Impossible Mission - Sealing Tartarus

The inner area of Tartarus was even more bleak then the outside.  The path down seemed to spiral into an endless void, and the entire cave area had a dark red color to it, like blood that had been exposed to oxygen then dipped in black paint.  Evil auras leaked from every crack and crevasse of the place and all matter of wicked looking creatures flew around and crawled all over.  Though to the ponies’ surprise, none of them seemed particularly interested in them, in fact despite their appearances, none of them seemed to be malicious in any way and were content to leave the group well enough alone.

“Maybe it is best that we left Fluttershy and Shortcut behind, they probably would have run for the gate when they saw this place anyway.” As Diamodozen said this he looked around for a way down to the spiraling land-stairs.  The original way down appeared to have been broken by something and now a massive gap stood in their way.

Ravewind nodded in agreement and gave his friend a hand; jumping off the cliff that had been made from the broken stairs he did a quick scout around nearby, as luck would have it the broken pieces of the stairway had fallen down onto a cliff below and were for the most part intact.  Ravewind quickly speed back up and relayed the message to his friends.

Twilight Sparkle and Monochrome teleported across the gap and looked down, concentrating hard the two of them lifted up as much of the rubble as they could, once in place Rarity and Blazing Trail began to magically seal the rocks back in place.

Rarity let out a sigh of relief, “It’s a good thing Diamodozen and his friends came along for this, we’d have been stuck here forever if it was just us.”

“We’re not done yet” yelled Twilight to her friend, “this is the last of it, come on Monochrome just a little more!”

As they last of the rubble rose up the ponies heard a series of loud screeching noises, looking up they saw a swarm of single-eyed bat like creatures all rapidly descending towards the bridge in a nose dive.

“Look out, Ahrimen!” Yelled out Twilight, she couldn't believe what she was seeing, Ahrimen were creatures of legend, one eyed bat like creatures that were nothing more than a head, two wings, and two three-talon claws for feet.  Without a second thought Joe-buck lunged forward onto the bridge, he grabbed any and all of the rubble that wasn’t sealed in and began throwing it up; knocking as many of the Ahrimen out of the air as he could.   Unfortunately Joe-buck ran out of rubble far too quickly, and there were just too many of the now enraged cyclopean bats.

“This will have to do!” Blazing Trail shouted out as he quickly zipped across the bridge.  “Move it or lose it ponies!”

Everyone quickly makes it over the incomplete shards of a land bridge, the slowest of the group, Rarity makes it over just in time for the Ahirmen to smash head first into the ground, shattering the bridge into dozens of pieces causing the rubble to tumble back down to the cliff.

Monochrome turns to Twilight, “Should we try to fix the bridge again?”

Twilight simply shakes her head, “There’s no time for that, come on we need to hurry.”

As the group starts to run down the spiral land-stairs the screeching is heard yet again, some of the Ahrimen, not fond of the idea of trespassers broke off from the attack group and were now chasing the ponies down the path.  As the group ran downwards Monochrome noticed a cave rapidly coming up on them, closing his eyes and concentrating hard, Monochrome enclosed his friends in a dark grey bubble, then by pushing to the side with all his might Mono managed to get the bubble bound ponies rolled into the cave, the entrance of which quickly collapses behind them.

“Nice thinking Mono” commented Ravewind, as the bubble subsided he rose to his feet dusting off his white vest.

“Agreed” Diamodozen added, “and good call sealing the cave behind us, that should keep those one-eyed flying freaks from finding out where we went.”

Monochrome looked back quickly in disbelief. “Uh oh…this is bad.”

“What’s the matter Monochrome?”  Rarity asked the bewildered pony, “Your plan worked perfectly.”

“Except that wasn’t part of my plan” Monochrome turned back towards his friends, they all looked at him confused and Mono pointed at the caves now blocked off entrance.

“I didn’t do that, something else sealed the cave.”  As Monochrome said this the earth beneath the ponies shook, rocks and rubble feel from the cave’s ceiling around the ponies causing them to group into a tightknit circle, they looked around in fear desperate to find the source of the quake, finally they found it, torches lit on the opposite side of the cave, revealing a massive stone gargoyle his hands were buried in the ground but he could still move them resulting in violent quakes, his wings were carved out of stone like the rest of him but they didn’t seem able to move, upon getting a second glance, Monochrome saw that they were bound to the rock walls of the cave.  The massive creature let out a moan and stretched as best it could stiff from inactivity, the creatures attempts to move did nothing more than shake the cave.

“What, what is that thing Twilight?” Pinkie Pie’s entire body shook up and down in place from the quakes the constant vibrations almost took the puff right out of her mane.

The creature moaned again and began to speak.  “I am Guardian, protector of the lands of Tartarus.”

Blazing Trail stepped forward with feigned bravery.  “Hold on a second I thought that Cerberus was the protector of Tartarus!”

The creature snapped its massive jaws and Blazing quickly retreated to the group.  “He is but one! There are four mighty beings that inhabit and protect Tartarus, without our direction, the evil of this land would escape and cause havoc among the world which you ponies call Equestria.

Twilight looked at Guardian with newfound determination.  “Then we’ll just have to get past all of you if we’re going to seal Tartarus!”

Guardian let out an earth shattering laugh.  “You seek to seal Tartarus?  Impossible, Tartarus cannot be sealed without both a source of light AND dark magic!”

Ravewind smirked at Guardian’s riposte, “Well it’s a good thing we have Mono ‘cause he-”

“ENOUGH!” Ravewind swallowed hard as the hulking stone creature interrupted him.  “If you truly wish to attempt this fool’s errand, and get to the core of Tartarus to seal it, you must get through me, and to get through me you must solve two riddles.”

“Sounds simple enough” Monochrome readjusted his shades and prepared himself, if riddles were they key to get through, then they would need knowledge and logic, and no one in the group was going to do that better than Twilight and himself.

“This is the first riddle.” Rubble fell from the massive maw of the gargoyle as he spoke, there were frequent pauses in his voice as he spoke the riddle as if it pained the creature to speak for that long.  It occurred to Monochrome that it just might, seeing as though up until that point the massive stone cretin hadn’t said anything other than what it needed to.

“I am a creature that walks on four legs by morning, none at noon, and four again by the night, what am I?”

Everypony thought long and hard about the riddle, every so often a pony would throw out ideas about what the creature was as part of a group brainstorm effort.

“Maybe it’s some kind of bug?” Shouted Pinkie Pie

“But which one, there must be thousands of types of insects in Equestria.”  Pinkie shrugged at Twilight’s argument.

“Not to mention the types in the Everfree Forrest that we don’t even know about.” Added Joe-Buck

“It could be a creature from the Everfree Forrest!” Exclaimed Ravewind

“Well if it is we’re in trouble, the only one among us that would have any idea of what animal is Fluttershy.”

The group realized that Monochrome was right, this was a riddle for Fluttershy, the group’s animal expert, but as they all knew she was back at the gate with Shortcut and Cerberus.  As the group continued to wrack their brains over the puzzling riddle Rainbow Dash watched with confused interest, when she realized that each of her friends actually had no idea about the answer to the riddle she doubled over on her back and started laughing uncontrollably.

“Rainbow what’s so funny?!” Twilight demanded to know why she was laughing, Rainbow Dash was the only one of the group that hadn’t put any effort into thinking about the answer and now it seemed she was making fun of them for turning up nothing at all.

“You guys seriously don’t know the answer to this?  Especially you Twilight you’re usually great with riddles.” Rainbow Dash went back to laughing.

“Of course I don’t Rainbow; this riddle could be about anything in Equestria!” Twilight looked at her friend enraged at her teasing.

“Nu-uh, there’s only one thing in Equestria that this riddle is about and I know the answer!”

Twilight looked at the Pegasus skeptically, Rainbow’s strength was her agility not her brains, there’s no way she could have figured out a riddle this complex.  “Alright then spill the answer!”

Rainbow smirked.  “Okay I will!”  Jumping up from where she was laying Rainbow Dash leaped towards Guardian, “The answer to the riddle is ‘A Pegasus!’”

Everyone looked at Rainbow Dash with mixed looks of disbelief and dread, fearing that Rainbow Dash might have just sealed their fate, literally.

Rainbow Dash looked back at the group and attempted her best to reason with them.  “Hear me out guys, when a Pegasus is born IE the day time, they crawl around on all four hooves, when they’re grown up, the afternoon, they don’t walk on any legs cause they’re too busy flying, uh no offense Joe-Buck.”

Joe-Buck shrugged it off; he didn’t need her to remind him he preferred being on the ground with his Earth Pony and Unicorn friends.

“Anyway” continued Rainbow Dash “when a Pegasus gets old, night time, they can’t use their wings as well any more so they’re back to walking on their hoofs again.”

There was a brief dramatic pause; the ponies all stared at Guardian awaiting his response.

“You are correct.” The group of ponies cheered as those words echoed out from the Gargoyle’s maw.  “Now solve this next riddle and you shall pass.”

“I can have both but I choose not to, the sky is not my friend, nor is the soil, I can make my skill my talent, and my talent my skill, I can have one, but must sacrifice another.  What am I?”

Rainbow Dash looked at Blazing Trail and with a smile of satisfaction he looked back at her.

“You got this?” Rainbow asked

“You bet I do!” Blazing replied, and with a quick hoof-bump Blazing walked forward.

“The answer is ‘A Unicorn!’  Unicorns can’t walk on clouds or work with plants or the earth without the proper spells, they can get a magic cutie mark, or they can get a cutie mark in something else, and use their magic to help them with it.”  To demonstrate this, Blazing trail used his magic and quickly zipped around in a circle leaving a flaming doughnut in his wake.

“IMPOSSIBLE!” The creature roared out, “how did you solve my riddles so easily!?”

“Well to be perfectly honest they weren’t very good riddles.”

Blazing Trail began to laugh to himself and Rainbow Dash quickly joined in. “Yeah, next time don’t make your riddles about the things that come walking into your cave!”

Guardian enraged by the taunts and laughing let out a thunderous massive roar. “You dare mock A Guardian of Tartarus?!  I will bury you alive!”  With that the colossal statue guardian let out another roar and began to shake his arms furious causing a massive quake, boulders, stone, and other things attached to the ceiling of the cave began to viciously rain form the sky.

“Oh now you two have done it!” Shouted Rarity.

“Over there there’s the exit!” Twilight pointed to the other side of the cave across from where they came in, just inches away from Guardian was an opening.  The ponies spared no time making a mad dash for the exit, as more and more rubble started falling down, Blazing Trail and Rainbow Dash collected any of their friends that were straggling behind the group, and bolted at max speed.

The cave collapsed just as the ponies made it out Twilight Looked around making sure that her friends were all right.

“Hooey, that was too close.” Apple Jack brushed off the dust from her hat.

“Eyup, too close for my taste.” Joe-Buck started to do the same.

Twilight Gasped “Wait a minute everypony, we’re short one!”

Everyone else gasped and looked around, as the dust settled from the cave of the entrance Blazing Trail let out a series of coughs.  He was alive, but trapped under the rubble that sealed up the cave.

“Blazing Trail!” Rainbow Dash raced to the unicorn’s aid quickly moving away any rocks she could lift.

“Don’t y’all worry; we’ll dig ‘em out!” Apple Jack and Joe-Buck quickly began bucking the stones; they shattered to pebbles from their combined strength, any rock they didn’t need to kick the pair quickly moved out of the way.  They had to be careful though, one false kick could bring the entire cave down on their trapped friend.

“You guys go on ahead; we’ll dig BT out and catch up to you in no time!” Joe-Buck reassured the group then went back to helping AJ.

Twilight looked at Rainbow Dash, concerned for her friend. “Rainbow Dash?”

Rainbow Dash sniffed, she had tears forming in her eyes ever since she found BT in the rubble.  She whipped the tears from her eyes using her hoof and quickly dashed back to work.  “Sorry Twilight, no way am I leaving Blazing Trail behind, we started this together and that’s how we’re finishing it!”

Twilight nodded “Alight I understand, let’s go everypony, Double Time!”  The remains of the group; Monochrome, Twilight Sparkle, Ravewind, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Diamodozen raced off and out of sight, the dig team watched them leave then went back to work.

“Hang in there Blazing!” Rainbow yelled to her friend, the tears returning to her eyes.

“I’m fine Rainbow Don’t worry…man this is a bummer.”

Apple Jack couldn’t help but smile at BT’s enthusiasm, “Let’s go everypony, we need to get him out now!”

Meanwhile back at the other half of the group Monochrome and Ravewind were talking with one another.   There was something about the Guardian’s riddle that Ravewind just didn’t understand.

“I get the ‘the sky is not my friend’ and the ‘I can make my skill my talents, and my talents my skill’ part, but what did that giant hunk of rock mean by ‘I can have one, but I must sacrifice another?’”

Monochrome looked down then looked up towards what remained of the group.  “I think I know what he meant…”

The conversation ended after that, Monochrome realized he wasn’t in the mood to talk.