Impossible Mission - Sealing Tartarus

As the group continued down the path they found themselves lead to a dark tunnel, none of them could see what was inside, but one thing was certain.

“Wings won’t do us any good here” explained Ravewind “The tunnel is just large and wide enough for us to walk though.”

“Well you’re the only flyer left in our group anyway,” as Diamodozen said this he looked around the tunnel entrance for a light source but found nothing of use.

“Rarity and I will light the cave with magic, stay near us.” Twilight and Rarity took the lead into the cave and the others followed sparks of light bounced from their horns as the two unicorns made their way through.  The tunnel was dark and very, very old, but there wasn’t any mud so Rarity didn’t really have anything to complain about.

The tunnel lead to a massive cave that was even less lit then the tunnel, as the group walked through the cave suddenly began to shake.

“Oh no not again!” Rarity shrieked, the three remaining girls let out a scream and suddenly the lights on their horns went out.

Ravewind called out for Pinkie, and Diamodozen called for Rarity, neither of them got a response, and suddenly the sound of magic filled the room around them.  They looked over to find Monochrome who had just cast the same spell that the girls did, his artificial magic horn emit a glow that lit up the cave.  To the surprise of the colts, the cause of the earthquake was a massive wall that had formed between them and the mares, splitting the group right down the middle.

“Well this is an inconvenience…” Monochrome scanned the wall looking for a weak spot he could blast through.

“An inconvenience?” Ravewind looked at his friend surprised, the group was just separated, there was no response from the girls, and they were trapped almost literally between a rock and a hard place, and this was nothing more than ‘an inconvenience’ to him?  Sometimes even in the present Ravewind still found himself surprised at just how calm and cold Monochrome could be.

Monochrome nodded in response to Ravewind’s outburst and continued to look over the wall, it was solid, and clearly it was manipulated with beings of powerful magic.

“Stay on your hooves everypony, I’m not the only one here using magic.”

Shortly after Monochrome said that a thick purple mist began to rise from the ground, Ravewind and Diamodozen stood back to back and Mono quickly joined them.

As the mist covered the room the three colts began to hear noises in the distance, as the noise intensified they began to recognize Pinkie Pie’s distinctive giggle.

Ravewind called out for Pinkie Pie again.

“Ravewind…” The voice was definitely Pinkies, but it was ominous and drifting like the mist.

“Pinkie?!”  Ravewind began to panic a little, which Monochrome took notice of.

“Ravewind…let’s play a game…” Chills ran down Diamodozen’s spine and even Monochrome was getting a little uneasy about this.

Pinkie’s giggle could be heard again only this time it was fading.

“Pinkie wait” Ravewind began to dash towards the sound of the laugh but Monochrome was one step ahead, using magic he captured Ravewind’s hooves in cuffs made from the stone on the floor.

“Don’t Ravewind” Monochrome glared at his friend, the emotion was hidden by his shades but Ravewind had been friends with Monochrome long enough to know how to read him even with the shades on.  “Whatever these things are, they want us separated!”

“Oh Diamodozen, could you give me a hand with this please dear?” Rarity’s voice ran through the cave.  Diamodozen called out to her and ran off before Mono could catch him too, while Monochrome was distracted Ravewind broke out of the cuffs and dashed off in the opposite direction.

“I don’t believe this.” Monochrome shifted his glasses as he mumbled out the words.

“Monochrome?”

Mono froze, that was Twilight Sparkles voice he had just herd.

“Oh for the love of the moon…” Monochrome quickly scanned his surroundings, and spotted the silhouette of a pony off in the distance.  As the silhouette drew closer to him he began to make out the appearance of his friend Twilight.

“Oh good, Monochrome, we’re alone.”

“So it would seem…” Monochrome looked to either side of him in the directions where Ravewind and Diamodozen had ran off.

“You’re always so cold; it’s something I’ve always really liked about you.”

Monochrome was still and emotionless.

“Come on Monochrome, there’s no point in hiding it any longer, we both have feelings for each other, admit it, you love me.”

The word hung in Mono’s skull like a bad migraine, who or whatever this was, it wasn’t Twilight, suddenly a certain line from an incident long ago ran though his mind and repeated over and over like a broken record.

“She’s a Changeling she takes the form of somepony you love and gains power by feeding off your love for them.”

Suddenly memories began flooding back, painful memories that fueled bottled up anger that was growing in Monochromes core, his horn began to glow a malicious grey color and soon his whole body followed.

“You…you, Heartless, CHANGELING!”

A sudden spike in magical power burst from Monochrome and quickly combusted into a massive magical explosion ‘Twilight’ had just enough time to shout out “Wait I’m not a-” before she was consumed by the concussive force.  The wall that blocked the colts’ path was obliterated to rubble and the mist instantly cleared.  The Rarity and Pinkie Pie that had been calling out to the colts found themselves flat on their back next to the imposter Twilight Sparkle, suddenly the magic of the three creatures had worn off revealing the true forms of the ponies.

Diamodozen and Ravewind got to their feet and dusted themselves off they looked at their friend Monochrome his shades had dropped the ground and had a slight crack in them, Monochromes eyes were solid white and glowing, his mane, and tail had been replaced with a vicious black fire that ran along the entire length of his body, and most notably of all, he was mad, really really mad.  Looking around Diamodozen spotted the real girls on the other side of the wall, they were unconscious on the ground, he raced to wake them up, starting of course with Rarity as Ravewind went to try and calm down his friend.

“Take it easy Monochrome, I don’t know what set you off, but you need to calm down.”

As Ravewind talked the fire on Monochromes back died out and his mane and tail returned, albeit they were both letting off black steam and Monochrome himself looked like he had a bad run in with Blazing Trail or Spitfire, but he was calming down and that was the most important part.  Monochrome picked up his shades, and quickly apologized, the two of them walked up to the three new ponies that were now out cold on the other side of the cave.

All three had bright white bodies like Monochrome, they were mares with red collars around their necks and long black manes, one had blue highlights, the other had red, and the third had green, their hair resembled Fluttershy’s but rather than being neatly cut like hers was, the ends of their manes appeared to be primitively, and savagely cut off.

“What are they Monochrome?”  Ravewind looked at his friend who let out a sigh of relief.

“Succubai” answered Mono.  “They work like Changelings, except only female unicorns can become them, they transform into a pony that you care about, convince you that they’re who they say they are and that they’re in love with you, then they gain power by feeding off your desire for that pony.”

“That’s harsh even by Changeling standards.”

Monochrome turned around and began to walk towards Diamodozen and the others.  “You have no idea…” he whispered to himself.

Twilight and the others regained consciousness.

“Are you three all right?” She asked them in a panic “There was an earthquake and something knocked us all clean out.”

Monochrome nodded “Yeah we’re fine.”

“Oh Monochrome your shades are cracked!” Twilight gave her friend a concerned look.

“Not a problem darling” Rarity’s horn sparked to life and the crack was quickly out of sight.

“Thank you.” Mono said bluntly.

“Oh think nothing of it, glad to help.” Rarity replied.

There was another earthquake suddenly.

“Oh now what?!” Ravewind yelled out.

“This is starting to get old!” Added Diamodozen

A pile of rocks toppled down from the ceiling and after the earthquake ended they started to move, and laugh.  The laugh wasn’t as earth snakingly loud as the Gargoyle’s but it was still intimidating, whatever this is was, it was incredibly huge.

“I never would have guessed someone would defeat my minions, let alone so quickly.”

“Alright, boss battle!” Ravewind jumped up and down prepping himself Monochrome stretched his hoof out in front of him cutting him off.

“This isn’t a game Ravewind, that thing is an Atlas, the rarest and most powerful brand of Earth Elementals.”

“Ele-what-als?” Pinkie looked at Monochrome then over to Twilight.

“Elementals are rare beings made entirely of something from the world, there are Earth, Air, Water, and Fire elementals, but each tree has a series of different types of elementals, the more powerful they are the more uncommon.”  Twilight swallowed hard when she realized that Monochrome was Right.  “The rarest and most powerful elementals are Atlas, Pyroplasm, Hurricanes, and Windigoes.”

“Oh oh oh! You mean like the Windigoes from the Hearths Warming Eve story?”

Twilight nodded in disbelief “Yes Pinkie, but what is an Atlas doing in Tartarus?  The Elementals are neither good nor evil.”

“Foolish mare” Replied the elemental, “There is little you know about this place and much you do not, I am Atlas, Protector of Tartarus!”

“Guardian said he was one of the four protectors of this place.” Started Diamodozen

“This hulking pile of cave clutter must be the third!” Yelled out Ravewind.

The Elemental let out a groan, a series of rocks came together in the shape of a massive hammer and began to move down towards the Pegasus, the attack was slow and lumbering, easy as pie to for the excited flyer to predict, moving out of the way with time to spare Ravewind dodged out of the way and flung off his cape in one swift motion taking to the skies.

“Is that all you’ve got?!”

Atlas became annoyed with the constant taunts and redoubled his efforts, but even at his best he was still slow and couldn’t hit the flying colt.

“I see an exit!” Shouted Monochrome who pointed at the end of the cave, to the back of the area was a massive hole in the wall that must have been blown open by Mono’s little episode earlier.

“Pinkie, Ravewind, let’s move” Shouted Twilight.

Pinkie shook her head. “No can do sister!”

Ravewind dodged another blow spinning as he did.  “We’ll handle this guy, the rest of you get going!”

Twilight couldn’t believe this, every time something huge and monstrous showed up, their group got smaller and smaller.  With the group of twelve now reduced to four the ponies moved on.

“Bet you can’t catch me!” Pinkie repeated over and over while shaking her tail and flank at Atlas taunting him.

“Hold still you piece of oversized pink fluff!” Atlas punched at pinkie who bounced up and landed on his arm, with a furry filled yell the colossus brought down his other hand, but Pinkie simply bounced out of the way causing Atlas to shatter his own arm.  “Gaaaaah, you’ll pay for that!”