So m-many of them—”

“Lyra!” I hissed at her. “Don't make me come over there and break that horn off!”

She snapped out of it, sending a stronger glow into the material on her cranium. “I'm sorry! What should we do?!”

“What do you mean, 'what should we do?!' You gotta help me get over and—Shit!” I reacted to the noise, swiveling on my tiny standing area and unholstering both crossbows. I fired a steady stream of metal bolts into the madness swarming around Kelly and Applejack. My volley was hardly enough; only two trolls stumbled at best. I spat in anger again and spun to growl at her, “There's no time! I'll hop over and you hop after me—”

No sooner had I said this when a fiery explosion literally went off behind Lyra.

“Aaah!” she shrieked, her whole body teetering towards the deadly spikes. She caught herself at the last second and glanced breathlessly behind her at a fresh carpet of burning plasma.

“What in the blue fuck?!” I spun about, only to have two smoking arrows whizz by my head. I followed their path and saw them explode with burning oil across the corridor we had just traversed, blocking our only other exit. I twirled again and saw the archers standing on a row of crumbled pillars, preparing to launch another barrage of explosives our way.

“Oh dear Luna! Oh dear Luna!” Lyra was nearly sobbing. Her ears pricked at the sound of clashing metal. She turned to look—as I did—in time to see the monsters converging on Applejack and Kelly. Applejack had extended the metal plates around her body and was mercilessly barreling her way through the first row of attackers, giving Kelly the meager yet functional berth she needed to make her repetitive arrow shots. “Shawn, I'm trying to keep the magic field open, but—”

I heard the chuckling voices of the archers as they aimed at Lyra with their explosive projectiles once again. “Oh fuck me,” I grumbled then turned towards her. “Jump!”

Her eyes twitched. “Wh-what?!”

“You deaf or something?! Jump into my arms, you oversized, green booger!”

“But you need to get across—”

The arrows were already smoking, flying, surging towards her.

“We'll go across together, Lyra! Move your ass!”

“Nnngh!” She tossed herself in a suicidal lunge. The arrows impacted the floor right as her hooves lifted off, bathing that entire section of the platform in flames. Her horn whistled through the air as she soared to me.

And when I caught her—“Ohhhh shit!” I teetered back, wheezing with her twitching figure in my grasp. The two of us fell, flailing, towards the fading green circles below. “Shit shit shit shit—!”

Chapter Five: The One Where a Demon Speaks in Bold Font

Chapter Five: The One Where a Demon Speaks in Bold Font

Lyra grunted. She summoned a burst of energy through her horn and fired a steady green stream at the floor. The emerald light solidified as a brief force field, knocking us back so that we stopped falling. I stood evenly on my feet, holding the pony's weight in my grasp.

“Hooooo boy,” I wheezed as I pivoted towards the other side, facing Applejack's and Kelly's distant blood bath. My boots squirmed awkwardly. Just an inch to the left or right would trigger an impaling spike beneath us. “Hillary Clinton on a bicycle! This is the absolute shit!”

“What's taking you guys so long?!” Kelly exclaimed, sweatily launching her arrow over and over again. “We need help!”

“Are you fucking blind, woman?!”

“Shawn, I'm slipping!” Lyra shrieked.

“You are not!” I lurched, hissing for breath. “Shit, you are!”

“Raaaugh!” Applejack burst through a crowd of trolls, knocking several monsters across the platform as she bucked another creature's helmet off. “I've a good mind to make cider out of yer eyeballs!”

“One thing at a time!” Kelly shrieked. “Shawwwwwwn?”

“Working on it!” I grunted as I reached a dangling boot out. “Lyra, can I see what I'm friggin' doing, pretty please?”

“S-sorry!” She trembled in my grasp, concentrated, and highlighted the circles beneath us once again. “There, that should help you—Eeeek!”

I somehow jumped the both of us into a clear space, and then another. Each time, I felt like my arms would rip out of my sockets. I really wished Sisyphus had the grace to donate me strength along with the crazy-ass agility and swordsmanship I had been given. My ears rang with the losing battle of our two allies. The hulking crowd of monsters was pushing them back into the forest of sheathed spikes. At any moment, they would be reduced to impaled meat right in front of us.

“God, I wanna spill blood like nobody's business right now,” I snarled as I struggled with the weight of Lyra in my arms. Crazily, we had just about made it halfway across the field of green circles when I heard an explosion going off behind us.

“Dah!” Lyra clung to me. “Wh-what was that?!”

I looked behind me and saw a pool of flame across half the spikes. “Oh, that's cute.” I turned to frown at the archers on the broken pile of pillars ahead. “Do they ever fucking quit—?”

Just as I said that, they fired a smoking explosive straight at my forehead. It was my turn to emit a high-pitched shriek. Thankfully, Lyra lifted her glowing horn and erected a green force field in time to block the arrow. It ricocheted off the emerald barrier and blew up ten feet away, bathing more of the platform with plasma.

“Lyra!” I gasped, gazing down to see that all the green circles had vanished. “I'm jumping blind here!”

“I can't do two things at once!” she managed through hissed teeth as she fought to keep the shield intact. “They're reloading!”

“Nnnnngh...” I flexed my left side.

“Shawn, what are you—?”

I yelled for good measure, flinging my left arm loose while holding her weight by the belly with my right arm. Muscles spasming, I managed to unholster one of the crossbows and fire it at the murderous archers. Two bolts made it into one troll's neck. Two more archers remained, firing return volleys. Both arrows bounced off Lyra's shield and exploded too close for comfort. The resulting jolt forced me to re-grip Lyra with my left arm. As a result, I dropped my crossbow. It fell onto a spot of the platform right in front of us, only to be impaled by a wicked sharp spike just inches from my nose.

“Well, that sucks,” I grunted as the spike rolled back down.

“They're gonna fire again!” Lyra squeaked.

I looked at the burning floor of spikes around us, then at Kelly's and Applejack's fight, then at Lyra's energy barrier. “Lyra!” I exclaimed, holding her tight. “The shield!”

“What about it?”

“Can you aim it beneath us?”

“I think so! But what is that going to—?” I felt her gasp heavily. Quite frankly, I couldn't blame her. If I knew what I was about to do, I'd shit myself too. “Shawn, you can't be serious!”

“We'll be burned alive if we don't do something else!” I tightened my legs and pivoted to face the fight several feet away. “When I tell you to, fire up a shield below us!”

“I don't think the shield's strong enough to handle anything like—”

“Look, will you just fucking get ready?”

“Ohmygoodness! Ohmygoodness!” The shield briefly disappeared as Lyra squinted her eyes shut and channeled a bright strobe into her horn. Meanwhile, at a stone's throw, the archers fired their explosives.

“Now!” I jumped over the barren floor of death. “Do it—!”

“Nnngh!” Lyra looked like she was giving birth. A solid glow of green stretched out beneath me. My boots made contact, and the spikes immediately answered from the other side. The shield billowed, rippled, but stayed awkwardly intact. Flames and explosions erupted behind us as I made a mad dash across the emerald carpet. We glided towards the fight. The world was a fucking sweatbox of metal and mayhem. Finally, we were less than three feet away from the edge of the spikes.

And that's when Lyra's magic decided to fail. It didn't immediately rupture. Instead, it pushed up at us like a trampoline. Quite comically, Lyra and I were flung forward like turds out of a shit cannon. The world spun and spun. My only anchor was the sound of Lyra's scream, and even that faded as I felt her body being launched from my arms. Quicker than a blink, we sailed towards the heart of the fight. Lyra landed first, using a field of magic to cushion her fall. I had a few more milliseconds to spare. As I plummeted, I saw several monsters' heads tilting up to gawk at me. Without a second thought, my hand went back to my sword and I came out with the damn thing swinging.

When I landed, it was like coming down a bloody water slide. Bodies ripped in half around me, bathing me in ink-black juices. I stood up from my landing and spat some of the blood out of my mouth. My cheeks were hurting from what had to have been the most Jack Nicholsonesque of grins. “Haaaugh!” I shouted victoriously. “Willy Wonka's here! Come get your golden tickets, motherfuckers!”

Several orcs and trolls didn't know what to think. I realized it was because I was instantly decapitating half of them. I ripped my way into the crowd like a serrated cyclone, plucking their limbs like petals off of a Georgia O'Keeffe painting. Somewhere, a maniac was laughing hysterically, and he sounded vaguely like me on a Saturday night.

“What in the hay is that ruckus?” I heard Applejack breathlessly exclaim.

“Oh, it's just Shawn,” Kelly grunted while retracting an arrow.

I remembered the archers. “Kelly!” I impaled an orc, kicked him off the length of my sword, and spun to point at the long-range offenders. “Atop the crumbled pillars—”

Right as I said that, a smoking arrow exploded behind Kelly, missing her by about a hair. “Augh! Sonuvabitch!” she spun and instantly flew her arrow through one of the archer's eyes. She yanked at her cord, pulling him by the socket so that he collided with his buddy.

I smirked at that, only to have a scimitar graze my shoulder. “Aaaugh!” I reeled, shocked at how warm my insides felt. After three or four solid days of disemboweling trolls, it was suddenly nauseating to smell my own fluids. Needless to say, I spun around and took the fucker's scimitar by removing his shoulder. “Try that again, smartass!”

He didn't. However, his buddy did. A growling orc kicked me hard in the chest.

“Ooof!” I fell back and slid to a stop at the edge of the field of spikes. I saw a pair of green hooves standing beside me. “Oh hey! You're still alive. Cool.”

“Where's Applejack?!” Lyra sweatily exclaimed while firing green bolts at various creatures, holding the surging crowd back. “I haven't seen her since we landed!”

“She can't be that far from Kelly.” I stood up and froze at a sight before us. “Awwww poop.”

No less than a dozen orcs and trolls were charging with several spears outstretched. The living phalanx roared as they bore down on us with a combined war cry.

“Lyra—”

“I know!” she shouted and erected a billowing shield directly ahead.

The monsters' weapons struck the barrier all at once. Their combined force managed to push the shield back, which then shoved both Lyra and myself back as well. Slowly, we were being shoved towards the spikes from which we came.

“Nnnngh... Can't... C-can't hold it!” Lyra whimpered. “Shawn—!”

I pulled out my remaining crossbow. “Gimme some room on the bottom!”

She raised the lower half of the shield by two feet. I aimed underneath and fired a steady stream of metal bolts into the monsters' ankles. My projectiles ate into their flesh above their plated boots. Half of the monsters stumbled while the other half leaned on their spears. I had managed to halt the charge before we were sent to a meaty death.

“There're still too many of them—” Lyra exclaimed.

“Comin' through!” Applejack's voice drawled.

We both watched as the thick crowd of combatants split apart like crashing waves. Applejack came galloping through them, headbutting several with her armored plates. She grit her teeth and shoved the last clump of flailing bodies up and over Lyra's shield like a ramp. At the last second, she spun and bucked the airborne victims for good measure. Lyra and I watched as many orcs and trolls flew above us, landing helplessly in the field of spikes. Their bodies were immediately impaled in several places, filling the air with a spray of black blood.

“Goddam,” I muttered as I pulled myself back up with the sword.

“Just like corrallin' sheep back home!” Applejack spat before returning to the thick of the fight.

“Excuse me, but how in the golden fuck is that anything like corralling sheep?”

“To the left!” Lyra shouted.

I blindly swung my sword and slashed one charging orc's chest while parrying the axe-swings of two trolls. “I'm waiting for an answer!” I shouted above the fight.

“Shawn, look alive!” Kelly slid up and aimed over my head.

I ducked.

She turned her arrow into a disc, fired it, and flung it across the throats of both trolls, slitting them. They fell ineffectually to the floor while Kelly retracted her projectile.

I stood up, groaning from the fresh splatter of blood over my torso. “If you had let me handle that, things would have been a lot less juicy.”

“Oh shut up,” Kelly marched over and stood beside Lyra and I. “Fight's almost over.” As she said that, I realized that the only noise now was the clopping of Applejack's metal horseshoes. Most of the monsters around us were either dead, dying, or fleeing. As frenzied as everything had become, it was just as quickly returning to eerie silence. “It could have finished a lot sooner if you hadn't taken your sweet time.”

“You can take my sweet time and suck it!” I frowned. “Miss Projectionist and I had to cross the Sea of Instant Castration to get to you morons!”

“If you weren't too busy bitching earlier, you wouldn't have taken so long!”

“Oh, I'm sorry!” I kicked a groaning, gutted orc beneath us before stabbing my sword down through his skull. “What a charming little vacation we're all on—for me to ruin it with my senseless bitching! Golly! Where's the gift shop? I wanna know where I can buy a cute rainstick just like the one you've got up your ass!”

Kelly pointed into my chest. “What I'm trying to say, Shawn, is that we'd get things done a lot faster if you at least tried to be more agreeable!”

“Y'all still goin' at each other's throats?” Applejack marched back, panting. She retracted the armor around her muzzle in time to frown. “Reckon enough blood's been spilled without you two addin' to the harvest?”

“I'm sorry, AJ,” Kelly said with a deep groan. “I'm just tired of Sir Lame-a-lot here and his neverending mouth.”

“Your mom never got tired of my neverending mouth.”

“Oh fuck off!” Kelly turned to snarl at me.

“What's the matter?” I grinned wildly in her face. “Am I not bonding enough with you guys?! Isn't this what you wanted?”

“That's not what I meant and you know it!”

“Then why don't you educate me?!” I unsheathed my sword from the orc and let the blood drip to the floor in open sight. “What am I supposed to learn from all this beauty, captain, my captain?!”

“Everyone, quiet!” Lyra shouted.

The air grew still and cold. Applejack shifted nervously in her armor. I stared at the fresh carnage around us. Kelly was sighing.

“I apologize, Lyra, AJ, everyone,” she muttered. “I should be thankful that Shawn and Lyra backed us up when they did—”

“No! Shhh! Do youhear that?” Lyra exclaimed, raising a hoof.

We all glanced around the place. Slowly, a deep bass hum rose from the distance, like a never-ending howl.

“Horseapples...” Applejack stammered, her green eyes bright. “I know that sound.”

“Oh shit,” Kelly breathed.

“What is it?” I asked.

Kelly and Applejack stepped past us and stared out towards where the remaining monsters were retreating. At the opposite end of the platform, perpendicular to our escape route, a bright red glow was intensifying. The escaping monsters came to a stop, merging with another band of nightmarish soldiers that formed in the distance. In the center of the group was a bright figure, the source of the crimson glow. His color matched the very same crystals that broadcasted Sisyphus' words to us on the other side of each chamber's door. Even from a great distance, I could see a plume of otherworldly flame emanating from his skull and shoulders.

“It's the incubus,” Kelly said in a pained breath.

“What?” I squinted at her. “Like the band?”

“No, idiot. It's a demon warrior, one of the residents of Tartarus. We heard Sisyphus say on one of those crystal-thingies that this whole test is meant to bring glory to the demon horde.”

I pointed past the glowing figure with my sword. “You mean to tell me that all this time we've been fighting their pets?”

“Does that really surprise you? We've been cutting through so many of them. Only in big numbers do they really threaten us. Besides...” Kelly gave me a nervous glance. “Would you expect an audience to actually take part in their own blood sport?”

“No, I guess not,” I said. “Not unless they were really, really badass—” I blinked at my own words. I pivoted slowly to gaze once again at the distant figure. “Awww hell.”

The incubus marched slowly, burningly towards us. When the retreating army came upon his figure, he rewarded their cowardice with a massive backhand. Two orcs instantly snapped in half, their torsos collapsing like burst balloons. I saw a flicker of two bright eyes, and the demonic figure stood tall, occupying the height of eighteen feet, easily.

“He's the nasty feller who took Fluttershy from us,” Applejack said in a wavering voice. Her legs buckled at the thought. “Kelly and I barely made it out with our skin intact.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Lyra scampered to the center of the group and gazed anxiously at all of us. “Let's head for the door!”

“Right,” Kelly began to run. “Come on, Applejack! Pretend this is the Kentucky Derby!”

“I'll just make like I know what yer talkin' about!” Applejack galloped alongside her.

I joined the group in the heavy sprint for the door up ahead. “Just keep moving!” I exclaimed. I glanced over at the distant figure in mid-stride. “We should be able to make it so long as he doesn't suddenly sprout wings and fly!”

The incubus suddenly sprouted wings and flew. Trailing fire, he soared through the air and came down before us in a violent ground-smash. The whole platform shook as we fell on our backsides. The hairs on our bodies curled from the heat of his unholy presence, and our beating hearts were serenaded by the roar of his distant lackeys charging to rejoin the battle.

“Well done, mortals,” he spoke with what sounded like three roaring voices at once. I saw orange flames spitting from his eyes just above a grinning face. “You've endured many trials to get to this holocaust.” The fires along his neck and shoulders intensified as he flexed his blood-red wings. “My name is Babellyon the Consumer. Know my name and know it well, for you shall be screaming it for eternity.”

“Yeah...” I hissed and struggled wincingly to my feet. “I miss the orcs and trolls right about now.”

“AJ...” Kelly murmured.

“On your mark, Kelly,” Applejack said as the armored plates once more covered her body.

Lyra breathlessly stammered, “What are you two—?”

“Now!” Kelly fired her arrow high.

“Babellyon” merely caught the projectile, sneering. What the incubus didn't see was Applejack—already airborne—lifting up and biting onto the metal wire with her teeth. Suddenly, Babellyon was being jerked forward from his grip of the arrow.

Kelly was already pulling two daggers from her belt and flinging them at the monster's wrist. The twin blades embedded just inches above his metal bracelet. With a growl of pain and anger, he let go of the arrow. As he reeled, Applejack charged the leg he was balancing on and kicked it with both rear hooves.

Babellyon fell hard on his backside, letting loose an undignified grunt.

“Okay!” Kelly shouted as she coiled her rope in mid-run. “Get to the door, AJ! Just like last time!”

“Damn!” I shouted with a grin as Kelly and I joined the charge. “Do you ever get sexier, girl? Is it even possible—?”

An orange orb flew ahead of us and landed just before the door, exploding and forming a solid wall of fire. The four of us skidded to a stop, gasping. Without a choice we spun around to once again face the demon.

Babellyon was standing back up. With a hacking breath, he spat another orange orb into the red palm of his hand. He held the flaming “grenade” and leered down at us while his forces ran from a distance to join him. “Do you think I would fall for that trick twice? You cretins are becoming predictable!” He flung the glowing orb.

All four of us flinched, but we didn't catch fire. Instead, the flame erupted against the door behind us, covering the steps with searing plasma. We were trapped, forced to face him.

Babellyon grinned even wider, cracking the joints in both his knuckles and neck muscles. “I am going to enjoy sucking the skin off your bones.”

“Sweet Celestia...” Lyra whimpered.

“Okay...” I marched forward with my sword. “I get it. Boss fight. Guess the dude with the sword is up first.”

“Don't be stupid, Shawn!” Kelly shouted. “This guy's beyond us!”

“Come on,” I frowned up at the monster as I held my blade high. “If you two whackjobs survived this dude, then so can I.”

Babellyon snickered with a deep bass sound. Flicking his bracelets, he produced two lengths of huge, rust-iron chains and let them slam down on the ground with heavy thuds.

I bit my lip at the sight. “Then again...”

“Hraaaaugh!” He spun around and flung both metal ropes at me.

I dove straight to the side. The metal platform split apart behind me from the sheer strength of the chains' strikes.

“Hnngh!” He lunged and threw the lengths again.

I jumped one lash of chains, ducked the other, and tried charging his leg with the sword. “Yaaaugh—”

He merely kicked me with a wave of his toes.

“Oooof!” I fell back and landed in the center of the group.

“Shawn!” Lyra gasped at my side.

“Fuck me, that's a smelly foot!” I struggled to get up. “I dunno how I feel about a lack of deodorant in Hell...” Just then, I saw Kelly blurring past me. “Kelly! Yo! That wasn't meant to be a battlecry—”

Nevertheless, she kept running, gripping her titanium bow at her side. Babellyon flung the chains at her. Not only did she dodge them with an athletic twirl, but she pinned one rope to the ground with an arrow shot. Fearlessly, she ran up the length of the chain, perched on his wrist, and yanked her wire. The arrow broke free, flew up past her, and swiped across his burning forehead.

“Aaaugh!” Babellyon jerked back, gripping his bloodied face. “Accursed insect!” He whipped his fist out from beneath her.

Kelly was already backflipping, looking no less sexy than usual. As she came back from the reverse somersault, she yanked once again at her arrow. It returned, this time grazing the incubus' muscular shoulder.

He roared again, filling the air with thunder and the smell of leaking sulphur. He flung his chains at us in blind, angry fury. Kelly barely had time to land before she was dodging to the side. Lyra erected a shield to protect herself and Applejack. I was rolling to the side and trying to catch my breath.

The world shook from each slash of the chains. The nearby flames were sweltering. I could hear the bootsteps of the massive battalion coming closer and closer at our rear. Just then, one of his chain-strikes landed right in front of me. Thinking on my toes, I stabbed the sword down and pinned the chains to the platform like Kelly had earlier. Anchoring the angry demon by my grip, I shouted, “Kelly! Applejack! Anybody!”

“I got this one!” Applejack shouted. She flashed Lyra a look as she began galloping. “Care to gimme a boost?”

“Be careful!” Lyra squeaked as she made a green platform out of thin-air. Applejack landed on it, and Lyra shot her skyward.

“Whewwww-weeee!” Applejack spun once, aimed her sharp horseshoes down at Babellyon, and landed smack-dab in his chest.

“Aaaugh!” He shouted as he was shoved backwards, landing on his spine with his right arm still attached to the chains I had stuck to the platform. He tried to get up, but Applejack wasn't done with him.

“Nnnngh!” She bucked him hard in the nose, the chin, and ended with a heavy kick to the nipples for good measure. “Take away Fluttershy, will ya?!”

“Rghhh-Horsemeat!” Babellyon grabbed the pony's tail in his left hand. With a grunt, he mercilessly tossed her high into the air.

“N-no!” Lyra shrieked. “AJ!”

I watched in a panic. I'm not the least ashamed to say that the first thing I thought of was her distance from Kelly's collar. “Kelly—”

“Shawn!” She was sliding over to me. “Grab my waist!”

“Thought you'd never ask.” I kept one hand gripping my sword hilt while my other arm went around her midriff.

“AJ!” Kelly fired the arrow up at the midair pony. “Anchor!”

Applejack caught us out of the corner of her green eyes. She opened her mouth wide and caught the arrow at the end of its throw.

“Nnngh!” Kelly pulled hard on the coil while I held her in place. With our combined weight, we acted as a fulcrum, swinging Applejack back so that she glided safely towards the floor at the end of the wire. She skidded across the platform, tumbled, and slid to a grunting stop next to Lyra.

Just then, Babellyon stopped fucking around. He jerked his right arm, yanking the chain out from under us.

“Aaugh!” Kelly and I tumbled in opposite directions. My sword slid away from me. I fumbled to reach for it when I felt the air turning twenty degrees hotter. Looking up, I saw that Babellyon had spat out another fire bomb and was tossing it our way.

“Look out!” Lyra galloped half of the distance and fired a green bolt. It deflected the bomb, but not by much. The burning sphere flew over our heads, singing the tips of Kelly's hair. It landed with a heavy explosion, sending chunks of rusted metal flying every which way. And then one piece of shrapnel flew into Kelly's leg.

“Aaaah!” she shrieked, a truly horrifying sound in the midst of so much hell. Her leg armor split in two, revealing a burning gash as she leaked red juices all over the platform. “Nnngh-Christ!” She curled over in a fetal position, clutching herself.

“Kelly!” Applejack shouted, galloping over. “Talk to me, sugarcube—!” Her charge was suddenly lit up by a bright red glow.

“Heheheh...” Babellyon was already juggling another bomb. “I think I will seer your putrid flesh together.” He reared his arm back to toss the explosive and render Kelly's body to ashes. “You should make a fine codpiece for when I stand upon the ashes of your loved ones.”

I was suddenly between his legs, shoving the length of my sword into his red calf.

“Gaaah!” He limped backwards and dropped the bomb. A wall of flame erupted behind him, effectively blocking the charging battalion. Up until then, his reinforcements had been twelve seconds from ending this battle short. Angrily, he sneered down at the one responsible for the sudden delay. “You crazed fool! Do you actually think you can maim me?”

“No...” I glared up at him, holding my sword high. “I just really, really hate the word 'codpiece.'”

“Raaugh!” He tossed a length of chain at me.

I dug my sword into the ground, pole-vaulted the swing, ducked another slashing rope of chains, and swung at the bracelet on his wrist. With a splash of sparks, his right-handed lash of chains detached from his limb. He made a grab for me. I jumped, kicked off his knuckles, and slashed at his other wrist. The last length of chains was effectively sliced loose. Frustrated, he stomped at me with his foot. I merely back-flipped and came to a sliding stop, squatting protectively in front of Kelly and the two ponies.

“Ha!” I sneered. “Not so tough without your S&M gear, are you, ya melon fuck?!”

“You're only prolonging your torment!” He stood tall, flexing his muscles as the flames on his muscles multiplied intimidatingly. “Soon my minions will join me, and we will paint this labyrinth with your entrails—” His villainous monologue was cut short by a metal bolt sailing straight into his mouth. He gripped his throat and gurgled on his own blood. “Gklllkrtkkt!”

I lowered the crossbow, frowning. “Eat a dick, Lucifer.” I took a breath and turned towards the crown. “Lyra, Applejack, how bad is Kelly—?”

A giant foot slammed into my side.

“Aaaugh!” I tumbled ten yards across the platform, so far that I felt the sparks of pain shooting out of my collar. They lasted for an agonizing ten seconds, during which I curled over, spat up bile, and wished I was fucking dead. When the electrical jolts finally stopped and I heard Babellyon's heavy footsteps, I opened my eyes and looked across a blurry world of tears.

He stood over me, grinning. The flames behind him were dying, opening a path for his army of trolls and orcs to sweep in and finish us for good. But all that mattered at that moment was the thinning distance between the two of us. I could smell his putrid breath as he spat demon blood over my person and smirked, his fangs trickling with crimson.

“Your skill is half as exceptional as your guile. The glory of Tartarus can only benefit from this exercise.”

I coughed, wheezed, and whimpered, “Go sit on your mommy's lap and rotate.”

“Hmmm. Not the best last words.” The incubus reached into his throat like a sword-swallower and produced a long vaporous blade of pure fire. He held the magical weapon in his grip. “But I suppose they'll do.” With a snarl, he flung the bludgeon of flame into my vision.

My tears evaporated as I stared into the hellfire. While I began burning, all I could think of was how short and pathetic my mortal existence had been. I wondered if all lives were comical prologues to eternal damnation. In some silly way, I knew it made sense. Then, on account of the flames, I knew nothing, not even how to scream.

Chapter Six: The One Where I Start Out With Weird-Ass Streams of Consciousness

Chapter Six: The One Where I Start Out With Weird-Ass Streams of Consciousness

You know that feeling you get when you wake up in the middle afternoon—from whatever godawful purpose that had possessed you to sleep during daylight hours to begin with—and your body becomes paralyzed with the fear that some supremely important project has been left unfinished, and you're only going to be regretting your own stupidity and laziness for the rest of your life?

That's what dying feels like. Well, at least, that's what almost-dying feels like. I've survived almost-dying; it was the hottest experience of my life. I don't mean “hottest” as in “sexiest,” but as in first-degree-burns-all-over-my-torso “hot,” which is about as scorching as it gets when an eighteen-foot tall demon is swinging a sword of living flame down over one's helpless body.

I figured hell would be hot. That's what Sunday school taught me, back when I paid attention, back before I discovered that prayer was like masturbation, overrated and just as sleep-inducing, with only one pimply person in the audience applauding. The thing is, as I lay there beneath Babellyon's fatal punishment, the tiny logic centers in my brain began functioning. It occurred to me that I had been to Hell twice: the first time at a Pistons-Pacers game, the second time fighting waves of trolls and orcs. After witnessing both Ron Artest's and Sisyphus' fury first-hand, I expected something worse on the third trip, but ultimately I realized that I was still breathing, still twitching, and still pissing myself. There's no urine in Hell, on account of all the kidney stones, or so I had expected.

I opened my eyes. Indeed, I was still fucking alive. Not only that, but I wasn't alone. Lyra was there with me, and she was getting just as cooked as I was. I wondered in a brief moment of childish stupidity exactly why she wasn't fleeing the impending kiss of Babellyon's sword, until it occurred to me that she was the single reason for why the vaporous weapon hadn't landed in the first place.

The damn pony had rushed to my side and was using every bit of energy in her being to hold a force field solidly between me and Tartarus' over-talkative warrior supreme. The fact that she was keeping herself alive in the process appeared to be merely a fringe benefit. I was quite frankly too damned shocked to thank her.

“Nnngh... Sh-Shawn!” She whimpered as she fought against the push of Babellyon's blade. Rivulets of sweat ran down her brow, and a trickle of blood leaked out her ears. “Move! Get away! Quickly!”

I obeyed her. Or, at least, I tried to. As soon as I moved, my body screamed with painful burns. My lungs matched the outburst. I fell on my chest like a moaning infant and literally wormed away from the flaming debacle.

“What a charming gesture,” Babellyon yapped on, as usual. He threw more weight against the hilt of his elemental blade, causing Lyra's shield to fissure and fluctuate. “Pain in Tartarus is amplified by your vain attempts at instilling hope! I hope you're proud of yourself,” he sneered.

Lyra hissed through gritting teeth as her eyes flashed with emerald wrath. “You... talk... too much... you big... meanie head!” She let forth a war-cry, splitting everyone's ears including Babellyon's. She pushed her emerald shield towards the cavern's ceiling. Babbellyon's blade shattered in a puff of red ash as the barrier flew up past his arm and slammed into his face. The mana stream wrapped around his red skull like a solid ribbon of metal.

“Mmmmfff!” He exclaimed, clawing and pulling at the energy beam encumbering his cranium.

Lyra slumped instantly, panting. With monumental endurance, she twirled about and galloped my way. “Shawn, grab ahold!”

“To what?!” I hissed.

“To anything!” she shrieked as the cries of the battalion came up our rear. “We can still make it!”

I clasped her waist with one arm while crawling with my remaining limbs. Along the way, I found my sword and gripped it. Soon I was using it as a crutch as I crouch-walked up the steep stairs with her. Up above, I saw Applejack pulling Kelly—who was in a worse condition than me. Beyond them was the door, our exit from the chamber. The flames from Babellyon's bombs were just now dissipating, and we were inches away from freedom.

The glorious realization of this was cut short from the shower of spears, axes, and daggers landing all around us. The orcs and trolls saw us getting away, and they attempted impaling us from afar.

“Kelly!” I shouted. “I know your leg's busted, but how are your arms?!”

“J-just fine, I guess! Why?”

Wincing from the burns on my limbs, I grabbed my last crossbow and threw it up at her. “Use those eagle eyes that Sisyphus gave ya!”

She grabbed the weapon, loaded bolts into it, and took aim. While Applejack dragged her backwards, she fired several shots down past Lyra and me, effectively plugging the projectiles into the necks of the forward-most orcs and trolls of the charging group. The air rang with angry hisses and screams, especially when Babellyon finally yanked the energy ribbon free from his face and gave us the most pissed-off expression in the history of everything.

“Lyra!” Applejack shouted as we caught up with her and Kelly. “The door!”

“I got it!” Lyra was taking control of everything at this point. She slid over to the circular controls beside the exit. She began spinning the tumblers at a breathless speed, faster than I'd ever seen her operate them before.

“Got any more bolts, Shawn?” Kelly grunted, firing the last of the crossbow's shots. “I barely have anything to work with here.”

“Join the fucking club.” I stood up, grunting in pain, and raised a sword as the first of several creatures scaled the stairs to reach us. I barely parried his axe-swings with my weapon. “Lyra...?”

“Almost got it...”

Applejack rushed in, knocked the troll down, and bucked two more rushing up past him. The air was deafening. The stairs were crowding with bodies. Through it all, Babellyon marched, spitting up another explosive sphere and juggling it. “Now would be a good time, sugarcube!”

“Almost...”

I slashed the arm off a shrieking troll, then teetered numbly down the stairs. Applejack caught me with a mouth over my elbow. I yelped in pain, hissed in fury, and stabbed a charging orc between the eyes.

“This is it!” Kelly shouted, dropped my crossbow, and reached for her bow. She fired an arrow straight at Babellyon. He merely back-handed it away. “Lyra—!” she shouted.

“Got it!” Lyra chirped. The door slid open.

With a pained yell, I grabbed her by one hoof and flung her at the door.

“Whoah!” Lyra tumbled through. Applejack was next, dragging Kelly by her chest-plate.

I marched—more like limped backwards. I swiped up my crossbow, fired the last bolt into a troll's chest, and deflected two more axe swings with my sword. “Pool's closed, you fart-sniffing pieces of—”

“Haaugh!” Babellyon flung his glowing explosive.

“Yeah, fuck this.” I spun. I dove. I slid through the door just as it closed, barely blocking the burning explosive at my heels.

I landed in an agonizing tumble beside Lyra, Applejack, Kelly, and another glowing crystal on a pedestal. Once more, it was deathly quiet. Once more, everything was still. And once more...

“Nnngh—Aaaugh!” I sat up, wincing from all of my burns at the same time, seething through clenched teeth. “Ha... Haaa-haa-haa!” I cackled in pure hysterics. “Ohhhh shit. Whew. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is how you stick it to fucking fate!”

The pain I had just endured doubled, then quadrupled, as I felt all four of Lyra's hooves landing on my chest. No sooner had I lost my lungs from this, but I found her staring—glaring—directly into my face. “What's gotten into you, Shawn?! Is every horrible thing about this place so funny to you?!”

I blinked up at her. “Uhm... maybe?”

She hissed at me. “What were you thinking earlier?! You ran in with your sword and tried to take on that horrible demon all on your own!”

“But...” I glanced over to where Applejack was tending to a wincing Kelly. “It's not like Kelly was in any condition to be badass—”

“But Applejack and I were!” she exclaimed. “We could have worked together as a team! We could have distracted him from all sides so that the final sprint to the doorway would have gone a lot smoother! There was no reason for you to run in and challenge him all by your lonesome!”

“Look, Lyra,” I sighed and planted a hand on her hoof. “Just drop it, will ya—?”

“No!” she exclaimed, batting my hand away. “Stop telling me to drop it! Stop pretending like what I have to say doesn't matter! You're so concerned with surviving, aren't you, Shawn?! Why'd you go and do something crazy like that?!”

“Give him some slack, Lyra,” Kelly said tiredly, sitting up straight while Applejack slowly peeled the metal leg-piece off her wound. “Shawn showed a little spine for once. That's something that should be commended.”

“You haven't been around him as long as I have in this place!” Lyra frowned at her, then glared down at me. “You haven't had to endure him constantly treating the deaths of those around us like they don't matter! If any single one of us three died, would he really be shedding a tear?! Huh?! Well would you, Shawn?”

“What do you want from me, Lyra?” I shrugged under weight, still trying to breathe evenly. “Just what do you want me to say?”

“Tell me that there's something in this situation that means more to you than just spilling blood! Tell me that there's something you look forward to! Tell me that you're fighting to get back to someone once this is all over!”

At this point, I was glaring at her. It wasn't an angry expression, I suppose, but something more akin to boredom. “What's the point, Lyra?” my voice droned. “I survived, you survived, they survived. It's not worth regretting nor celebrating. All that's real is here and now. You get it? There's nothing back home for me. Where I come from, nobody gives a shit about my life, and I don't rightly blame them.”

Lyra gazed at me. Her eyes began filling with tears. “I'm happy that you exist, Shawn,” she said. She sniffled and broke forth, “I want you to survive more than anything. You're... You're m-my friend...”

I squinted at her. “Lyra, I—”

“Shut up,” she said in a shaking voice. “Just shut up. I hate it when you talk, Shawn.” She curled up against me and rested her face into my shoulder. Her tears were strangely cool against my burns as she shivered and sobbed. “Just stay alive. You c-can manage that at least, can't you? Don't do stupid things. Don't die on me. This place is horrible enough, but to lose you...?”

I felt her sobbing body. I heard her sniffles and her cries. But I just simply didn't understand it. I didn't understand anything, or so I realized I had been telling myself all that time. It suddenly occurred to me that she wasn't the only one who hated it when I talked. So I said nothing. I simply raised a hand and limply patted her armored shoulder. It was a lame gesture, but at least it was a gesture.

I looked over at Kelly and Applejack. What was I looking for? Approval? Penance? They said nothing. Kelly hung her head and rested as Applejack tended to her wounds.

When the crystal lit up and Sisyphus spoke, we were all too numb to register the hologram's words: something about “foolish mortals” and the “eternal torture of Tartarus” and yadda yadda yadda. I suppose Babellyon was right about one thing: the best ingredient of pain was hope. I hadn't known what sort of a recipe I'd been cooking up for Lyra, not until she clung to my body and told me with her tears.

We were all exhausted. It was a good enough excuse to allow slumber to claim us, I suppose.

Chapter Seven: The One Where Things Get Really Boring and Lifetimey

Chapter Seven: The One Where Things Get Really Boring and Lifetimey

When I awoke, it was to the noise of Applejack kicking metal debris and shattering rubble over the rusted steps that flanked the door. I sat up, startled, but it was Kelly's voice that was gasping instead. I saw her pivoting—wincing—to look at her collared partner. Her left leg was covered with tight bandages, but that didn't stop her from trying to sit up and reach for her companion.

“AJ?!” Kelly wheezed, winced, and finally found a comfortable position. “What's wrong? What's gotten into you?”

“I'm stupid, alright?!” Applejack spat, stomping in angry circles. Her freckled face turned scorching red as the armored plates rattled around her pacing form. “I'm a stupid, thoughtless, apple-buckin' country buffoon! Why am I even here?! Why am I even pretendin' to be of use to anypony?!”

“The heck are you going on about?” Kelly exclaimed. She shuffled a few feet over in spite of her wounds. “Applejack, please, talk to me!”

“What's the point?” Applejack slapped her front hooves into the floor and seethed. “I'll mess things up! I always mess things up! I couldn't even be a decent pack-horse! The simplest job a pony knows, and I even plum ruined that!”

“Will you just tell me what you did already?!”

“Don't you see?” Applejack frowned, spun, and showed off her front hooves. Both of them were barren. “I lost my shoes! I lost my horseshoes like a dumb little filly, frolickin' her way to school! How could I be so senseless? I didn't even notice until now, on account of my brain havin' leapt out of my skull five hours ago!”

“Applejack, we just came out of a living hell! Seriously!” Kelly exclaimed between winces. “I'm still amazed that we made it with our lives intact! I think losing a few things is forgivable! Shawn lost a crossbow, but you don't see any of us grieving over it?”

“Did he also leave behind our entire saddlebag full of supplies?!” Applejack roared. “Or our rations or our tools to fix yer leg up somethin' proper?”

“Applejack,” Kelly sighed. “We've been over this. We had no choice but to run. That incubus was gonna cook us alive—”

“There's no excuse, Kelly!” Applejack shouted. “There just t'ain't no excusin' it! I'm a dumb mare! Why can't we be in the Apple Underworld where I might be of real use to y'all?!”

“Oh Applejack,” Kelly cooed.

“Don't be usin' them puppy dog eyes on me!” Applejack pointed, her breath reaching a fever pitch. She sat on her haunches and grumbled, “I know when I'm useless! I should have been more careful! What good are my buckin' legs without them fancy cleats Sisyphus gave me when I got here? At this rate, I'll never get y'all home, or myself neither! I'll never make it out of this place alive! I'll never get to where...” Her face retched in a painful heave. “G-get to where... Get t-to where ponies need me...”

“Applejack...”

“All this time,” Applejack ran a hoof through her mane as her face scrunched up. “I've been gone for so long. They must think I've run off. They must think I don't love 'em no more. Maybe it's just right that I never come back. Nopony needs to know what I know, to hear what I have to say. Nopony should ever know of this place, especially not... especially not...”

“Shhh...” Kelly slid over and wrapped her arms around the mare. “They wouldn't think that, AJ. They love you as much as you love them.”

Applejack was hyperventilating. She surrendered into Kelly's embrace, staring into the abyss that surrounded our immediate platform. When the tears came out of her eyes, they were moving just as quickly as her breathless words. “I miss them somethin' awful, Kelly. Things have gotten so nasty-like. I r-reckon I may never see them again. Granny... Big Mac... Apple Bloom.” She sniffed and held a hoof over her face. “Oh poor lil’ Apple Bloom. She's already had to go through havin' no Ma or Pa. How can she get along without her b-big sister as well?”

“It's okay to be scared,” Kelly smiled and gently stroked Applejack's back. “Nobody can be perfectly strong forever.”

“I just hate this pl-place, Kelly,” Applejack sobbed, burying her face into the woman's shoulder. “I hate it so dang much. I hate what it's made me b-become. I might as well be just as d-dead as Fluttershy. I've become somethin' horrible. Soon I'll be another m-monster that lives in this place.”

“No, Applejack. No you won't,” Kelly quietly said. “We're not gonna let the likes of Sisyphus and Babellyon win, you hear me? We're gonna get you home, AJ. We're gonna get you home to your family. It's just a matter of time.”

Applejack had completely collapsed at this point. Nothing intelligible came out of her mouth, except for the occasional “I miss them so much” in increasingly fragmented cadence. Kelly held her close, stroking her gently, all but cradling the weeping pony like a toddler.

I thought I was the only audience to this melancholic display, but then I heard a shuddering sigh to my left. I turned to look and my head nearly collided with Lyra's horn. How long had she been sitting right there? The whole time I was unconscious?

“I never thought I'd ever see Applejack cry,” Lyra said in a low voice. Her helmet was off as she sat peacefully, gazing at the scene.

I blinked stupidly at our allies, and then even more stupidly at Lyra. “What, is that a big deal or something?”

She exhaled, bearing the most exhausted of smiles. “You...” She paused. “I-I guess there's no point in explaining it...”

“Yeah. Guess not,” I muttered without thinking. I suddenly did a double-take, for there was something very different about my collared companion. “Holy shit. Your hair.”

“Hmmm?” She glanced at me, then chuckled slightly. “Oh, my mane.” She bit her lip as she ran a hoof over a buzzed neck of lightly-colored stubble. “I lost it sometime in the last few hours.”

“How and what for?” I asked.

Lyra pointed. “Kelly's leg.”

I turned to look. I studied the bandages on Kelly's wound for the first time. “Huh. Weird.” I looked back at Lyra. “I thought I overheard Applejack saying she left the supplies back in the chamber behind us.”

“Yeah.” Lyra nodded, but then smiled sweetly. “Thankfully, though, I remembered some spells that Twilight Sparkle taught me back at home about basic transmogrification. But I needed something long and flexible if I actually wanted to 'make' bandages. So, Applejack did the snip-snip to my mane and... there you have it.”

I looked back at Kelly. I smirked. “Heh. That's a nifty trick.”

“Mmmm...” Lyra sighed and squatted low, hiding part of her face behind folded forelegs. “No it isn't. You're just saying that.”

I gulped and uttered, “No. Seriously, I mean it.” I shrugged. “Hell, if I could spontaneously turn my back-hair into latex on a Saturday night, I would—” I stopped in mid-sentence. My eyes darted over.

Lyra was glancing up at me, blankly, innocently.

I cleared my throat. “You know what? Forget it. I'm... not even gonna finish that one.”

She merely nodded and gazed down at the quiet pair. “Applejack still has her mane hair. Now that some of my magic's recharged, I could transmogrify some more bandages that we can put over your burns. I chose to help fix Kelly first, though. Because... well... erm...” She squirmed nervously.

“Say no more,” I muttered with a nod. “Dames before dudes. Besides, she needed the medical attention more. Me?” I rubbed my reddened arms, winced slightly, but still managed a smile. “Hell, I've lived with worse.”

“This is going to be followed up by a joke, isn't it?” she said with a knowing smile.

“Yeah. One that involves a drunken dinner date in Key West that went south... in more ways than one.”

“Heehee...” Lyra's ears flicked as she rested her chin on her hooves once more. “I'm kind of glad Kelly joined us. That means there's someone around who actually gets you.”

“Heh, as if. Besides, it doesn't matter, really,” I said. “You laugh at me all the same.”

“Only because I don't know how to respond to you half of the time.”

I wasn't entirely sure why at the time, but that hurt. Still, I couldn't fault her. “Well, I can't fault you, Lyra.”

She blinked curiously at me. “Why do you do it?”

“Hmmm?”

“Joke around? Get angry all the time? Is it your way of trying to distract yourself?”

There was no way it could have been that simple... could it? “I dunno,” I blurted. “There's just so much absurdity in life. I can't help but ramble about it out loud like a psychopath, especially when being absolutely quiet is the truly insane thing to do.”

“Is the world where you come from really that terrible?”

I glanced at her. “Do I make it sound that way?”

“When I was first dropped in here, before I was paired with you, Sisyphus was trying really hard to convince me that all humans were inherently evil,” Lyra said. “I think he wanted us ponies to think that—by being collared to your kind—we were being given a moral crutch, that we had to think doubly-hard before judging everything we did in this place as wrong or right.”

I raised an eyebrow at that thought. “Huh. That's an interesting way of looking at it.”

“Why? What did Sisyphus tell the likes of you and Kelly about ponies?”

I thought about the moment I first arrived in Tartarus. When I wasn't trying not to throw up or scream like a baby, Sisyphus was convincing me that ponies were weak, childish, naïve, and incapable of understanding pain.

“He told us that humans were miserable too,” I eventually said. “In his own way...”

Lyra slowly nodded. “Do you believe that?”

I took a deep breath, sitting up straight beside her. “Well, the world I know is hardly pretty. There's the Big Three: war, poverty, and the Black Eyed Peas. You've got a tiny group of rich assholes exploiting the fuck out of a whole bunch of starving saps all across the globe. The oceans are drying up, the forests are disappearing, honeybees are going the way of the dinosaur—just about everything horrible that you could imagine, plus the death of Andy Griffith.”

“Who?”

“Never mind; too soon.” I coughed. “Anyways, I kinda sorta guess I'm at that age when I'm most snarky about it. It can't be helped, really. College tuition, blind dates, alcohol: they're all the firm ingredients for a tall bottle of cynical fuck-me-please. At some point—I dunno when—I gave up and just started believing that there was nothing worth believing in, what with all the ugliness and all.” I sighed and gazed up at the cavernous ceiling of the rusted place. “And then I get Commander Scotty'd to this hellhole, and it was like nailing the head in the nihlistic coffin, ya dig?”

Lyra's tail flicked. She smiled helplessly. “I guess I 'dig.' Though... I really don't understand it all, Shawn.”

“Yeah, well...” I leaned back against the wall behind us. “Nobody expects you to.”

“Because I'm a pony?”

I merely bit my lip.

Lyra fidgeted slightly. She looked down at her hooves and murmured, “All my life, I guess you can say that I've been happy. I grew up in Canterlot. It's a luxurious place, full of beautiful gardens and wonderfully educated stallions and mares. Then, once I was older, I moved into Ponyville. I'd never seen a more gorgeous town. You can wake up in the morning and smell the flowers without even opening the windows. Everypony you meet in the streets is nice. Everyone wants to shake hooves with you and share stories. There's absolutely nothing wrong with leaving your front door unlocked at night. Then, when the seasons change, there are countless celebrations. We plant seeds, we feed animals, and we help the world grow.”

“Sounds like you live in either Disney World or a Thomas Kinkade painting.”

“It's a very nice, safe place—is what I'm trying to say, Shawn,” Lyra said. “But...” She bit her lip. “I'd be lying if I said that it didn't feel like something was missing.”

“Like what?”

She searched the place with her eyes as she transformed her thoughts into words. “You speak so terribly of your world. Have you ever thought that maybe all of it is in your head? That things can't possibly be that bad?”

“Uhhh...” I scratched the back of my neck, but winced from a patch of burned skin. “Ahem. Yeah, I guess I have. Just a little bit.”

“Well, sometimes I would wake up in the middle of the night, and I would think to myself...” She shuddered briefly and avoided my gaze. “I-I would think to myself that life in Equestria—that everything I cherished so deeply—was a little too good to be true. I felt that there was a place where nightmares belonged, where there were frightening things that made everything we held dear worth holding onto all the more.”

I leaned my chin on my knuckles. “Do... Do you think that you've found that place now, Lyra?”

“I've f-found things,” she said with a painful expression. “And as ugly as it all is, it only makes me want to return home all the more. It's... It's like I finally know that all the stuff that made me happy is truly, truly precious.”

“Well, that's a good thing, isn't it? I guess?”

“Does it have to work in one direction, though?” She looked at me. “Is something about this whole experience—something about meeting ponies like me and Applejack and Rainbow Dash and... a-and Thunderlane—going to make you appreciate life once you're back home safe?”

I glanced away. I saw a shadow of myself lying beside the door, a weeping Lyra holding him close and not letting go. “Hell,” I said with a smirk and a shrug. “Who knows? Maybe what Sisyphus planned all along is backfiring.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. Like—when he threw us all together, thinking we'd clash, he was only slapping together... uh... two opposites of the universe that could only benefit from the mutual ass-kicking of trolls.”

“So, in the end, we have ponies tasting of a little bit of humanity and humans tasting of a little bit of ponydom?”

“Hey, crossovers work in comic books at least.” I rested my arms behind my head and leaned back. “Perhaps what our two worlds needed all along was... I dunno... some sort of diplomacy bureau... or a conversion cabinet.”

Lyra squinted quizzically. “I'm afraid I don't read you.”

"Yeah, well.” I rolled my eyes. “That's because it's not something worth writing about.”

“Heeheehee.” Her cheeks warmed as she gazed past Kelly and Applejack. “Well, I don't know about you, but when I get back, I'm going to count every second in Ponyville a blessing.”

I glanced at her sideways. I studied her eyes. I remembered the tears that had once squeezed out of them. In so doing, I was too distracted to stop the words coming out of my mouth. “Who do you have to return to, Lyra?”

Lyra blinked at me. “You... You really want to know?”

I answered her by not answering her.

After such graceful silence, she took a deep breath and smiled placidly into the shadows. “Bon Bon,” she spoke, almost hummed. “I've been gone for so long. Bon Bon will be worried sick. I... I simply can't begin to imagine...”

“'Bon Bon,' huh?” I asked. “That's kind of a quirky name for a stallion.”

Lyra's cheeks instantly went red. “Uhm...” She smiled bashfully past me. “She's a mare.”

I blinked. “Oh.” I blinked again, then looked at her. “So, does the WNBA have many franchises in Ponyland?”

“Huh?”

I coughed. “Never mind. Tell me more about Bon Bon.”

“Well...” Lyra kneaded the floor with her hooves and breathed dreamily. “She's tolerated me this long, that's an amazing thing.” The unicorn chuckled dryly, then continued, “She knows just the right thing to say to me in the morning so that the rest of the day shines all the more. When I'm trotting through town with her, it's like the rest of the world just slows down and lets us pass by, like we're two forgotten queens of yesteryear. Egads, if only she was here to listen to me say such nonsense. She's such a romantic.”

“Heh, I'm guessing so,” I said.

“She's... she's so very romantic,” Lyra murmured, her face becoming deadpan. “She knows how to make every second spent together count. She... she makes me feel like I'm somepony worth smiling at, and not just another face in the crowd to wave at and pass by. At night, she even snuggles up to me and hums a little tune, as if trying to sing this musician she's in love with to sleep. And... and I'm awake and I hear her, but I pretend to be asleep and...” She paused, whimpered, and spoke next with a cracking voice. “I don't know why I've always done th-that.” Lyra shuddered. “As Celestia is my witness, I'm never g-gonna pretend around Bon Bon ever again...”

The air grew thin, punctuated in a few places by Lyra's occasional sniffles. I looked down at our two allies. Applejack had just about sobbed herself to sleep. As for Kelly: she was looking up at me over her companion's shoulder. Her expression was soft and gentle, even bearing the tiniest hint of a smile.

I almost made a face, but then Lyra spoke again. “Th-Thank you, Shawn.”

My body nearly jolted at that. “Uhhh...” I glanced down at her. “For what?”

“For t-talking to me,” Lyra said with a glossy-eyed smile.

“But...” I squinted. “I thought you hated it when I talked.”

She sniffled and shook her head. “This time it was different. This time you listened as well.”

“Hmmph... Yeah, well.” I waved my left arm in front of her. “I'm burned all over. It's not like I can fill the time doing naked cartwheels.”

“Heeheeheehee...”

I sighed and looked away from her. I felt something soft against my shoulder. I glanced over and saw her leaning against me, gently nuzzling my bicep. I was burned there, but the curious thing was that it didn't hurt so much.

“We're going to get you home, Shawn,” she murmured. “And maybe you too will meet someone like my Bon Bon.”

Groaning, I folded my arms and looked away. “You're a goddam fruitcake.”

“Mmmmhmmmm.” And then she merely giggled.

Chapter Eight: The One Where I Chicken Out and Give the Fans What They Want

Chapter Eight: The One Where I Chicken Out and Give the Fans What They Want

“Nnnngh!” Lyra was hissing, straining. Sweat poured out from her helmet as she fought to channel more and more energy through the glowing horn. “Hcnkkkt—!”

“Now now, sugarcube,” Applejack looked back from where she was leading the pack. Kelly was leaning against her, hobbling on her good leg as the partners slowly traversed a narrow bridge between rusted platforms. “What did we tell y'all earlier about flexin' that noggin' of yours too much? T'ain't like Sisyphus is gonna let you teleport anywhere so long as yer sportin' that collar!”

“Hell, let her try,” I muttered, taking up the rear of the procession. “If I had a magical fucking horn on my head, I'd try teleporting out of here too. Then I'd send my sorry ass to the nearest Wal-Mart to buy myself some Aloe Vera gel. Jesus...” I hissed and rubbed my arms. “That damn Babellyon stings like a bitch.”

Kelly giggled.

I glared at her. “And just what's your deal?”

“Mmmm... Nothing,” she hummed. “Things suck here in Tartarus, but life never stops surprising me.”

A deep sigh escaped my lips. I heard Lyra straining and groaning again. I looked down at her. “For crying out loud! At least don't hurt yourself!”

“Just think...” Lyra panted and meditated a little bit more in mid-trot. “...how much easier it would be for you to fight off the bad guys while not having to worry about being far away from my collar!”

“What, you'd want me to wear the thing after you strip of it?”

“I'd say you could do with two leashes, Shawn,” Kelly said with a smirk.

“You could do with three corks,” I replied. “One for each of your mouths.”

Applejack groaned. Kelly laughed.

“I don't get it,” Lyra said with a puzzled face.

I walked past her and spoke towards the head of the group. “Just so we're clear, what exactly is the battle-plan in case Sisyphus' wall of angry meat decides to spring an ambush on us again?”

“What, am I still your captain?” Kelly asked.

“You've got one one shapely leg left, haven't you?”

“Well...” She thought aloud while hobbling beside Applejack. “I'd say it's pretty simple. If we're lucky enough to defend a high point, Lyra and I will stick together to provide long range support while Applejack and you take up the forward position. That is, of course, assuming your boo-boos don't sting that badly, Shawn.”

“If I can deal with your lip, I'm sure I can survive an orc or two slapping me on my red spots.”

“What if we simply tried outrunning them?” Applejack asked.

“I doubt I'd be of much help there,” Kelly grumbled. “And before you start, we've been through this before, Applejack.” She frowned. “I'm not riding you.”

“I reckon you ain't too heavy,” the mare said with a sly grin. “Besides, from what I can gander, most of y'all is milk and merriment! Nothin' I can't manage more than a barrel of apples!”

“Hahahaha!” I exclaimed, wincing from my burns. “I think she's gotten you figured out, Kelly! Fuck online matchmaking, let's let a farmhorse guide you through the classifieds from now on!”

“Heheheh,” Applejack guffawed.

Kelly briefly fumed. “Fine, Applejack. Maybe I'll ride you, once I've stripped of all this dayum armor. Shawn can carry it all down his throat, assuming his foot isn't already in the way.”

“Love you to, captain my captain.” I chuckled. Applejack was snickering too.

“I didn't get that one either.” Lyra sighed.

“You should watch more television once you get back to Equestria.”

“What's television?”

“Right.” I cleared my throat and spoke towards the other two. “So, are we actually headed anywhere? Or are we just gonna wander aimlessly across the abandoned set of Cube Zero?”

“Wait!” Lyra skidded to a stop, her eyes wide.

“What?” I looked back at her. “Did you finally get something?”

“No, I sense a body nearby!”

Kelly gasped.

Applejack grind her hooves against the metal surface of the bridge. “Where? Where is it?! If it's a messenger, we should squash him before it alerts all the other yahoos to our presence!”

“Just wait!” Lyra's eyes narrowed. An invisible wind magically wafted over her helmet as her horn glowed brighter and brighter. “It's... in front of us, somewhere. It's very weak. And... and...”

“Yes?” Kelly leaned forward.

Lyra blinked. She gazed up at us with twitching eyes. “It's on all fours!”

“It's Clay Aiken?” I remarked. Kelly smacked the back of my head with her bow. “Ow!”

“Idiot!” she fumed. “She means it's a pony.” She limped over and looked down at Lyra. “Don't you, girl?”

Lyra nodded furiously. “My spatial sense hasn't lied to me yet.”

“Well, where is the little stranger?” Applejack remarked.

Lyra's horn glowed as she scanned the abysmal surroundings. Finally, she looked past us and pointed towards the far end of the bridge. “Over there! See the fallen pillar? It's behind that!”

We all turned to look. Just as we did so, a bright shape darted out of sight, hiding behind the obstruction.

“Hey!” Kelly called out, shuffling around and cupping two hands over her face. “Hey you! We mean no harm! We just want to be friends!”

Only the slightest of squeaking sounds came from around the pillar.

“We're not one of them nasty critters!” Applejack added. “Please, come out so that we can see you!”

No sound was heard this time. The shadow remained hidden behind the debris.

Before Kelly could stop me, I shouted, “Hey! Fuckface!” I unsheathed my sword with a pronounced ringing noise. “Show your muzzle before we skin you and drag you out!”

This time, there was a noticeable whimper. Slowly, a yellow-coated figure shuffled out of hiding, giving us the loneliest of wilted stares.

Lyra gasped sharply, falling back on her haunches. “Oh sweet Celestia...”

“Fluttershy?!” Applejack's eyes nearly burst. Smiles and tears flowed out of her all at once. “Oh thank heavens, Fluttershy! It is you! It is you!” She galloped ahead in a blink. She was soon joined by a mint-green streak.

“Whoah—Hey!” I exclaimed as our two collared companions dashed ahead of us. “Friggin' prancing little buggers—Kelly, grab ahold.”

“Take it easy, Shawn,” she said with a calm smile as she leaned on me. Together we hobbled forward, staying within range of our equine friends. “Let them get a little bit ahead. Everything will be fine.”

“God. All you do is eat this shit up, I swear.”

“Shhh!” she hissed, just in time too.

Lyra and Applejack had skidded to a stop beside Fluttershy. They practically plowed her over with hugs and gentle nuzzles, their tears staining the frail pegasus' face.

“Oh Fluttershy! I'm so glad you're alive!”

“We thought you were a goner, sugarcube!”

“When I heard what that nasty Babellyon did... I-I didn't know what to think!”

“Look at you! Yer in one piece! Oh heavens to Betsy, it's so wonderful seein' ya!”

“Tell us what happened! How come you're here?!”

“Where did yer partner Sam go?”

“Girls... Girls...” Kelly exclaimed as we joined them on the rubble-strewn platform. “Give her some breathing room, why don't you?” I let her go, and she knelt down—wincing—beside Fluttershy. “Hey there, gorgeous. Long time no see.”

“Mmm... h-hello, Kelly,” Fluttershy managed the tiniest of smiles. She was in one piece, but that wasn't saying much. The mare had a bandage covering half of her face, and one of her wings was almost missing half of its feathers. Bruises covered most of her lower half, and the plates of armor covering her spine appeared to weigh her frail form down. “It's so very nice to see you and Applejack again. And you too Lyra. And... And...” She looked up at me and instantly backtrotted half-a-foot.

I muttered, “Pretend I'm called 'Sugar Lumpkin' and just leave it at that.”

Fluttershy simply said nothing.

“But really, girl.” Applejack didn't stop clinging to Fluttershy for one second. She sniffled and smiled in spite of her tears. “What happened to ya?”

Fluttershy shuddered. “The last time I saw you, we were fighting that horrible, horrible demon. I tried to help out the best I could. I really did. But... uhm... you know that I've never enjoyed conflict.” She whimpered, shaking the remaining bits of armor left on her limbs. “Even with what I was taught when I came here, I never wanted to hurt anyone or anything...”

“We know that, Fluttershy,” Lyra said, smiling painfully. “I've never wanted to do cruel things either. But I've done what I had to in order to survive, and to help others along with me.”

“But enough of that sort of talk,” Applejack emphasized. “Could you tell us how you got here?”

“Well...” Fluttershy looked at Applejack and Kelly specifically. “When we got separated from you girls, Sam and I figured that the best thing we could do was keep Babellyon occupied until you two had a chance to escape. Things looked pretty grim for us. I've... I've been in scary situations before, but not like this, not like in Tartarus.”

“But...” Kelly's eyes narrowed. “But you survived.”

“Mmmhmmm.” Fluttershy limply nodded. “I did. I never expected to. But I did. It was all because of Sam, really. It was because... because...” She bit her lip and her eyes began to water.

“Easy, Sugarcube,” Applejack stroked the pegasus' mane. “Just give it to us straight.”

Fluttershy whimpered. “He saved me. We were surrounded on all sides by monsters, and we were being forced to march st-straight into Babellyon's wrath. That's when Sam grabbed me. At f-first, I thought it was a hug. I felt it was sweet, but I knew it wasn't the best t-timing for that. All of the sudden, Same threw me with that super-strength he had been granted by Sisyphus. And... And the first thing I thought was that our collars were going to k-kill us, on account of how far he threw me. But then he...” She squeaked, shuddered, and finished with, “He ran straight into Babellyon. He... He gave his life so that both he and the collar would be destroyed. And once h-he was gone, I... I-I was able to fly away.” She buried her muzzle into her forelimbs. “And so I did,” she wept.

Lyra bit her lip, her eyes moist. Applejack leaned in and nuzzled the pegasus.

“He did it because he cared for you, darlin',” she said. “It was a heroic act for somethin' sweet and worth preservin'.”

“No...” Fluttershy cried, her voice muffled. “No it wasn't! I was a coward! I sh-should have fought harder! I shouldn't have b-been so scared to be strong, to be violent even. And now Sam's dead and I'm alive because of it. What good is there in that? I'm such a coward. I don't deserve to be alive.”

“Don't you say that!” Lyra's voice cracked as she dove in and held Fluttershy tight. “Don't you ever say that! We love you, Fluttershy. You're no coward. The fact that you're alive is a blessing to us all. We're all glad for what Sam did.”

“We'll always remember him,” Applejack said, smiling as she caressed her. “Thanks to you, we won't ever forget what he's done. He's given us hope. That means everythang in this nasty place, and it's gonna mean everythang once we get you back home safe and sound, along with Cheerilee and Rainbow Dash and the others.”

Fluttershy sniffled, then looked up with a painful smile. “You... You mean that Cheerilee and Rainbow made it safely?”

“Heeheehee... That they did!” Lyra said with a soft wink. “You think they're cowards too?”

“No. I...” Fluttershy heaved and shuddered. “I think that's absolutely wonderful...”

“It is so very wonderful,” Applejack said. She joined Lyra and Fluttershy in a group hug. “Yer wonderful, darlin'. And don't you ever think differently.”

The three ponies clung to each other, forming a bright spot of color and warmth in the middle of that decrepit place. I had always thought that I was the one lucky sap in my family not to become diabetic at my age. After witnessing what I witnessed, I figured things had just changed permanently. Before I could process how fucking horrible that analogy was, Kelly spoke to me.

“Warms your heart, doesn't it, Shawn?” she said smugly.

“You're making the erroneous assumption that I've got a heart.”

“So what if I am?” Kelly chuckled, leaning against my side. “Can you blame me?”

“Huh?”

“I saw you chatting earlier with Lyra. I'm pretty sure that just a day ago, you wouldn't even let the little horsie sniff your own farts.”

“That's because I've refused to eat anything since we got here.”

“Shawn...”

“The fuck do you want from me?”

Her face glowed. “You're still reeling from what Lyra said to you when we escaped Babellyon, huh?”

I sighed, gazing beyond the three hugging, crying ponies. “I'm just reeling from all this goddam estrogen. I mean, why ponies, huh? Why couldn't we have been paired up with giant, shape-shifting robots instead?”

“Shawn...”

“You think Tartarus would have modernized a bit. I mean, look at this shitty place, huh? It's like someone cleared house at an H. R. Giger exhibit. How do you equate horses with that?”

“Shawn,” Kelly murmured. “It must be terribly, terribly strange for you to know that someone loves you so dearly.”

I almost opened my fat mouth—as I always do in such a situation—but I suddenly had nothing to go with. So, I limped backwards, and my tongue led the way without me. “Each and every one of you seems convinced that this place was made to teach us pain.” I gulped as I stared painfully at the sweet, happy reunion in front of us. “I kind of wish it was all pain. Then maybe things would have been easier. Guess... th-that just wasn't the way it was meant to be.”

Kelly nodded. “Hell isn't so hellish if it's all one single thing, huh?”

I slowly nodded my head.

Kelly did something weird. She lifted her hand, but instead of slapping it upside the head, she rested it on my shoulder. “We're gonna get Lyra home, Shawn. I promise you that.”

I glanced at her hand, then gave her a weird look. “And what makes you think that's my only concern anymore?”

She smiled and hobbled away from me. “Because you stopped staring at my ass at least eight hours ago.”

I blinked, then frowned as she marched over to the group. “You know, that can be rearranged!”

“So can your balls!” she retorted.

I sighed and slugged forward. “Fuckin' Lifetime for jockeys, I swear to Bjork...”

As I joined the group, Kelly was already kneeling beside them. “Sorry to disturb such an angelic moment, girls,” she said. “But we really need to press on. We ran into Babellyon a second time, Fluttershy. Though he can't go through the same chamber doors that we do, undoubtedly he's going to sick another army on us anytime soon.”

“Eeep!” Fluttershy jolted, shivering in Applejack's and Lyra's embrace. “I really, really don't like that demon!”

“Neither do any of us, sweetie,” Kelly said. “So it's high time we hoofed it, if you pardon the pun.”

“How long you've been hidin' in these here parts, sugarcube?”

“Uhm...” Fluttershy twitched under her bandages. “I don't rightly know for sure. M-Maybe the last six hours?”

“Were you resting between flying?” Lyra asked.

“Somewhat,” Fluttershy said. “Truth be told, uhm...” She blushed deeply. “I got lost. I was looking for another door for a long time. I did find one, but it looked scary, so I decided to pass it by.”

“Scary?” Lyra asked. “Scary in what way?”

“Oh, it was all glowing and sparkling on the inside. I thought it might have been demon magic or something.”

Four of us jolted. Kelly and I exchanged wide-eyed glances.

“That sounds like...” I murmured.

“...an exit door.” Kelly finished.

“Huh?” Fluttershy squinted. “You mean that's what the way out of Tartarus looks like?”

“Yes!” Lyra practically bounced, breathless. “Michelle and Rainbow Dash took such a portal out of here!”

“So did Cheerilee and Brian!” Applejack said. She firmly clasped Fluttershy's shoulders. “Tell us, darlin'! Where did you see this crazy door?”

“Uhm...” Fluttershy looked nervously at all of us. She gulped. “Maybe it's best that I show you...”

Chapter Nine: The One Where It's--Holy Crap, Seventeen Pages? Are You Kidding Me?

Chapter Nine: The One Where It's--Holy Crap, Seventeen Pages? Are You Kidding Me?

“Down there,” Fluttershy said, pointing with her dainty hoof.

She and the rest of us stood on the edge of a high cliff overlooking a forest of flat, circular platforms. At the far end of the clusterfuck of metal mesas, there stretched a thin plateau that hugged an insanely huge wall of underworld rust. On the far side of the stone plateau was a steep flight of stairs. The steps stretched up along an inclined groove within the wall, at the top of which rested a circular door that undeniably glowed with bright, magical resonance.

“The last time I flew by this part of the chamber was ten hours ago,” Fluttershy explained. “The door was glowing a lot brighter then.”

“That must mean the charge is draining,” Lyra said. She turned and looked up at me. “Remember how the one we saw earlier lasted just long enough to teleport Michelle and Rainbow Dash?”

“It was a similar situation with Brian and Cheerilee,” Kelly interjected. “But this door right here?” She whistled. “It's the brightest thing I've ever seen.”

“I could get to it in less than a minute with my wings,” Fluttershy said, fidgeting. “But... uhm... the rest of you? I'm guessing it's five minutes on hoof.”

“Heh.” Kelly smirked down at her. “You say that like it's something bad, Fluttershy! This is something fantastic, girl! Thanks to you, freedom is only a brisk jog away!”

“Fuck me,” Applejack breathlessly exclaimed.

The four of us looked at her, blinking.

She gazed back. A deep rosiness blossomed under her freckles. “What?” She smiled bashfully. “Y'all knew it was a'comin'.”

“So, what are we waiting for?” Lyra grinned wide. “Let's drop down from this platform and get home-free!”

I stretched a hand out. “Keep your saddle on.” I took a deep breath. “I don't like the looks of this.”

Kelly groaned. “Shawn, you'd look at a basket full of puppies and somehow see the Bubonic Plague.”

“Look, I'm damn serious for once.” I frowned. “Everyone stay quiet for a moment.”

Kelly and the ponies did as commanded. They glanced around, their ears pricking. Soon, a very low murmur was heard beneath the dreadful silence within that vast end of the labyrinth.

Fluttershy squeaked, then stammered, “Wh-What is that?”

“Plum flummoxed if I know,” Applejack remarked. She glanced over at Lyra. “That horn of yers still workin', sugarcube?”

“J-just give me a sec,” Lyra said with a shuddering breath. She closed her eyes and concentrated. Her horn glowed, shimmered, and then sparked. Suddenly, Lyra's eyes flew open and she gasped, her face going pale.

“Where?” Kelly asked in a tense whisper. She leaned in. “Where are they?”

Lyra tried her best to stifle a whimper. “Everywhere...”

We all gazed at each other, until I—of all people—tightened my scabbard around my back and laid myself down before the clifface. “Applejack, grab my legs.”

“What for?”

“Just humor me.”

“Sure thang.” She gripped my ankles.

I slipped forward over the edge of the metal cliff. I held my breath—as if I was diving underwater—and let my upper body dangle down over the side. I gazed into a deep abyss of shadows directly beneath our platform. Not only did I learn that there was a huge space beneath the floor upon which we stood, but several shapes were sitting, squirming, waiting within. I saw the barest glint of armor, arrows, and beady eyes. I signaled Applejack by twitching my ankles, and she pulled me back up.

“Well?” Kelly asked.

I sat down in front of them, sighing long and hard. “We're boned.”

“Huh?” Fluttershy shivered, gazing quizzically at the rest of us. “What does he mean? Is that a human expression for evisceration? Because I-I've always hated evisceration!”

“There has to be at least two hundred of them,” I grumbled.

Lyra nervously nodded. “That feels about right.”

“What in the hay are they doin'?” Applejack asked.

“Lying in ambush, obviously,” Kelly muttered.

“Do they know that we're here?” Fluttershy whispered.

“I have no doubt that Sisyphus has been watching us like U.K. Traffic cameras,” I said. “He probably knows the color of our underwear... those of us who aren't naked, at least.”

“Ohhhh...” Fluttershy fell on her haunches and covered her face with her hooves. “This is all my fault!”

I glared at her. “How so this time?”

“Isn't it obvious?” Fluttershy sniffled and snuck a guilty peak at us. “I led you all here! This 'Sisyphus' wouldn't have possibly sprung a trap if it wasn't for me and this door!”

“You didn't do anything wrong, Fluttershy,” Lyra said, lowering the pegasus' hooves out from before her face. She smiled. “And, for another thing, no trap's been sprung on us. Thankfully, we're in the company of some pretty smart survivors, yourself included.”

“Reckon it doesn't do us a lick of good against that many creeps,” Applejack grumbled in a low voice. She gave us an exhausted look. “So, then, what do we do? We're no match for an entire army.”

“The door's likely to lose it's charge soon,” Kelly said, pointing at the slowly dimming glow from far away. “If we don't try going through it now, our ticket home will be gone. Could be an hour, could be a few minutes.”

“Who's to know?” Applejack remarked.

“Right,” Lyra said with a nod. “But it could take even longer for us to trek throughout the rest of this place in hopes of finding another lucky exit. Do any of us have a chance of surviving that long?”

Fluttershy merely whimpered at the notion.

Applejack took a deep, fuming breath. “Look,” she grunted with a frown. “I'm fine for whatever y'all think is the best course of action. What I'm most concerned with is keepin' y'all safe. So what should we do here? Tryin' to fight off them monsters is a one-way-ticket to the grave. But goin' elsewhere to find another way home is just as bad. Whichever we decide to do, I'm game. But I need to know so I can put my hooves to good use, ya hear?”

I gazed down at the platforms beneath us. There were several of them: small, ten-foot wide things that resembled satanic versions of the mushroom steps from Super Mario Brothers. Yes, I know that's horrible, but what more do you want from me? They were divided by foot-wide gaps that a small crowd of runners could easily jump. But a huge, hulking crowd?

“Hail Mary...” I muttered.

Everyone looked at me.

“Beg yer pardon?” Applejack remarked.

“Fuck it,” I said. “We're only dead if we try fighting all the freaks. So let's not bother. Let's get our asses down there and run like crazy to the steps on the other side.”

“But it's a trap!” Lyra hissed. “That's what they're expecting us to do!”

“Then we do something that they don't expect,” I said to her. “We start out with something to throw them off.”

“Like what?”

I looked at each of us and our mixed injured and uninjured conditions. “Mmmmm... Applejack, you're the fastest here, right?”

Applejack pointed. “Fluttershy's the one with wings.”

“Uhhhh...” I turned and looked at the fragile pegasus. She instantly wilted from my gaze, blushing beneath her armor. “Yeah.” I cleared my throat and looked at Applejack again. “You're the fastest here, Applejack. You and Kelly will drop down and grab the monsters' attention.”

“Heh, swell,” Applejack crossed her front hooves and smirked wryly. “And just how do we not end up with a bunch of arrows for cutie marks?”

I pointed at my partner. “A few seconds after you drop, Lyra will erect a force field to block them and give you and Kelly a window of opportunity to gun it. Since Kelly's hurt, it'll be your job—Applejack—to get her to the door first.”

“It'll be a long gallop,” Applejack said, gazing down at the platforms. She smirked slightly. “But I'm sure I can handle it.”

“Uhm, Shawn?” Lyra said, fidgeting. “We're kind of high up. I'm not sure I can cast a force field from this distance.”

“That's... uh... where Fluttershy comes in.”

Fluttershy blinked. “It is?”

“She's the wildcard in this situation,” I said. “Since she's not collared to anyone. She can lower you in flight while you concentrate on the force field. Then she can give Applejack and Kelly cover.”

“And just how are you going to get down?” Kelly asked with a hard glare.

I gulped. I glanced down at the shadowy platforms directly beneath ours. “I'll figure that out when the time comes.”

“I'm not sure I'm liking this,” Kelly grumbled. “Even if we get the drop on them, you're suggesting we try to outrun an entire army.”

“It should be okay so long as we can bum-rush it to the exit door in time.”

“What makes you think they won't catch up to us after the initial leap?”

I gazed down at the metal mesas. I saw where they thinned down, narrowing from six adjacent platforms to two and finally to one. A single, decrepit mesa was the one platform separating all the rest from the stone plateau just beneath the distant wall and the steps to salvation.

“We fall back at that.” I pointed at the lone platform. “It'll be our choke-hold.”

“Choke-hold?” Applejack remarked.

I nodded. “For just five of us, it'll be easy to cross. But for a bunch of fuck-ugly orcs and trolls, they'll be hard pressed to pass through without sacrificing themselves to our focused attack. If we can get them all to cluster there, it may delay them just enough for us to make it all the way up the steps unhindered.”

“That's riskin' it somethin' fierce,” Applejack said, stroking her chin with an orange hoof. “But I reckon it could work, so long as we're quick about it.”

“All I'm suggesting is a huge blitz to the finish line,” I remarked. “Not a climactic drag-out fight.”

“In other words,” Kelly said with a smile. “'Fuck it.'”

“See?” I grinned wickedly. “Doing middle school speedruns through Goldeneye can prove handy.”

Fluttershy gazed blankly at Lyra. “Your human friend is strange.”

Lyra giggled. “You should see him when he's angry.”

“Mmm...” Fluttershy curled inward. “D-do I want to?”

“I'm getting the feeling you're about to.”

“So it's settled, then?” I remarked. “Are we doing this? Or did I just pull a Coach Lombardi out of my ass for no good reason?”

Everyone's face turned grave. A mixed breath cycloned between us.

“Awww, what the hell,” Kelly groaned, pushing herself into a standing position with her bow. “This place is starting to smell like a New Jersey Port-a-Potty. I'm ready to get back home, whatever it takes.”

“My sentiments exactly, girl,” Applejack said, flexing her hooves and cracking the joints in her neck. “This was never my kind of hoedown to begin with.”

Lyra looked at Fluttershy. “You think you're okay with carrying me down there, Fluttershy?”

The pegasus took a deep breath. “This is all so very frightening.” She gulped. “B-but... if you and your friends think that this is the best thing to do, then I'll help in anyway I can.”

“See?” Lyra smiled. “You're not a coward after all.”

Fluttershy's cheeks turned momentarily red. “It'll be a long while before I'm as brave as you.”

Lyra blinked. “Who said I wasn't a coward?”

“Hoo boy...” Kelly crept up to the side, gazing down. “That's a long drop.”

I unsheathed my sword with a loud ringing noise. “Let's make a game of it: try and out-race our piss on the way down.”

She smirked at me. “Having second thoughts?”

“Kind of. Thankfully, my third thoughts are a lot more enticing.”

“By the way, you've neglected to mention something,” Kelly remarked, pointing at her bandaged leg. “I know Applejack can make the jump, but how am I supposed to get down there without killing myself?”

“I think there's an easy solution for that.” I said, then shoved her square in the chest.

“Gaaah!” Kelly fell back, only for Applejack to catch her with a smirk.

“Nice coordination there, Shawn.” Applejack positioned herself so that Kelly was unwittingly straddling her. “Now let's get crackin'.”

“Wait-Wait-Wait!” Kelly stifled a shriek. “I thought I said that we weren't gonna have me ride you, AJ!”

“Oh hush, darlin'. I could handle four of ya.”

“Yeah, besides, your ass is thick enough for it,” I said. “I should know. I've studied it closely.”

“Shawn, if this doesn't kill us, I swear—I'm going to turn your rectum inside out.”

“I've had worse pickup-lines.” I turned and gestured to the other two ponies. “Ready to fly?”

Lyra gulped and smiled at me encouragingly from where she dangled in Fluttershy's grip. “She means to say 'yes,' Shawn.” Her eyes quivered slightly. “Good luck.”

“Stop treating this like it's the last episode of M*A*S*H,” I grumbled.

“Yeah!” Applejack exclaimed, leaning precariously on the edge. “Think of this as the Runnin' of the Leaves! There's nothin' stoppin' us now!”

“My thoughts exactly.” I slapped Applejack on her orange flank. “Hiyaaa!”

“Whoa-Nelly!” Applejack was flung forward, forcing Kelly to shriek loudly, turning the two of them into an even louder distraction.

“They're droppin' too fast—!” Lyra exclaimed as she started channeling magic through her horn. “Shawn—!”

“Wait for it!” I held a hand up.

Applejack and Kelly fell, fell, and landed with the clap of thunder on the platforms below. Without a wasted breath, Applejack was bounding ahead. Kelly held on for dear life. One second passed. Two seconds. On the third second, a large battle cry emanated from below us—

“Now!” I shouted.

Fluttershy drifted down with Lyra dangling in her grasp.

My partner clenched her teeth and fired a bolt of emerald energy directly beneath their descent. In a blink, a solid wall of green energy was erected. It couldn't have had better timing. Just as the barrier solidified, a flying stream of arrows, axes, and daggers stopped in mid-air. They rattled ineffectually to the ground while Applejack and Kelly charged far ahead, untouched.

“Sh-Shawn!” I heard Lyra shouting from below. We were drawing too far apart. The barest hint of electrical charges was starting to dance along the cold body of my collar.

I leapt. I dove. I flew down into the shadows below. I held my sword like a comet tail. My body spiraled madly. I expected to fly into a sea of orcish flesh. Instead, the green force field re-shaped itself, swinging towards me like a pendulum. I realized at the last second that Lyra was giving me the boost that I needed. I mentally thanked her, and then I thought of nothing but blood, for I was bouncing off the force field and sailing into the darkness beneath the cliff.

That's when I saw their faces. Coming out of the darkness, their expressions were shocked, horrified, and panicked... until those same expressions flew off their necks at the end of my sword swings.

“Haaaaugh!” I skidded to a stop, swung my sword in the other direction, and lopped off even more body parts. The huge crowd surged back, not expecting to be bleeding and breaking at the pissed-off end of this crazed sword-fucker. I stabbed and gutted and sliced every troll and orc I could see. Then, like the recoiling surge of a crimson wave, the rest of the army hopped over the injured and came at me.

Bright energy bolts flew past my body and immediately knocked them to the floor. Several cretins shrieked as they tumbled, forming a pile of awkwardly floundering meat.

“Okay, we've done it, Shawn!” Lyra's voice shouted from behind as she fired more energy bolts. “Now run! Run!” I could hear Fluttershy's squealing breath and the distant clops of Applejack's heavy hooves.

I didn't need an excuse to hang out any longer. Just as several tall monsters lunged at me, I dashed out of the way. I turned and ran from the deep shadow. My insides froze at the sight of how long a sprint we all had to make before the distant plateau and stone steps would be within reach. I could see Fluttershy gliding high above, bridging the gap between Kelly, her partner, and the rest of us. Lyra was waiting for me, standing and firing volley after volley of energy bolts as her face was drenched in sweat.

“Hey there!” I panted, dragging my sword behind with a scrape of sparks. “You missed me?”

“Just run!” she shrieked, breathless. “Run!”

We sure as fuck did that. Our legs carried us like living bullets towards the sea of tiny mesas. As we got closer, the platform we were on started shaking all over. I glanced back and wished that I hadn't.

A solid line of angry creatures was emerging like a sea of snakes from the shadow. Their beady eyes resembled stars on a twilight horizon. Soon, angry arrows and twirling daggers were zooming at our heels.

Lyra fired one or two green bolts, and I pulled out my crossbow to take a few pot shots for good measure. The entire endeavor was futile. Even our initial counter-ambush—for as bloody and spontaneous as it was—felt like carving a tiny tear out of a Mount Rushmore of leather. There had to have been three hundred creeps, far more than either Lyra or I had estimated. What mattered was that we had delayed their pursuit by a hair's width, but even that tiniest of victories was burning away as they angrily, loudly devoured the panicked distance behind us.

“For fuck's sake!” I snarled as I fired a few more bolts into the pursuing swarm. “What does Sisyphus feed these assholes?! Space Kenyans?!”

“Lyra! Shawn!” Fluttershy called out from above. “Look where you're running!”

“Huh?” I wrenched my eyes off the chasing army. “Whoah damn!” I had to leap suddenly, for we had reached the dense sea of platforms. Together, Lyra and I jumped the tiny gaps between mesas. It was a lot more perilous than I had anticipated. Gazing down, all I could see was pure blackness occupying the spaces between solid footing. It didn't help that every other platform shook and wobbled as soon as we landed and jolted again as we jumped off. I knew that Fluttershy was there above us the whole time, but somehow I didn't expect the pegasus to do shit if either of us fell.

“They're getting closer!” Lyra shrieked in between frenzied jumps. “I can feel them!”

“Just don't look back!” I growled as I too felt the shaking platforms beneath the cacophonous thunder of the place. The mesa trembled harder and harder as our enemy gained more and more rusted ground. “Just think, the door home is up ahead! Green pastures and Burger Kings await!”

“Oh no!” Fluttershy's voice shrieked up above.

“Fluttershy, what is it?!” Lyra exclaimed.

“Huh?” I looked straight ahead. “Oh, what in the hell?!”

Applejack had collapsed. Kelly was lying on her side. Were they hit? Did an arrow skewer one of them? Both of them? They had barely made any distance, either. Their bodies were lying three platforms short of the one tiny mesa and the plateau beyond it.

“Kelly!” Lyra shrieked in mid-sprint. The noise of the pursuing monstrosities behind us was deafening. “AJ!”

As if on cure, Kelly sat up. She winced and crawled over to Applejack. Fluttershy lowered down and shook Applejack's limp shoulder.

“It's one of her hooves!” Kelly exclaimed as we got within murderous earshot. “I think it tripped over a rusted hole in one of the platforms!”

“I knew it was gonna happen!” Applejack snarled, her face contorted in pain. As Lyra and I caught up, we saw her left forelimb oozing with blood. “If I had never lost my dag-blamed shoes—!”

“Who the Hell cares?!” I shouted as I hoisted her up. “Just keep moving and—”

A spear landed in the middle of the group, missing Applejack's legs by an inch. Fluttershy shrieked. Lyra and I glanced back to see the crowd surging close enough for us to see their drool. The narrower clusters of platforms had slowed their pursuit a little, but that wasn't saying much. In mere seconds, we would all be turned to paste at the end of their blades.

“Perfect...” I spat and pulled out my crossbow. “Somebody or somepony or somemonkey get her across safely!”

“I'll do it!” Lyra said, her horn glowing. She encased Applejack's front hooves in green energy as the two limped towards the plateau. “But we can't go too far ahead without our collars zapping us—”

“Just move!” I shouted, firing madly into the crowd. As a troll or two dropped amidst the monumental wave, I felt Kelly leaning tightly against me. “If I smell, it's only because I care.”

“Not in the mood!” She pulled her bow out. Balancing against my weight, she fired her arrow and flung it expertly across the advancing line, slashing several necks and sending a cluster of orcs falling—shrieking—to the blackness below. “Lyra's got a point, though!”

“Move with me!” I said, shuffling backwards. Kelly was a way better shot than me, so I did the looking for both our feet. As we came to a gap between platforms, I signaled her, and we jumped. Kelly winced because of her battered leg, but I gripped her as we shuffled further in reverse, all the while letting her corded arrow do its damage on the crowd.

In the meantime, Fluttershy hovered above us, fidgeting and sweating. “Oh goodness... Oh goodness!” She glanced at the tenuous distance between our collars and our partners', then back at the angry line of monsters. “Wh-what should I do?!”

“You stupid or something?!” I snarled amidst my sweat as Kelly and I jumped another platform. “Fight!”

“But... But I-I can't fight!” Fluttershy stammered.

“Of course you can! Everybody can!” I fired a few crossbow bolts and held Kelly's weight. “Sisyphus had to have given you some crazy, deadly talent just like the rest of us!”

“But I hate violence! I've never wanted to shed blood—”

I finally shouted up at her, “Oh grow a pair, you deflated Tristar symbol!” I ducked a tossed axe and pointed angrily at the crowd. “They're a bunch of Weta Workshop rejects with no fucking souls! Do something! Cuz it's either them or your friends!”

“Mmmmm...” She squeaked, fluttered down to the platform before us, and tensed her body. “Okay th-then. Here goes.” Fluttershy closed her eyes and tightened her facial muscles. A series of electrical sparks flickered down the length of her spine, surging into her armor and setting the metal plates aglow. Then, before our eyes, the pegasus' armor sprouted limbs that further unfolded into a complex rig. Balanced atop her shoulder, a nasty launching mechanism whirred to life and fired a sea of razor-sharp throwing stars into the pursuing crowd.

Orcs and trolls screamed in agony as no less than thirty of them fell in a solid line of death.

I felt Kelly go limp in my grasp as the two of us gawked at the bloody massacre. “Holy shit, Seabiscuit...” I stammered.

Ten more trolls died, then twenty. Dozens of corpses fell into the abyss below as the rest of the army was suddenly stalled halfway across the sea of mesas.

“Uhm...” Fluttershy barely peaked to see the carnage. “Am I helping?” Her rig continued whirring and launching projectiles above her. “Is this doing it?”

“Yes!” I shouted. “Yes! For the love of Beck! Keep doing it!” I hoisted Kelly in both arms, swiveled us around, and dragged her with me towards the plateau. “Lyra! Applejack! We're coming!”

“I'm running out of the sharp-thinigies!” Fluttershy's voice called out from behind us.

“Then move your tail!” I panted as the two of us scaled the last, lone platform to join Lyra and Applejack on the other side. “It's go-time!” As soon as my feet made contact with the platform, the entire thing wobbled beneath us. “Whoah!”

“Watch it!” Kelly shrieked, clutching tightly to me. “It's not stable!”

“No, you think?!” I holstered the crossbow, grabbed her around the waist, and flung her forward like a missile.

Kelly landed hard on the plateau and rolled over to Applejack's and Lyra's side. Applejack held Kelly in place while Lyra shouted, “Shawn! Hop over!”

“Working on it...” I snarled as the dilapidated platform rocked and teetered beneath me. Finally, I took a desperate leap. My boots made contact with the edge of the plateau... and then slipped. “Gaaah!” I fell back.

“Shawn!” Lyra shrieked.

I felt a pair of hooves clutching me from behind. Breathless, I glanced back to see Fluttershy hovering just behind my shoulders. The rig collapsed into flat armor on her back as she caught my fall at the last second.

“Thanks a ton, featherweight,” I managed.

“Uhm... I'm confused,” she remarked. “'Grow a pair' of what?”

I blinked at her. “Snkkkkt...” My face contorted. “Hahahahaha—” An arrow whizzed straight past my ear. “Whoah, shit!”

“Here they come!” Applejack shouted as more and more projectiles zoomed towards us.

Lyra erected a force field in front of the last platform as Fluttershy dropped me off besides everyone else. I stood, hunched over and catching my breath. The world still thundered from the army's inevitable approach. Kelly was stirring fitfully. She looked up at the long stretch of stairs still ahead of us.

“This is madness,” she muttered. “There's no way in Hell we can make it all the way up there without them catching up!”

“I-I can't hold this force-field forever!” Lyra exclaimed, wincing as she deflected several tossed weapons that were bouncing against her magic. “Are we running or not?!”

“We could try fighting them here!” Applejack said, trying to stand up straight. “Make a stand here at the choke-hold?!”

“I thought we've been over that! It's suicide!” Kelly exclaimed. “As soon as they make it across that last platform, we're toast!”

I blinked. I gazed down at the platform. It was still teetering weakly from when I leapt off of it. Just above the shadows of the abyss, I could see a heavy fissure in the support-strut of the rusted mesa.

“That thing isn't gonna last for long,” I said. “And it's their only way across!”

“He's got a point!” Lyra added amidst her strain.

Kelly looked at the platform, at the advancing army, then at Lyra's forcefield. “AJ!” She spun around. “Are your rear legs still good?”

“Darn tootin'!”

“Get over here!” Kelly pointed. “Lyra, plant the force-field against the platform!”

“I gotcha!” Lyra levitated the green barricade so that it was pressed up to the edge of the decrepit structure.

Kelly held Applejack's upper body firmly as the orange mare swung her legs into position. “Shawn! Fluttershy! We're gonna need your help!”

“Okay!”

“Got it!”

“All yours, AJ!”

“Alley...” Applejack gritted her teeth, coiled her legs like massive springs, and launched them violently against Lyra's force field. “—Oop!”

The body of the energy barricade rippled, but Lyra's concentration kept it intact. Soon, the whole length of it was being shoved into the edge of the platform like the strong end of a crowbar. Fluttershy and I pressed against it with whatever strength we could muster. Soon, a grand crunching noise lit the abyss below. The stalk gave way, and the platform fell backwards.

It slammed into the next two mesas. We hoped that it would just fall on its own and make a huge gap. As a matter of fact, it did more than that. A deliciously comical domino effect transpired, in which all of the mesas collided with each other. The resulting chain reaction caused half of the platforms to bend at an insane lean. The other half snapped off their stalks and collapsed entirely. That meant...

In a wail of horror, the pursuing army was reduced in half. As the wave of colliding platforms reached them, dozens upon dozens of bodies went flying into the darkness. Their plummeting screams filled the air with a symphony of horror, and soon the surviving cluster was running back in a desperate retreat. It was only fitting; the resulting gaps in the forest of platforms made chasing after us an improbable prospect for the stupid fuckers.

We watched all of this, of course, with breathless joy. As the orcs and trolls rushed back the way they came, it was hard not to let loose a victorious cheer.

“Yes!” Lyra chirped, her eyes moist with ecstasy. “They're leaving! They're leaving us be!”

“Oh thank goodness,” Fluttershy squeaked.

“Boo-ya!” Applejack pumped her forelimb as Kelly hugged her close. “How 'bout dem apples?”

“Heehee!” Kelly practically snuggled her companion. “Egads, I friggin' love it every time you say that!” She smiled my way. “How's that for Coach Lombardi?!”

“Fuck yeah.” I smirked and stood up straight. “And I didn't even have to piss myself!”

“Let's not celebrate too long, everyone,” Lyra said, pointing up the steps at the dimly glowing door. “There can't be much time left.”

“Righto.” I stood tall on the plateau, still smiling at the sight of the poor saps retreating on the opposite side of the canyon from us. “Time to make like Paris Hilton's legs and split!” I reached back to sheathe my sword. “Fluttershy, help Applejack. I'll support Kelly and—” I paused, still holding the hilt of my blade, as my ears filled with a deep bass hum. Blankly, I gazed at the rest of the group.

Lyra's mouth was agape. Fluttershy was trembling. Applejack's eyes were wide.

“Oh Jesus, please no,” Kelly whimpered.

I looked across the canyon.

A crimson light flickered amidst the shadows, strobed again, and materialized in the form of a burning body winging his way towards us. The air filled with sulphur. Before any of us had time to think, Babellyon was landing between us and the steps with a thunderous ground-pound.

“Nnngh!” Applejack flew to the side next to Kelly.

“Aaah!” Lyra teetered on the plateau's edge as her helmet flew off and fell into the abyss. I caught her at the last second, barely regaining my own footing.

Fluttershy gasped and wilted in mid-air as she was being stared down by the eighteen-foot demon bastard himself. “Hmmm...” Babellyon's glowing eyes squinted. His lips curved and spat out a puff of smoke. “I could have sworn I killed you. Ah well.” He gripped the gasping pegasus by the neck with his burning red hand. “And who said Hell wasn't full of second chances...?”

“Fluttershy!” Lyra shouted.

“Oh jeez—” Kelly grimaced, but was suddenly knocked back as Applejack soared past her.

“Haaaaugh!” Applejack galloped at full speed, bleeding hoof and all. She threw herself against Babellyon's leg and bucked it at full force.

The incubus barely moved. “Hah! You never learn!” He stomped his foot down right in front of her. The resulting concussion knocked Applejack about ten feet.

I was running past her with my sword out. “Lyra!” I shouted, my eyes locked on Fluttershy's choking body. “Boost!”

Lyra aimed her horn forward. She produced a green step out of mid-air.

My boots made contact with the energy field and I was immediately launched skyward. I sailed towards Babellyon's chest. My sword landed deeply between his nipples. That made the fucker shout, at least. I let my weight hang from the hilt, knowing it had to sting like a bitch. Dangling, I pulled a hand free, twirled my crossbow out of its holster, and fired two bolts deep into the wrist that was gripping Fluttershy.

He still didn't drop her. Instead, his other hand reached around and clasped my hanging legs. I could feel the searing heat of his touch even through my armor.

“Uhm...” I wheezed, sweating like a gutted pig. “G-guys?!”

“Applejack, move!” Kelly shouted.

The mare awkwardly limped out of the way, giving the woman a clear shot of Babellyon's legs. She launched the arrow from her bow, converted it into a disc in mid-air, and jerked at the cable. The projectile swung to the side, spun around both of the incubus' ankles, and wrapped around three times.

“AJ!” Kelly tossed her bow. Applejack caught in in her muzzle. Wincing from her bleeding leg, she nevertheless galloped away from the fight at full speed, effectively yanking the cord out from underneath Babellyon.

“Aaaaugh!” The demon fell like a tumbling mountain. The only unfortunate thing: I was still attached to him.

“Awww hell!” My entire body was jostled, but I held tight to the sword. I didn't fly off of him until my blade ripped out of his chest. “Ooof! Fuck!” I grunted as I landed hard on the ground next to him and my clattering blade. I tried pushing myself up to my knees.

The air filled with smoke, sulphur and fiery heat. My eyes teared as I looked through the vaporous madness, and finally spotted Fluttershy. She was quivering on the ground, her armor and coat burnt black from where Babellyon's naked fingers had clutched her.

Sweeping my sword up, I sheathed it and ran to her. I scooped her up with no less speed and hobbled towards the rest of the group.

“Everyone!” I panted, too panicked to be amazed at my stamina as I ran at full sprint with a pegasus in my grasp. “Head for the stairs! Quickly! Before he—”

“Grrrrh-Haaaaugh!” he pulled at the metal wire attached to Kelly's bow.

The weapon flew violently from Applejack's teeth, flipping her through the air. Next, the weapon flew past me, uppercutting my chin.

“Ooof!” I spat blood and tumbled with Fluttershy. I rolled and rolled until I landed upside down. I saw Babellyon standing up, bleeding from the chest and wrist. He gripped Kelly's trademark weapon in his fingers before tossing it into his mouth. With glinting fangs, he ground the thing up, and spat it back out as a churning explosive.

“I don't care what Sisyphus wishes anymore!” Babellyon boomed. “Your part in this exercise is over! I shall tolerate your games no longer! Consider this your judgment!” He stood tall and flexed his throwing arm.

“Look out!” Lyra's voice shouted. “Everyone, move, he's about to—”

“Nnnngh!” Babellyon tossed the flaming sphere towards us. “Mmmff-Hah hah hah!”

I barely had time to cover Fluttershy with my body and try inching us away. The explosive landed between all of us. A ceiling of flame erupted above, lashing down at our bodies with burning tongues. I felt the hairs on my arms curling. Kelly was shrieking somewhere, but I couldn't see. All was ash and soot. The entire time, the labyrinth echoed with Babellyon's deep-throated chuckles.

Finally, the flames dissipated. I didn't like what I saw. Kelly was crawling backwards, clutching a bleeding hand to her chest. Fluttershy was singed in several places, and she was struggling to breathe. Lyra was nowhere to be seen. And Applejack—

“Aaaugh!” She flailed and spun in circles. “Blessed Celestia—Nnngh!” Her body was smoking. Was she on fire? “I can't put it out!” she shrieked, and I realized half of her mane had turned into a smoldering torch.

“Hold on!” I scampered up to my boots. The fact that I was the only one visibly capable of standing didn't make me feel any better. I grabbed my sword and stood over her. “Lie still!”

She did so, hyperventilating. I swung the sword down and lopped her mane off just beyond the base of her helmet. She tried getting up, only to stumble as the ground around us shook.

All of us looked up, even Fluttershy. Babellyon was marching through the fire. He was reaching into his throat yet again, though this time he was pulling out his notorious blade of vaporous flames. After vomiting forth the weapon of our doom, he sneered and spat a globule of blood at our feet.

“What perfect little soldiers humans and equines are,” he rumbled. “Tartarus will never have seen a greater glory.”

As I watched the eve of my doom, I felt my eyes wandering. There was a green sight to the far left, just beyond Babellyon's peripheral vision. Lyra stood still, her face tensing and quivering. Several sparks danced from her horn, only to short out and repeat the laborious process.

“Wh-what is she doing?” Fluttershy mewled in spite of her pain.

Babellyon heard nothing, saw nothing, save for his prey. “In a thousand years, your world will know nothing but torment, and it will all be thanks to you today.”

“Lyra...?” Applejack murmured as she quivered in a slump next to Kelly in Babellyon's shadow.

My eyes were glued on my partner the entire time. She focused harder and harder on her glowing horn. Her neck flexed as she struggled against some unfathomable barrier of mana in her mind. For one fateful moment, our eyes connected. She gave me a sad look, as if apologizing. A tear ran down her cheek as her entire body buckled, and suddenly I knew what she was apologizing for.

“Lyra—!” I shouted.

It was too late. There was a bright flash. Lyra was gone, and where she once stood there instead rattled a lone collar to the floor amidst pieces of silver armor.

I was too busy gawking at the sight that I almost forgot that death was upon us. Babellyon's roaring tone forced me to glance back up at him.

“Embrace the wrath of the Dark Lord!” the demon shouted and flung his vaporous blade over us. The underworld flashed with light and madness.

Kelly, the ponies, and I flinched. In the seconds that followed, we were queerly aware of the fact that we weren't burning. When we looked up, we fitfully discovered why.

A green barricade had been erected in the way of Babellyon's downswing. It held the vaporous material at bay, keeping us from a searing death. The incubus struggled in frustration, fighting to cleave his sword through the flimsy shield and finish us mortals once and for all. Obviously, he was having no such luck. The reason for this stood behind him, at a distance of one hundred feet, far longer than my partner and I had ever been separated before.

“I got him!” Lyra shouted, squealed. Her naked body shook upon the breaking point as she exerted all her energy on maintaining the barrier. Sweat ran down her neck where the collar once had been. “All of you, go!”

“Lyra!” Applejack called out as she and Kelly struggled up into a standing position. “Don't be a fool! You can't handle him all on your own!”

“I don't intend to!” Lyra exclaimed. Her face was glinting with tears as her legs buckled from the constant effort. “Just go already! Get out of this horrible place!”

“Nnnng-Rrrrraaaugh!” Babellyon, snarling, finally lifted his sword. He kicked the barrier in frustration, turned around, and leered over the tiny unicorn instead. “Damnable insect! If you wish to be cleaved first, then so be it!”

Lyra's coat turned ghost white. She backed away from the incubus and ultimately scampered towards the distant edge of the pleateau as he stomped after her. Not once did she lower the force field between him and us. How she could maintain energy at such a distance was beyond me, except that it had to have been the same freakish guile that got her to finally succeed in teleporting.

“Shawn...” Kelly stammered, hyperventilating as Lyra led Babellyon further and further away in a horrific cat-and-mouse game. “Shawn, what'll we do?!”

“Lyra's gonna get herself killed!” Applejack said in a sobbing tone.

“But we're not match for that asshole!”

I was hovering over her collar. It was still glowing with green energy as I picked it up and held it in my shaking palm.

“Shawn?!”

I jolted. I glanced at the distant, crimson dance of death. I heard Babellyon's roars. I heard Lyra's shrieking cries. Only one of those sounds made a difference to my heartbeat.

Then I heard Fluttershy's pained voice. Her coat was still smoking in a few random places. I noticed this, for I was suddenly looking at her up close, picking her up, cradling her.

“Shawn, please...” Kelly was practically whispering at this point. Never in a million damn years did I ever expect her to plead with me, to depend so much on what I felt needed to be done. Perhaps it was the fact that Lyra had been my partner. Perhaps it was because I had become so quiet, and it haunted her. Whatever was the case, I suddenly couldn't rely on my “captain.” I couldn't rely on anyone or anything, except for myself. Lyra's collar was detached, after all. I was free.

“Mmmf... Sam...” Fluttershy trembled deliriously in my grasp. Her ears flicked with each of Lyra's distant wails. Tears trickled out of her clenched eyes and she murmured, “Sam... please don't... I'm not worth it...”

I fumed. “Let's go.”

“But—” Applejack gawked.

“If we all stay here, nobody gets out! We're all fucking toast! That includes your partner, Applejack!” I snarled, slid Lyra's collar over my arm like a bracelet, and ran up the steps with Fluttershy. “So move your asses! Come on!”

Kelly cursed under her breath. She hobbled up and bounced on one leg.

Applejack looked at the glow of Babellyon—now distant—then up at the steps. Her eyes brimmed with tears, but she shook them dry with a frustrated growl and hobbled over to Kelly. Together, the two partners followed me and Fluttershy as the four of us made our way up to the door... and to freedom.

Chapter Ten: The One Where I'm Viggo Mortensen and She's Miranda Otto

Chapter Ten: The One Where I'm Viggo Mortensen and She's Miranda Otto

When I was young—and I mean really young, like before my balls dropped—I used to watch a shitload of horror movies. Because of that, I had long grown this idea in my head that death was a really horrible, terrible thing, usually ending with someone getting disemboweled or burnt alive or hacked to pieces by a machete. Then, as I grew older and became way more cynical, and I realized that death was inevitable, I adapted to the fatalism by simply not thinking about it. The end of my life became a neutral concept for me, something as easily forgettable as oxygen. Death was something that lacked substance, and my existence paled and dwindled from the resulting lethargy that such a philosophy entailed. All that mattered was living in the moment—from beer to beer, from class to class—with the shutter flash of headlights and porn flicks in between.

In Tartarus, I learned what it meant to be a murderer, a victim, and a survivor all at once. I'd seen horrors that would change the lives of scholars. And yet, as I marched up the steps alongside Kelly and Applejack with Fluttershy in my arms, and as I witnessed the glowing door to freedom in my reach, I saw an entirely new lease on life waiting before me, but that life no longer had substance to it. It no longer had color. It no longer had hope. It no longer had—

“Lyra...” Applejack's voice whimpered as she limped up the last bunch of steps. She slumped against the glowing door-frame as Kelly collapsed beside her. “Oh Lyra...” She ran her good hoof over her tear-stained face. Her lips quivered as she gazed at the rest of us. “Celestia help us. What are we gonna tell Bon Bon?”

“We'll tell her the truth,” Kelly said as I placed Fluttershy down beside her. “Just like we'll tell all our friends about Ace and Dr. Whooves...”

“And Cloud Kicker and Thunderlane and C-Carrot Top...” Applejack stifled a sob as she hugged herself. “Heaven help us. It's such a dang waste...”

“Applejack...” Kelly reached over with one good hand and squeezed the pony's shoulder. “There'll be time to grieve. But right now, we need to get this door open.”

“You were always better at it than myself, Kelly.”

“I'd love to, but my hand's busted—”

“I got it,” I said firmly. I was already kneeling before the circular mechanism, turning the apparatus with my fingers and activating the tumblers one by one. “Shouldn't take long. After all, I've seen this shit done a dozen times...” My voice lingered, as did my eyes, falling to the floor as a cold shudder ran through me.

Kelly gulped. “Shawn.” When she spoke, her voice was shaking. “I know this isn't easy for you. It's... not like the other t-times. You don't have to pretend—”

“Shhh!” I hissed, frowning. “I just need to get this damn door open before the teleportation field shuts down.”

A tear ran down Kelly's face. “Shawn,” she murmured.

“Look, do you want out of here or not?!” I snarled. As I said that, a loud roar echoed from down below. The hellscape lit up briefly with a red glow and was dim again. I fumbled briefly, frowned harder, and slammed my fist across the apparatus.

The last tumbler slid in place, and the door flew open. A glimmering cylinder of magical light appeared before us beyond the circular frame.

“Land's sakes,” Applejack murmured, sniffling in spite of herself. “Never thought it'd look so pretty up close.”

“Yeah, well, no time to waste,” I said, though my voice sounded like it was a million miles away from myself. I continued speaking, as if conversing with a moronic stranger stuck at the bottom of a mile-deep poop chute. “This is what all the fight's been for.”

“Shawn—”

“Ladies and ponies first,” I grumbled. I gave Kelly a glare that not even Mike Tyson could stand against.

She nodded. Leaning against Applejack's side, she hobbled with her partner into the glowing chamber of light.

“Fluttershy?” Applejack nervously called from behind her shoulder. “We're headed home, darlin'! Ya hear?”

“Home...” Fluttershy stirred, wincing from all her burns. “Don't... w-want to go alone,” she murmured in her painful delirium.

“You won't be, sugarcube,” Applejack said with a tearful grin. She looked weakly my way. “Reckon you should hand the filly over to us.”

“Way ahead of you,” I said in a low voice. I scooped Fluttershy up. Just as I crawled over to pass her into Kelly's and Applejack's embrace, I felt her nuzzling against me and whimpering.

“Please don't...”

“Let go, Fluttershy,” I grunted. “We gotta get you through the door—”

“Please, Sam,” she shuddered. A stream of tears formed underneath her eyelashes. “Everything deserves to live, including you. Don't... D-don't do it...”

I felt her trembling form, soft and frail and ever so fucking real against my beating chest. How many years had I sat in the shadows of the crap that I had made of my life? It was so easy to call it all “misery,” when in fact it was all just a veil to something I wasn't man enough to feel until that very bleeding moment. It kissed me with the subtlety of a bullet to the goddamn spine, numbing me, reinventing me, so that I too felt like I could teleport miles away in a single sob.

I may not have known the substance of life or death, but I knew the substance of myself. Or, at least, I knew what needed to be done in order to discover it. Because once that substance was gone, what would there have been left to treasure or piss away? I realized that the rest of my life, however boringly long or horrifically short, wouldn't be much to write about if I didn't do something crazy. I mean, why the fuck not? It's the crazy people who stood the test of time, making their mark in history. The reason for that could have been—possibly, maybe—that their craziness was equal to their happiness, but they were just too childishly facetious to share that secret with the world.

After days and days of killing monsters and running with ponies, I was starting to fell really, really childish. It was pretty damn liberating, in some fruity, psychotic way.

It felt like a million years later, but I finally handed Fluttershy over to Kelly and Applejack. She stirred in their grasp as they laid her down beside themselves in the magical glow.

“Okay, Shawn. Hop in before it's—” Kelly began, but could hardly finish. Her eyes widened as she saw my hand flying over to the door's console outside. “Shawn...?”

“Don't give me that look,” I muttered. With a turn of the tumblers, the circular door to the exit rolled shut. “It makes me flaccid.”

“What in tarnation?!” Applejack gasped.

“Shawn!” Kelly flew up to the grated bars of the door and peered through them. “What in the hell?! Open the door and get in here!”

“That's gonna be a little hard to do in a few seconds,” I said as I locked the frame in place.

“But... But...?!” Kelly looked like she was going to burst a blood vessel.

“He's goin' back...” Applejack murmured, her eyes locked with mine. “Ain't ya, Shawn? Yer goin' back for her...”

“Well, she very well can't go back for herself, now can she?”

“Shawn!” Kelly hissed, her face long and pained as she gripped the bars of the door-frame. “Lyra did what she did for a reason! If she's not burned to ashes by now, she will be soon! Don't ruin her sacrifice by doing something stupid! You're supposed to be free!”

“Yeah, well.” I unsheathed my sword and marched towards the edge of the stairs. “Guess I left the coupon at home.”

“Dammit, Shawn!” Kelly growled. “It's fucking suicide! What do you have to prove?! You won't survive!”

I gazed back at her. That voice was once again a distant, haunting thing. “Surviving isn't everything,” it said. I then frowned and pointed an angry finger. “Now get the fuck out of here before I reach in and cut your other leg open!”

Kelly blinked. Slowly, she smiled, a very pretty and tear-stained thing. “You always were a crazy douchebag, Shawn.”

“And you were always a sexy one. Take care of that ass of yours.” I pivoted my gaze and nodded. “Applejack...”

“Reckon I should look after my flank too?”

I smiled. “At least let your family do it when you get back to them.”

She almost guffawed. Almost. Her green eyes were warm and sincere as she clung to Fluttershy. “I'll tell everypony I know about you, Shawn. You are rightly the craziest of humans.”

“Let Lyra do it,” I said.

They said nothing, or at least if they tried to, they were too encumbered by a bright strobe of light as the chamber flashed all around them. Kelly's sexy lips were moving. Perhaps she was shouting. I didn't know. I suspected that I might never know. In a blink, they were all gone. The light in the chamber died, and all that remained was their three collars rattling to a stop.

Next, the world spun, for I was running like a mother fucking steam engine down the stairs. When that wasn't fast enough, I leapt and bounded down the stone steps. When I still wasn't satisfied, I gripped my sword like an airfoil and planted my boots down the stone frame of the stairs, gliding down with a shower of sparks.

The world grew hotter, redder. I was descending into the hell that my partner's heavenly sacrificed had created. The sounds of Babellyon's roars grew more and more pronounced. I listened with mixed hope and horror for a gentler voice beyond him, and I felt my heart leap upon such high-pitched tones. Lyra was shrieking, screaming. She was alive or dying or possibly both. I never wanted to hug and kill something so hard in all my life. I felt like I could belch fire and piss bullets. If I wanted to charge through the core of the world, I very doubt gravity would have given me any shit about it.

The stairs ended and my sprint began. I zoomed, blurred, rocketed over the plateau, past burning debris, searing scorch marks, and settling ashes. The green effluence of Lyra's magic littered the underworld battlefield. The only way such a one-sided fight could have lasted so long was if she wasn't fighting, but rather was teleporting around as much as her horn could allow her.

When I came upon the horrific scene, my fears were confirmed and negated all at once. Lyra was still in one piece, but that was hardly a positive statement. She limped about, trying in vain to perform another teleport, when Babellyon's blade flew towards her. It landed several feet away, but the sheer force and heat of the vaporous tool sent her reeling. She rolled over onto the ground, twitching and groaning. Soot and burnt fur blemished her figure in several places. Her tears evaporated over her quivering face as Babellyon—fueled by anger and frustration—loomed above her with the weapon ready to cleave her body in two.

It was around that time that two bolts flew into the incubus' flaming shoulders. Babellyon roared in more annoyance than pain. He stumbled back with the sword, looking every which way, until—

“Hey! Handsome!”

He turned and gawked at me.

I marched towards him with the crossbow in one hand and my sword in the other. “Get the fuck away from my little pony!” I shouted with an iron frown.

“You have returned?!” Babellyon's fanged teeth grinned wide. He aimed his blade at me. “Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps we've not molded our experiments into the perfect soldiers—”

My sword swam across his ankle.

“Aaaugh!” he stumbled back, leaking blood and sulphur.

“Yeah, you just keep talking, shitfuck!” I hissed.

He didn't talk. Instead—“Rrrrrgh!”—he flung his sword at me at full force.

Normally, this would have called for rolling or dodging or pissing myself out of range of his swing. Instead I held my damn ground and parried with my sword gripped in two hands. I gritted my teeth and struggled against his weapon's pressure with every twitching muscle in my body. Babellyon's glowing eyes blinked in brief surprise. I imagined to myself that it was fear. Why not? He had every reason to be afraid. The proverbial Steve Buscemi of my subconscious had just crapped out a Clint Eastwood.

“Haaaugh!” I shoved against the eighteen foot demon with a burst of strength, smacked his sword twice, and slashed across his exposed wrist. He cried in pain as I shoved him back with a third swing against his knee. “Aaaah! Your mother—!”

Then, his foot slammed across my chest.

I flew. I literally sailed, then toppled, and ultimately landed next to my partner's quivering body. Wincing, I hoisted myself up with my sword. My armor was steaming all over from the demon's heat. I looked at the pony, panting.

“Lyra? Lyra, get up if you can! Run away, I got this—”

“Burn!”

I felt the world around me lighting up with crimson hellfire. Spinning, I saw an explosive sphere flying towards me. I jumped up and swung my sword towards the cavern's ceiling. My blade made hard contact with the flaming sphere. I felt like my forearms would shatter from the impact, but it was still well-timed. I barely managed to deflect the bomb, sending it sailing into what remained of the metal mesas beyond the plateau.

The abysmal explosion sent shards of metal and rust raining everywhere while Babellyon charged at full force, his wings trailing fire. He dragged his blade across the floor, showering sparks, and flung its vaporous end at me.

I ducked low, rolled across the ground, and knelt with an upwards slash to meet his chest.

He merely hovered to a stop and gripped the end of my blade with his bare palm.

I blinked. “Well, shit—”

Babellyon lurched his neck forward and vomited a plume of flame at me.

I barely dodged to the side, sweating profusely. With a growl, I released the grip on my sword. As it hung in his grasp, I shifted my eight and slammed my foot against the hilt in a high kick.

The blade sliced across his palm and embedded into his shoulder. “Aaaugh!”

I leapt up, grabbed onto the hilt, and used my weight to pull it out of his body. As I fell, I unholstered my crossbow and shot a web of bolts—the very last of my ammo—all across his chest.

He reeled from the sea of metal quills forming across his belly. Bleeding smoke and blood, he stomped down at me. I rolled to the side. He stomped again, and I dodged once more. Upon the third attempt, he managed to pin me to the floor. I hissed in pain as I felt his burning heel melting through my armor. Sneering, I slashed and hacked and whacked at his leg with my sword—until he gripped my neck with a bare fist.

“A noble fight...” Babellyon hissed, lifted me up, and flung me across the plateau. “For a plebeian warrior...”

I was airborne for the better part of three seconds. I landed hard, rolling to my side, wincing as a deep pain resonated in my chest.

The ground shook as he stomped towards my limp form, dragging his burning blade. “The point of this whole exercise was to harden you mortals into the new army of Tartarus,” he muttered. “A force infinitely more competent than the helleons of the last age. Under Sisyphus' hand, mankind and equines will usher the end of the multi-verse in a thousand years from now...”

I sputtered and hissed at him. “A little late for exposition, don't you think, dickstain?” I suddenly wheezed, for his entire weight was being pressed into my chest.

Babellyon leered as he grind his heel into my sternum. “Don't you see?! Whatever hope you cling to is folly! Whatever god you worship is dead!”

“Nuh uh...” I smiled bloodily. I weakly raised my sword. “Isaiah Thomas is still alive, bitch.”

He smacked my sword away and spat demon bile all around me. “What futile whimsy is it that keeps you smiling into the face of agony?!” His eyes narrowed as he opened his mouth wide and vomited a fresh bomb into his palm. “Never the matter, mortal.” He held the glowing sphere high in his hand as he grinned down at me. “For my pleasure, I think I will burn those lungs of yours to a crisp. Then let's hear you laugh, human. Let's hear your insolent chuckles when you're—”

Right as he said this, a green bolt of energy flew in out of nowhere. It sailed straight into his bomb, flashed brightly from inside, and set the demonic explosive off. This probably wouldn't have been a big deal for Babellyon if he wasn't holding the motherfucking thing in his hand. As it so happened—

“Aaaaaaugh!”

The incubus squirmed and stumbled in a pure cloud of sulphur. The plateau was awash with steaming blood. I crawled away before the acidic fluid before it could get to me. Soon, I was standing with my sword. I flashed a breathless look to my side.

Lyra's eyes were glowing, as was her horn. The brightness dimmed, and soon she slumped back to the floor with a groan, her limbs twitching all over.

I looked back at the sulphuric cloud as it started to clear. Babellyon was no longer standing. He was kneeling, clutching what was left of his... right side. Not only was his hand blown off, but his arm was missing along with a good chuck of his torso. A huge gash constantly spilled ash into the air of the labyrinth as he squirmed in pure agony.

“Nnnngh-Damnable ponies! Save me, oh Dark Lord! I beg you!”

“Pssst...”

He gazed up, his eyes reduced to jaded orbs.

I stood before him with my sword held high. After an emphatic clearing of the throat, I uttered, “'Hardy har har.'” Then I brought the blade down.

Babellyon stopped staring at me. It may have had something to do with the fact that his eyes were now dangling on either side of his shoulders. The sword had cleaved its way down into his chest, ripping everything else above it in half, including the ribbons it had made of his cranium. Whatever spirit had imbued the demon barely clung on as his corpse fell over, twitching and spasming in its own juices.

I stepped back, panting, seeing my own reflection in the blood, and it looked hella-tight. “Whew. He lived like ass and he smelled like ass.” Next thing I heard was the clattering of my sword as I dropped it, punctuating every bruise and burn in my body. Nevertheless, nothing stopped me from rushing over—limping over—to the frail unicorn lying several feet away. “Lyra...?”

“Nnngh...” She stirred fitfully.

“Lyra. Speak to me—” I knelt by her side. My hand touched her coat. “Are you hurt anywhere—”

“Nngh—Aaah!” She shrieked and jolted away from me. “No! No! Augh!”

“Lyra!”

“Don't! Please—!”

“Lyra, it's okay!” I strangled her, only I didn't. I was holding her close, hugging her, clutching her to my chest and freezing her bucking limbs in place. “It's okay! It's me!”

“Sh-Shawn?”

“It's me, Lyra.”

“Oh Shawn...” She whimpered.

“It's okay. You're going to be okay.”

“But... But...” She stammered, hiccuped. Tears were forming in her eyes. “But Kelly and the others—”

“They're safe. She and Applejack and Fluttershy are headed home.”

“Babellyon... Babellyon's—”

“He's dead. The Boss battle’s over. Switch to Disc Two. We won.”

“You...” She tilted her head up, her eyes quivering. I saw my face reflected like prisms in her moist eyes, and I was only residually weirded out to see a gentle smile across it. “You c-came back for me?”

“Yeah. Crazy, huh?”

“But...” She shivered all over, sniffled, and whimpered, “B-but you could have gone home. You could have freed yourself...”

I opened my mouth to speak, but hesitated. The coldness of that place and the smell of Babellyon's corpse became a distant memory. All I felt was Lyra's warm limbs in my embrace. She was frail, naïve, but ever so tenderly alive. I was reminded of a strange soul that had pounced on me, yelled at me, and wept against me. Life, for all of its bizarre fuckups, is worth trudging through so long as you know something or someone admires you for giving it a try.

“I think... someone has freed me already, Lyra,” I said.

She blinked. Her eyes clenched shut as she shook and quivered. “I... I-I don't know what to say...”

“Shhh. Then don't,” I said. I held her to my chest, cradling her in the abyss of worlds. “Don't talk. Don't think. And above all, don't worry.” I rocked her gently, stroking her shaved head. “I'm not going to leave you. Not again.”

“Oh Shawn...” She sobbed openly, unashamedly, her tears bathing away the ashes Babellyon had made on my armor. “It's just so horrible down here. I can't take it. I can't anymore...”

“It's alright.” I smiled, a very strange sensation. “You don't have to. We're gonna find a way out. We're going to get you home, Lyra. We're going to get you to Bon Bon. Just you wait and see.”

“I miss her so m-much,” she stammered, and then the rest was just unintelligible poetry. I absorbed her infantile sobs. I didn't seem to mind anymore. Suddenly, the stupidest things were worth enduring, so long as it accomplished the impossible, like warming the heart of the underworld. I had no doubt right then and there that we'd make it home in one piece. Like a good soldier, I held Lyra tightly and wrung the very same doubt out through her tears.

The silly thing about misery, I suppose, is that it's easy to forget that it has a second purpose. As we grow old and jaded—as years and wars and stock markets take their toll on us—the joys of life aren't destroyed. They're merely hidden, like some poor lazy bastard sweeping candy sweets under a worn leather doormat. It's taken me a long time and a lot of weird circumstances, but I think I know the truth now. A way to find happiness is to just lift up the carpet from time to time and reacquaint ourselves with the treasures we left there in the past.

I don't know much about these silly talking ponies, but I figure they never took the dark turn that humans did. In the grand history of all things that whinny, they kept happiness right in front of them at all times. Maybe Sisyphus thought to destroy both species when he introduced them to each other across the dimensional burp of the cosmos. Who's to know if his grand, demonic plan will backfire, but I know this for sure: it took a great deal of hell to introduce me to heaven. Maybe Tartarus was needing soldiers with this crazy-ass exercise. Regardless of what Sisyphus thinks he's getting, I suspect that it's only going end with a very happy multi-verse in a thousand years.

I can't rightly remember exactly how long I sat there with Lyra. Hugging was kind of a new thing for me, and I left my stopwatch at home along with my sanity. I didn't miss either of them, though. Somehow, Lyra's smile was totally worth pissing away a ticket to freedom.

“I suppose we'd better get moving,” Lyra eventually said. Her sobs had finally left her, giving way to a more solid, sane breath. “There's still half an army somewhere in this chamber, and they're bound to find another way to this plateau in due time.”

“Jee,” I muttered as I wiped the demon blood off my sword and sheathed it. “More trolls and orcs. Why am I feeling hungry all of the sudden?”

“Heeheehee...” Lyra smiled warmly. She was donning the last of the silver bits of armor that had fallen off of her when she first teleported. “So, what are you going to do with...” She motioned towards my right arm. “Well, you know...?”

“Hmm? Oh, this thing?” I rotated the pony collar that was hanging on my right bicep. “I dunno. I can't very well toss it, or else I'll get zapped as soon as I walk away.”

“Should I... uhm... should I put it on again or something?”

“I came back to save you because you're special,” I grunted. “Not an idiot.”

Again, she giggled, a very soft sound. “Well, I guess it looks okay on you.” She suddenly smirked. “Where I come from, ponies would call something like that a 'friendship hooflet.'”

“Where I come from, we call it something else just as fruity, but a little less stupid.”

“Heehee... But I think it looks good on you.”

I took a breath. I shrugged. “Guess it feels good on me too...”

She nodded. “Uhm, Shawn?”

“Yeah, what?”

She motioned at me with her hoof.

I raised an eyebrow. I sighed and knelt down before her. “What is it?”

She suddenly lifted up and nuzzled me—her cheek against mine.

I blinked awkwardly. As she stood back on all fours, I asked, “What was that all about?”

“Thank you for coming back for me,” she said. “It... it really means a lot, especially to think of what you've given up.”

“Mmmf...” I shrugged as I stood up. “It's either this or back to Detroit.”

“Really?” She trotted forward. “It's as simple as that?”

I walked along with her as we scaled a cliff-face beyond the plateau. “Do I really have to put it in words?”

“No,” she shook her head. “No, Shawn, I suppose you don't have to.”

“Good...”

“But, while you're here... uhm...”

“What?”

“I don't suppose I could learn more about you?”

“Heh. Like what's worth knowing about me?”

She gazed up at me. “Anything. Everything. Because for as long as I'm blessed to be alive, I'd like to know all about the reason why.”

“Is that all I am now? A 'reason?'”

“Well?” She smiled. “Care to prove otherwise?”

I shrugged. “I'm just a guy who slacks his way through college and buys the occasional beer...”

“And likes to look at Kelly.”

“And wouldn't mind pouring that beer all over Kelly and licking it off.”

Lyra giggled childishly.

I raised an eyebrow and smirked at her. “Heh. Wow. I thought that'd be a little too low brow for... erm... your horn.”

“I think you're afraid to try me.”

“Oh yeah?”

“Mmmhmmm.”

“Well,” I began. “This one summer in Minneapolis, I spent the night with these really two hot sisters before they went to join a convent the next day.”

“Really?”

“Yup.”

“Did you three spend the evening telling ghost stories?”

“Yeah, see?” I pointed. “That's exactly why I knew this wouldn't work.”

Lyra hung her head. “I'm sorry...”

“Hey! Don't be sorry. You were born to be adoracute. It's in your blood, along with eating hay and swatting flies with your tail.”

“Maybe we should try things differently...”

I glanced at her. “How about you try telling me one of your anecdotes?”

“One of mine?”

“Fuck yeah.”

“Well, this one time, I sat on a bench...”

Chapter One: The One Where I Exposition the Hell Out of This Story

Chapter One: The One Where I Exposition the Hell Out of This Story

If there’s one thing I hate about troll blood, it's that there’s never enough of it, not enough to wash the mind of all its clutter, or the heart of all its bullshit, or the whole body of all its cluttershit. You would think evolution would know better than to make us creatures of carnal violence when carnal violence itself does little to make us better people, better citizens, better football coaches, or what-have-you. I think that, all my life, I wanted for something like this to happen. I wanted to tear loose on an underworld sea of meat and emerge on the other side all bloodied, enlightened, and Charlie Sheened like there was no tomorrow. The only problem was, there was always a tomorrow, at least until Sisyphus dragged my lazy ass down to the depths of Walt Douchebag World.

I’m starting to lose myself here. Where was I? Oh, right, troll blood. Anyways, the world around us stank with the smell of those ugly fuckers' insides. I closed my eyes as the heat of the moment took me someplace far away, someplace a little less hellish, a place where I could be sitting with a cold beer and an entire evening to piss away my troubles.

But, once again, I heard Lyra's voice shouting through the mayhem. “Shawn! Help me!”

My eyes flew open. Three trolls were charging at me across a metal platform, their drooling mouths wide open in a violent war cry. Time resumed its nightmarish spin, and I was already swinging my sword at the suicidal trio.

A head came loose. Another punk's throat split down the middle. Finally, the third attacker fell onto the length of my blade, twitching and spasming as my sword dug its way through his chest, impaling him.

“There're too many of them!” Lyra squeaked. The tiny unicorn was panicking. I could hear the silver plates of armor rattling around her body as she launched green bolt after green bolt at the advancing wave of attackers. “Shawn, what'll we do?!”

I grunted to myself. Damn horse. With a rear end that big in proportion to her head, you’d think she’d have the ability to hold in her piss. To answer my partner, I ripped the blade out of the dying troll, dashed towards Lyra's side, and attacked the assailants approaching her flank. My sword deflected their rusted blades, lopped a few decrepit limbs off, and reduced their desperate offense to a pile of blood and guts.

“The hell's taking them so long?!” I shouted, my voice echoing across the far walls of the chamber. I felt the metal collar around my neck tightening with each heavy pulse of my arteries. Lyra and I stood side by side at the top of a steep flight of stairs, fighting off a frenzied wave of monstrous freaks. We had spent the better part of six hours trekking through the damn labyrinth just to get there. Right behind us was the door to the next chamber, our ticket to safety—for the next few hours, at least. “Did they take a wrong turn?!” I grunted as I parried a growling orc's axe strikes and stabbed him in the eye. “Goddamn idiots should have stayed within sight!”

“I think the second wave is holding them back!” Lyra exclaimed, firing green bolts at the line of attackers at the base of the stairs. “I really wish they'd hurry!”

I yanked my blade out from the orc's skull. As his body fell like a wet sack of meat, I breathlessly gawked at a line of archers positioning themselves two dozen feet away. “Lyra—!”

“I see them!” She squatted as her face tensed. “Get behind me!”

Not one to argue with a magical equine’s assertiveness, I knelt next to Lyra’s tail.

Her horn gave off a bright emerald glow. The air around us crackled with invisible popcorn as a she erected a green shield in front of us. The troll and orc archers launched a volley, only for their many projectiles to shatter and bounce off her telekinetic barrier. I took advantage of the moment by standing up, gripping my sword like a spear, and chucking it over the top of Lyra's shield.

My blade flew through the air like a missile and embedded clean through the chest of a shrieking troll. The poor sap fell to the ground as his four friends nocked a new pair of arrows.

“I got 'em!” I was already unholstering the two automatic crossbows at my sides. I vaulted over Lyra's shield and aimed both weapons in mid-sprint, firing a sea of iron bolts. The archers shrieked and gargled their own blood as my projectiles flew into their necks and throats. One orc survived; he leered back and fired an arrow at my charging body. I ducked his projectile, slid on my knees, ripped my sword out of his dead companion, and stood up with a violent upswing. His torso split deliciously in two, and he fell in a puddle of his own blood and piss.

I stood, panting, staring down the steps as several more orcs and trolls ran to take up the bloody slack. Beyond them, I saw the great yawning expanse of the granite-and-metal chamber. The unnatural cavern echoed with war cries and the tortured screams of our dying foes. I tried to see where our two allies had disappeared to, when I felt a shock to my system.

“Augh!” I winced and clutched the metal collar around my neck. Sneering, I turned around. “Lyra?! What the hell?!”

“I'm sorry, Shawn!” She said, wincing as the collar around her own neck just finished giving her a similar shock. She trotted over until she was once again within ass-kickable distance from me. “But you know I can hardly keep up when you run off like that—”

“Never mind,” I grunted. “Just get the door open.”

“But...” Her eyes stretched wide under her silver headpiece. “But what about Blake and Thunderlane—?!”

“What about Kevin Costner’s tanking career?!” I spat. “We can't wait forever! Sisyphus has sent his entire fucking army!” I pointed at the reinforcements charging up the steps. “We're dead meat if we stay here! Now open the goddam door!”

“Okay!” she said, her body shivering. I swore to God that I was going to rip her horn off if she fainted right then. Thankfully, the little pony settled her nerves. She galloped up to the door and used her magic to fiddle with the stone barrier's complex locking mechanisms. As I heard the metallic tumblers clicking through the wall, I spun to look down the stairs, and immediately wished I hadn't.

An orc was charging me with his axe. I deflected his blow, only to see a troll coming up to my right and stabbing low with his dagger. I kicked him in the shoulder so that his blade stuck the steps below my feet. As he recoiled, I pivoted my sword and sliced into the ribs of the orc to my left. My other hand grabbed his axe and slammed it down into the troll's skull. As the monster rolled down the steps, I spun with my blade and cleaved the orc's head off.

Covered in blood and sweat, I teetered on the top of the stairs and grunted, “Lyra! The door!”

“I'm working on it!” she shrieked. A pair of arrows embedded into the doorframe behind her. “Eeep!”

I spun to see where the projectiles had come from. I saw two bastards perched high on a metal platform fifteen feet away. Before they could reload their arrows, I tossed the axe so that it lodged itself in one archer's throat. He fell down as his partner growled and aimed at me, only to receive a metal bolt to the eye. I lowered the crossbow in my grip and holstered it, watching as the second archer fell to the gaping abyss between the stairs and the far walls of the large chamber.

I swear: it felt sometimes like I wasn't ever really fighting in that place. Instead, it was like I was watching a movie of a crazed gladiator in first-person. The art of killing just came to me, like it also came to Lyra—as much as the little mint-colored horsie refused to admit it. Ever since we had both been dropped into that labyrinth like the world's unluckiest turds, our lives had become a psychotic bloodbath played in fast forward. All that mattered was that we got to the next part of the hellish maze so we'd have a few hours to catch our breaths and try not to fucking throw up.

“Any sign of them yet, Shawn?”

“Lyra, you just keep making love to the door, and I'll worry about—” My voice stopped as I spotted a pair of armored shapes slicing their way through a thick army of trolls several hundred feet below on one of the many rusted platforms. “Son of a bitch.”

She briefly looked back from her magical unlocking. “You see them?”

“Yeah, and they're totally screwed.”

“What?!” She gasped.

“The door!” I pointed at the barrier behind us, though my eyes were just as helplessly glued to the scene far below.

I’ve always had good vision, to a fault. From my vantage point, I could see that Blake wasn't in the best condition. His upper body's armor was soaked with blood—red like a human's, not a troll's black juices—and he shuffled across the frenzied battle with a heavy limp. It suddenly made sense why our buddies were taking so damn long; Blake had been hurt. Undoubtedly the moron took a stupid risk and had paid for it. He always was a worthless idiot. Even back in college—back in our normal lives—he was making all the wrong choices. Funny how there, in that deathly labyrinth of all places, he finally got bitten in the ass for his thick-headedness.

“I'm almost through!” Lyra shouted. “Are they getting closer?”

I didn't answer. Telling Lyra the truth would only have distracted her. Blake was collapsing over and over again, wincing in pain from the gash in his leg. I almost felt bad for the winged pony—“Thunderlane,” was it?—cuz he was constantly flying down to lift his moronic partner up. Blake would regain his strength just long enough to parry the attacks of a few orcs, and then in less than ten seconds he'd be falling to his knees, forcing the pegasus to come to the rescue again. It would have been a laughable situation if—well—they weren't being surrounded by bloodthirsty fuckjobs.

“Come on...” I murmured in the hot air of the place, my fingers tightening around the hilt of my blade. “Keep it together. Stop freaking out and you can make it...”

“Shawn?”

“Shhh!” I watched, squinting.

Blake fought off two orcs, stabbed a troll, and stumbled back from a kick to the chest. Thunderlane dove low, bucking his hooves across the surrounding foes. His serrated horseshoes bathed the air with blood and brain matter. He barreled through several orcs, knocked even more off the edge of the platform, and lifted up into the air again.

It was around that time that Blake took a little too long to get up, and poor bastard suffered for it. A troll came up from behind and stabbed him low in the back. Blake's shriek echoed across the chamber. Thunderlane spun, gasping, and dove down to rescue his injured partner. But it was too late; the damage had been done. Thunderlane stood above Blake's twitching body, fiercely bucking the thickening crowd of monsters pooling around them. No matter how bravely he kicked and thrashed at the creatures, they only doubled and tripled in number.

At that moment, a loud whirring noise sounded off in my ears. I was graced with a gust of cool air as Lyra finally opened the door to the next chamber.

“I did it!” she exclaimed, standing in the sudden exit. “But it's gonna close in less than a minute, just like all the ones before! Shawn, we gotta hurry—” She saw me staring down at the mayhem, and her expression paled. “Shawn?”

“Good job, Lyra,” I said in a low voice and began marching her way. “Now let's get the fuck out of Dodge.”

“But what about—?” She trotted briskly towards the edge of the stairs and looked down. “Thunderlane?”

“Lyra—”

“Thunderlane!” She shouted. Her hooves took off the edge of the platform, but I grabbed her before she could gallop down the flight of stairs. “Shawn! We gotta save them—!”

“There're way too many monsters now!” I said, pointing at the literal hundreds that were gathering below us like a sea of rancid meat. “If we want out of this chamber, it's now or never!”

Lyra hyperventilated in my grasp. She looked at the slowly closing door behind us, then back down at the hopeless situation. “Thunderlane! Thunderlane, grab Blake and get up here! Hurry!”

Thunderlane was obviously trying. He bucked the monsters back just for the breathing room to tug and yank at Blake's bloody body. Blake never exercised much. His fat ass, combined with the layers of armor, made it impossible for a buff human to lift him up, much less a winged pony. We could see Thunderlane's panicked expression from afar. He grimaced and began flapping his wings.

Oh for the love of macaroni, tell me he's not—

“No!” I shouted down. “Don't try it! You'll only—”

There was no point in even trying to warn him. He flew high above the sea of bloodthirsty gladiators. He soared towards us. No less than five seconds into the effort, he flew beyond range of Blake's body, and the inevitable happened. The metal collar around Thunderlane's neck flickered a bright blue, and he convulsed in mid-air. His mane literally began to smoke, and soon the unlucky guy was falling into the arms and battle-axes of the rat bastards below. It wouldn't be the first time I'd seen the insides of a pony being pulled apart. As for Lyra—

“Thunderlane!” She shrieked, flailing in my grasp. “No! Please, Celestia, no!”

“Dammit!” I grunted and all but wrestled her to the platform floor. “We gotta move!” I dragged her with me towards the door, which barely had three feet of clearance at that point. Huffing and puffing, I dove the two of us through the thinning frame. The air whistled with axes and arrows being flung murderously at our rear. A barb knicked off my armor and a dagger sliced off some of Lyra's tail hairs. With a crazy-ass slide, we managed to squeeze beneath the door just as it closed with a clap of stone thunder behind us.

Everything was hauntingly silent. We were safe, which wasn't saying much. Before us, a new and ominously large chamber stretched, permeated by winding metal platforms and rusted steps leading to fuck-knows-where. As always, a red crystal hovered magically above a black obelisk, bathing us in a crimson glow.

I stood up, catching my breath, shaking the blood off my sword before sliding it into the sheathe behind me. I heard a tiny, whimpering noise. I groaned, rolled my eyes, and marched over to where Lyra sat in a slump. “Look, we're safe. Let's be glad for that, okay?”

She sniffled. She removed her helmet and wiped a hoof across her tear-stained face as the sobs poured from her lungs. “Th-They were so close. They were so close, and we didn't d-do a thing to help them.”

“Lyra, if we tried, we'd be deader than country music. They'd have done the same in our position.”

“Thunderlane wouldn't,” she stammered. “He's so brave, so selfless. He did nothing but help Blake the entire time they were together. I know that he would have tried to save us. He wants the same, after all. He wants to get back home and... and...” Her eyes clenched shut as she heaved and whimpered, “Now he's gone. Celestia, he's gone.”

“Lyra,” I sighed. “Calm down...”

“Just like Carrot Top and Cloudkicker. This horrible, horrible place took them and I just can't—”

I shouted, “Will you fucking' keep it together?!” She flinched from me, silencing herself with a timid gulp. I frowned and said, “Yes, they're gone! Yes, it sucks! But if we dwell on it too much, we're only gonna end up ripped apart ourselves! I wanna get out of this hell-hole just as much as you do, but I can't do it on my own! So I need you to not lose your cool! Let's deal with these stupid rooms here and now, Lyra. We can sob and blow our noses over the dead later! You got it?”

She shivered, she trembled, and yet she very bravely nodded. “Y-yes, Shawn. I-I got it. Keeping my cool.” She sniffled and dried her tears as she put the helmet back on her head. A red glow poured over her figure. She looked past me.

I turned around just in time to see the red crystal shimmering brightly. The gnarled face of a demonic figure appeared before us like some cheap parlor trick. What wasn't so cheap was the booming voice that echoed throughout the chamber as his fanged mouth opened.

“Congratulations, mortals. You've passed yet another trial. Maybe the bliss of freedom will be yours yet. Maybe...”

“Sisyphus,” Lyra murmured.

I sighed and leaned against a rusted wall with my arms crossed. “I really, really hate this douchebag.”

“He can't hear us, Shawn.”

“Like I give a shit,” I grunted.

The magical broadcast continued. “This proves nothing, save that the denizens of the mortal realm possess the tenacity to withstand a mere fraction of the horrors of Tartarus.” The translucent eyes of Sisyphus narrowed as his face took up the entirety of the crystal's glow. “Because of your participation in this exercise, we will have crafted a finer army for the enemies of our Dark Lord. In another thousand years, when we repeat this experiment, there will be no chance of the outlying dimensions escaping his wrath. Enjoy your victories as much as you wish, for in the end they are only Tartarus' victories.”

“Hey handsome!” I barked at the crystal. “You're breaking up!” I presented both middle fingers. “Want I should adjust my antennae?”

The demon's face grinned wickedly. I wondered briefly for a second if he actually saw and heard us. “The reckoning of the multiverse is coming. Pray for the souls of your two worlds’ descendants: that they may suffer less in the inferno to come.”

In a spark of red energy, Sisyphus' face dissolved. Lyra and I were once again alone with our sweat and trembles.

“I've a good mind for him to show up in person so I can shove my sword up his dickhole,” I grunted, marching towards the next line of platforms. “Well, no point in wasting time. One of these chambers has gotta lead to a portal out of this place. You saw what happened with Michelle and Rainbow Dash four rooms ago; they were teleported home as soon as they walked through that one glowing door. The same's gotta happen to us sooner than later, so let's move it.” I suddenly felt a jolt of electricity through my body. “Nnngh!” I stumbled backwards, gripping the metal collar around my neck. I turned around with a heavy sneer. “Lyra...”

She sat in a slump, her eyes clenched shut. If she felt the same shock, the pain must not have mattered to her anymore. “I just don't know what I'm going to tell Rumble.” She sniffled as her eyes began tearing up again. “He's so young. It's going to be awful growing up without an older brother...”

I sighed. “Don't you—like—have a family of your own to get back to? A pony father, pony mother, and a pony dog for all I care?”

“Well, of course, but—”

“But nothing. Let's get a move-on. We can't let Sisyphus have his way, right? You want me to carry you?”

“No, Shawn. It's just that...”

“What?”

She sighed. She put on a brave smile, though her eyes were still moist. “Nothing. You're right. I... I j-just have to be strong.” Gulping, she got up and trotted past me. “I have to be like you...”

I gazed at her as she walked by. I blinked. “Whatever,” I said with a shrug. Together, the two of us marched across the line of platforms and made straight-way for the far end of the ever-expansive labyrinth.