Hard Stone and Cold Steel
Daring Do crept along, the light from the unicorn beside her the only illumination in the dark tunnels. The hooffalls of the two explorers rang out against the hard stone, echoing along the rough passage before fading into forever. The air was old, choked with chalk and dust, with an underlying smell of something sharp, like a cross between horseshoe polish and medicinal antiseptic.
Daring Do had a bandana around her face and neck, her wings quivering, ready to bolt back should the hall suddenly fill with toxic gas, while her seafoam-green companion beside her concentrated on the many spells she had going at once, one of which kept a bubble of clean air around her own head.
The two had been travelling through the dark tunnels for hours now, sometimes wandering in circles, while other times they’d walked straight down perfectly square-cut tunnels for miles.
Down, down, and down they travelled. Daring pulled out the map that had started her on this whole expedition, this blasted wandering. She had nearly given up several times, but only the urging of her companion kept them from teleporting back to the surface.
The two had met back in Canterlot, when Daring, under the guise of author A.K. Yearling, had attended a book signing.
***
She could still remember reclining in a small diner at the end of the long day, trying to relax from her latest adventure and feel the satisfaction of a job well done, books well signed, and a new plot for her next novel already forming in her head, the details anchored in reality. She had been just about to retire for the night, in fact, when she heard it: two ponies arguing in hushed whispers in the booth behind her. Turning her head to stare out the window, she flicked an ear to face the conversation, picking it up better than if she’d turned towards the louder main interior.
“Come on Bonnie! This is proof that they existed! Just imagine it! Opening those doors and finally seeing real-”
“Lyra, honey, I know you love your ‘human’ theories, but this is really too much! We came here to visit Minuette, not go on crazy hunts. So what if her friend found an old scrap of map? That doesn’t prove anything.”
“Does too! This isn’t Griffonian, Ancient Hippogreese or Old Ponish. Moondancer’s Authentication Transformation spell proved that it predates all known languages, and she even managed to translate it! Listen, if you want I can explain it agai-”
“No! Lyra, we’ve talked about this. The hand thing, and your theorycrafting are a little strange, but I love you and still love and support those hobbies. I’ve got nothing against your magical tinkering, but we’re on vacation for Faust’s sake! The train to Ponyville leaves at ten. You promised we’d spend the rest of our week on that camping trip. Please Lyra, let’s just go home. I’ve had enough crazy adventures to last a lifetime, and more.”
“But- but think of the humans! We could bring them back! Wouldn’t that be worth it? Think of all we could learn! Please Bonnie, I’m begging you, I can’t do it on my own.”
“...After our camping trip. Maybe. I don’t want to thrust us into danger again, and I can’t stand the idea of losing you. But if it means so much to you, then I won’t stop you from searching. None of the other leads turned up anything.”
“Yes! Yes, thank you, Bonnie! Thank you, thank you, thank you!”
She had heard the sound of cutlery clattering and turned just enough to see a flash of green-blue fur reflected off the glass beside her.
“But only after we get back from our camping trip, alright? I want to enjoy our vacation together. And… since you’ll have to do it after vacation is done, I suppose that means you’ll have to find someone else to go with you.”
“What?! But Bonnie, we always go together for these things! Why are you leaving me out to dry?”
A disappointed tsk sounded from the other booth before the conversation continued.
“Because, dear, when our vacation ends I’ll have to go back to work. Remember? Don’t forget who buys the materials for your magitech inventions, and who pays the mortgage.”
“Aww… I guess that makes sense. But where can I find somepony crazy enough to go trotting over the globe, following an ancient map leading to a possibly-trapped cave that, like you said, might very well not exist?”
A smile spread across the disguised pegasus’ face and she popped her head around the side of the booth, catching both ponies’ attention.
“You know, I might know somepony…”
***
“Alright Lyra, as much as I want to see this mythical ‘human’ population that’s supposed to have been hiding down here for thousands of years, we’ve been down here for two days now. Your enthusiasm kept me going, but you’ve got to admit: this plan is a bust.”
The bronze pegasus collapsed on the smooth stone ground, kicking up a miniature cloud of dust in the process, while her unicorn companion, though tired, skipped in place.
“No, no, I swear this time- this time I really feel it, Daring! There’s something really close by! Just a bit further down this tun-”
“Stop!” Daring snapped, narrowing her eyes as she pushed herself into a sitting position, using one hoof to adjust her hat. The seasoned adventurer looked at the pony she’d been travelling with for weeks, who’d made her come down into this Celestia-forsaken cave in the first place.
“Listen, maybe there really are humans, and maybe they are down here, but we’ve been wandering two days now. We’re out of food, more importantly out of water, and most importantly, I’m at the end of my rope. We’re going back.”
Lyra took a step back, the sound intermingling with the fading echoes of Daring’s voice. Pain and fear crossed her face and the light of her magic flickered, the first signs of magical exhaustion. She was almost out of mana.
“N-no, please Daring, just a bit farther, please! I’ve got to know for sure!”
“Look around you, Lyra! Maybe we read the map wrong, or maybe it was translated wrong. We can reevaluate our options and try again, but there’s nothing down here but tunnels that lead nowhere.”
“N-no! You’re supposed to be Daring Do! The pony who fought off Ahuizotl countless times! You’ve found the lost city of Seskantor! I thought if anypony could match my drive to find the humans’ last hiding place, it would be you!”
The unicorn sniffed in the dry, cold air, holding back the darkness of the passage with her steadily dimming magic. She yelled, stepping forward to the pegasus, her hollow words offering the only comfort amidst the darkness of failure threatening to weigh on her mind.
“Please! Just a bit more, I know it’s here, I-I know we can find it!”
Daring swiped her hoof away and sighed, pulling her scarf further onto her snout.
“No, Lyra. We’re done. We’re at the end of the line, and something’s gotta give. These tunnels won’t, so we have to. You’ve heard of my accomplishments, but what you haven’t heard is all the failures I’ve had to go through to get to those accomplishments. Each find was preceded by a dozen ones that fell through, or were snatched up before I got there. You learn these things as an archeologist. Sometimes the risks are too great. I don’t want either of us to die down here… so please, teleport us back to the surface camp, Lyra.”
She pleaded with her voice and her eyes, matching the watery gaze of her companion with her own sympathetic yet stern one. Daring’s breathing was labored, and she tried to get to her hooves in order to place a hoof on the younger mare’s shoulder to comfort her, but the long march had drained her strength.
However, Lyra, seeing Daring reaching out, did something the archaeologist never thought she’d do; she pulled back, then grunted, her magic glowing a fraction brighter, and turned, galloping into the darkness of the tunnel ahead without a word.
Daring’s breath caught in her throat and she stared wide-eyed at the glow as it quickly faded around the corner of the cave walls, surrounding her in perfect blackness. Suddenly, she found strength in her muscles, sore as they were, and sprung to her hooves. She began moving down the shaft after the other mare, her heart thudding in her chest as adrenaline flooded her body.
“Lyra! Lyra, wait, what are you doing?! Don’t leave me, I’m out of lamp oil, I can’t see without you!”
The pounding of several sets of hooves and the mocking tones of her own voice echoed all around her as she chased the feeble shades of grey around every new corner, somehow avoiding tripping and breaking anything on the rough stone floor. She had no time to notice it, but once again, the walls and floor of the cave tunnels had become angular and smooth once more, clearly designed that way by somepony… or something else.
As suddenly as Lyra had departed, Daring found her again, turning a corner and slamming into her, sending them both sprawling. She had stopped just after the final corner of the strange corridor and as Daring groaned and shook her head, rubbing at her tenderized face with a hoof, she realized they were no longer in a tunnel.
The two ponies lay on the ground in a large, square cavity, the ceiling of which rose up several times a normal pony’s height, and certainly much taller than the claustrophobic pasageways they’d been traversing.
What was most curious about the room was that despite having run into Lyra and broken the concentration of her light spell, Daring could still see the whole room.
Besides the shape, it was completely empty except for a slab of metal set into a niche a few inches deep in the far wall, and a dark, glasslike orb embedded in the stone above it. Tiny, flickering grey lights sat in crevices in the corners of the ceiling, illuminating just enough to throw the room into contrast, while not revealing any colors.
Seeing that there were no immediate threats to either of them, Daring returned her attention to the prone unicorn, checking to make sure she hadn’t accidentally hurt her friend in the sudden collision. She was out cold and Daring Do found a trickle of blood running down her temple. Turning the mare over in order to get a better look at her wound, she quickly reached into her saddlebags and withdrew a small roll of gauze in a plastic baggie. Thankfully the two of them hadn’t gotten injured at all on the way down, and Daring had the entirety of her tiny little first-aid kit left to use, so she quickly had her friend’s head bandaged. Lyra still refused to wake for the time being, but her heartbeat was still strong and her breathing was regular, so Daring allowed herself a sigh of relief. She dragged the unicorn awkwardly to the slab of metal and sat back against it, pulling her unconscious friend’s head onto her lap.
Whatever the giant metal square behind her was, it wasn’t anything she’d seen before. Looking up, she saw there was some sort of seam across the center of it, and even in the faint monochromatic light, Daring could see the dark streaks of some long-dried substance running down the metal’s surface from the seam.
Whatever the substance was, it was ancient and untouched like the rest of the contents of the tunnels, for when her back or wings brushed against it, instead of leaving a sticky residue on her feathers and coat like she expected, it crumbled and floated down, turning into black dust.
The entire place was giving her the creeps, and at that point she couldn’t hide it. Daring Do could feel her heart still pounding in her chest while the dark entryway was just barely visible, exuding a foreboding gloom. Despite having spent two days wandering the tunnels and only fearing natural dangers, Daring was suddenly filled with trepidation, as if something else might suddenly show itself in the doorway, trapping her in the room.
“Come on, Lyra… you’ve gotta wake up and get us out of here!” She hissed, gently rocking the unicorn held in her hooves. She glanced around the room again, only to be met with the same empty, cavernous space, and the whispered echoes of her own voice.
On edge, with her back pressed up against the cold metal of the strange room, Daring’s senses were on high alert, regardless of her fatigue level. As it was, she could have sworn she felt something rumble, deep within the hard steel. She shifted, looking behind her; a stupid idea, she immediately thought, as she came face to face with the smooth, unmoving surface, but a moment later, something else moved, and this time she definitely felt it.
A flash of white shone from above for the barest fraction of a second before dimming, and suddenly she felt a hard, red light shining down on her. The cavern echoed as a voice rang out, like that of some angry god, and Daring’s head snapped up, staring at the dark orb above the metal slab, though it was no longer dark. No, now it shone, a circle of small red lights peering down at her like the single, great eye of some monster.
“Voice not recognized. Please repeat.”
The sound of the thing pierced her ears at the same time it battered the rest of her with its loud proclamation and she shrunk back into the corner. Through her fear though, Daring recognized the need to protect her friend and companion… and her only possibility of escape from the ancient tunnel system. She spread her wings protectively over the unicorn’s body, though if the unconscious mare awoke from the sudden contact, she showed no signs of it.
Nothing else happened for nearly a minute, until the same voice spoke once more, as deep as some of the oldest dragons, with the words being dragged through a single-note harmonica.
“Voice not recognized. Please repeat.”
Swallowing the lump in her throat painfully, Daring stared up at the circle of lights under the surface of the glass orb, the dark red eye staring at her intently. She mustered up her courage and a whisper escaped her lips.
“H-hello?” Shaking her head, Daring coughed some of the cavern’s dust out of her lungs and throat and tried again.
“Hello? Who are you?”
She cringed back, shrinking into the corner, as the voice boomed immediately.
“Voice not recognized. Please identify.”
The voice went silent once more, and Daring stared hard at the glowing red eye set in the wall above her, realizing that it was, indeed, talking to her. From the way the eye followed her minute movements it also could see her perfectly well from anywhere in the room, and it clearly wanted her to answer.
“M-my name is Daring Do. Who- or rather, what are you?”
“Identity catalogued. Welcome Daring Dew. This entity is an E-S Guardian model. ”
Daring’s brain ground to a halt, not comprehending what she was hearing. Cataloguing my identity? A guardian of some sort? What the heck is going on?
Her thoughts were interrupted by a faint thumping sound as it started up on the other side of the metal slab. She doubted she would have noticed if she hadn’t been pressed up against it as she was, the vibrations gently making their way through her coat.
“U-um, mister guardian… what is this metal thing behind me?”
Again, without missing a beat, the deep, monotone voice reverberated off the walls, seemingly coming from everywhere at once.
“That is security door Zed-seven-five-dash-one.”
The voice had confirmed her suspicions about what exactly the metal slab was - after all, what would be the point of sticking a smooth metal sheet into a stone wall and doing nothing with it? Plus the seam in the middle suggested the two halves could be parted in some way.
Daring’s thoughts were interrupted by a stirring coming from her lap. Looking down she saw that Lyra was finally waking up. She held the unicorn’s head up and breathed a sigh of relief as a pair of groggy eyes opened and found hers.
“Uh… Daring? What- what happened? Oh my head…”
Lyra reached up with a forehoof to rub at her temple, stopping when she felt the gauze strapped there. Or perhaps she had simply stopped because the guardian’s voice once again thundered throughout the cavern in response.
“Voice not recognized. New subject, identify.”
“U-uh, Daring, what’s going on? What happened and why is there an invisible giant in here?”
“Identity catalogued. Welcome Daring.”
“What? No, no!” Lyra shook her head but then quickly stopped, wobbling in place. She took a moment to steady her hooves under her and then stood, Daring Do by her side to support her.
“Shh, careful. You hit your head on a rock back there. The cut wasn’t very deep, but it knocked you out cold, so be careful, you may have a concussion.”
“Wait, but hello? Uhh, right, I’ll move slow.” The green unicorn called out into the darkness, not yet noticing the red light high above that followed her movements. “My name isn’t Daring, it’s Lyra Heartstrings, I was asking my friend for help! Who are you?”
Daring rolled her eyes. “I just asked it that, it’s the guar-”
“Identity revised. Welcome Lyra Heartstrings. This entity is an E-S Guardian model.”
“Guardian!” Lyra called out, looking about the room. Daring could see the cogs turning in her mind as she quickly caught up to the situation. “Guardian, where are we?”
“Access denied.”
“...Huh?”
Daring and Lyra shared a look, before the pegasus directed her companion’s gaze upward, towards the giant glowing cluster of red lights above them and whispered, “I think that’s the ‘guardian’. I’m pretty sure that’s its eye.”
“Guardian!” The unicorn called out once more. “What is this place?”
“Emergency Station four-oh-one-five.”
“Why did you say ‘access denied’ if you can tell us where we are?”
“You do not have clearance to know your exact location. Subjects may become compromised.”
At this point Lyra could hardly contain her mounting excitement and burst out into a fit of giggles, yelling out into the cavernous, echoing space in between her laughter.
“Guardian! Are you a human? Please say yes, please say yes, please say yes.”
She didn’t have to wait long for her answer, as the voice joined her echoes with its own almost immediately.
“Negative.”
The two waited for any further explanation, but eventually settled down on their haunches when it was clear that the ‘guardian’ wasn’t forthcoming.
“Okay, we’ve got to think. This isn’t exactly what we were looking for, but it's still incredible.”
“Yeah, but whatever this guardian is, it’s not very cooperative. It’s not like talking to you or me; it answers questions directly, but doesn’t offer anything we don’t ask about.”
The unicorn mare nodded her head, “Plus, there’s some things it won’t tell us anyway.”
Daring placed a wing on her companion’s shoulder, catching her before she returned her attention back to the glowing red eye set in the wall.
“Do you think you can still teleport us out of here and back to the surface? We still need to get out of here and stock up again, but maybe… we can come back.”
“I… I don’t know how far down we really are. I might be able to, but my head still hurts and teleportation is something you need to concentrate on fully, otherwise only part of us might make it there, and who knows where the other parts of us might end up.”
Looking back up, Daring widened her stance and flared her wings.
“Guardian, is there a way back to the surface from here?”
“Affirmative.”
She waited for a second before facehoofing and asking again, quieter this time.
“Right, direct answer, dumb question. Guardian, what is the shortest way back to the surface from here?”
“Access denied. The most direct route would put this model’s subjects at risk of harm.”
“Your… your ‘subjects’ would be at risk of harm?”
“Affirmative.”
Daring thought back to the faint thumping she had felt through the door earlier, and suddenly realized something might be alive on the other side.
“Guardian, are there… Are there living creatures behind that door?”
“Affirmative.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Daring could see as Lyra’s eyes widened at this news, and her jaw opened in awe.
“W-wait that’s a door? Guardian!” The unicorn called out, “Are there humans behind that door?”
“Please standby.”
The two waited in the relative silence of the echo chamber for less than three seconds before the voice of the guardian boomed out once more to assault their ears.
“Scanning… Affirmative.”
Daring heard the thump off to her side as Lyra collapsed onto her haunches a second before she did. Turning her head to look at the unicorn felt like moving at a glacial pace, but eventually she managed to see the expression on her friend’s face. It was, understandably and completely expectedly, dumbstruck and beyond excited.
Their elation was short-lived however. For the first time since the unusual conversation had started, the massive glowing red eye in the wall looked away from either pony. It abruptly switched its gaze to the single, lone entrance to the chamber, and stared as unblinking as ever for a few seconds before turning its attention back to the mares.
“Warning. Threat level elevated. Subjects at risk. Beta-class lockdown initiated.”
Before either pony could recover from the ringing in their ears, they turned back to the tunnel exit, where a tremendous sound, like some titan grinding mountains together, resonated through the cavern. Far too quickly, another slab of metal slid out of the ground in the empty doorway, slamming closed and going partially through the rock as it embedded itself in the ceiling.
The slamming sound bounced around the empty room, eventually fading away as the tomb-like silence returned. Everything was quiet, but Daring's ears pricked up as she began to hear the quiet sounds of uneven thumping coming from both doors.
"Hey Daring? W-what's going on? I'm getting a really bad feeling about this."
Daring glanced around, ruffling her feathers as she too began to experience a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. She had no answer for Lyra, and she was less and less sure that she wanted an answer herself, as the banging began to get louder. Looking back up, she was met with the single, baleful, red eye staring back at her.
"Guardian? Do you know what's making those sounds?"
"Affirmative."
They waited for the other horseshoe to drop. When it didn't, Daring slapped a hoof across her face, feeling some of the tension dissipate, being partially replaced with foolishness.
"Right. Yes or no. Guardian, when we ask a question, can you elaborate on your answer? We don't understand most of what you're telling us."
"Affirmative."
“...”
"... Please elaborate your answers, Guardian."
“Affirmative. I shall do so for your convenience.”
Daring Doo took a deep breath, trying to calm her rapidly fraying nerves, the baying of metal being the only sound to accompany their thoughts.
“Guardian, what is making those sounds? Are they your subjects?”
The red eye seemed to turn clockwise ever so slowly, as if pondering her questions properly for the first time since the conversation had started.
“The source of the sounds comes from non-human entities. They are not subjects; they pose a threat to subjects.”
This time it was Lyra that spoke up.
“What do you mean ‘non-human’? What sort of creatures are they? And if there’s humans and these threats behind that door, how do you protect the humans? Are they all locked behind doors too?”
The red gaze switched between the two ponies several times, before settling on Lyra. The red light of the unblinking gaze seemed to cow her slightly, as the banging continued to grow in the silence, now accompanied by faint screaming. They were not screams of pain, but ones of anger; pure hatred and determination to get through the cold steel that barred their way. The unicorn suddenly looked very small and frail to Daring, who watched as she tried to put on a brave face for whatever the giant eye’s response was going to be.
“They are not human. Further explanation unavailable at this time. For the safety of subjects, all dangerous entities must be kept contained, Lyra Heartstrings.”
Lyra looked to Daring, confusion evident on her face. Despite their best efforts, it seemed that the giant eye creature wasn’t very forthcoming with information. Sidling up to the pegasus, Lyra winced as a particularly loud bang on the door echoed across the room, and lowered her voice, whispering and hoping the sounds of whatever was dearly trying to get into the room would cover up her voice.
“Daring, I’m starting to get a really, really bad feeling about this. I-I can’t… I don’t know If I can get us out of here, and we’re trapped on both sides. I might be able to teleport us into the tunnels again, but those things are out there too, and you said before, we don’t have the supplies to go all the way back on hoof.
“Guardian!” Daring shouted at the eye once more. “You said any way out would put the humans in harm’s way, is there some way for you to clear a way for us to get back to the surface without putting the humans in danger?”
“Negative.”
“Ponyfeathers!” Daring swore, her eyes scanning the room again, looking for an opening they might have overlooked. “Lyra ar-”
“Humans are not this entity’s subjects. Humans and non-human entities represent a threat to this entity’s subjects.”
The two mares exchanged looks, both standing up and walking to the large metal door, where the banging and screaming were steadily increasing in volume. The glowing circle of red lights in the giant orb tracked their every movement, and Daring was shocked to see the banging having an effect on the metal; old flakes of rust and silt were falling from the door with every slam, and the entire frame seemed to be vibrating in place now.
“Guardian? What do you mean humans aren’t your subjects? I thought this was a protective shelter to hold humans for a long time.”
“Affirmative. Emergency Station four-oh-one-five and other emergency stations are for the intended use of containing the remaining human populations in case of catastrophic danger.”
“W-what sort of catastrophic danger?” Lyra asked, flinching back and folding her ears back as a particularly loud bang sounded throughout the cavern and the metal of the door visibly dented inward.
“Environmental. Chemical. Social. Astronomical. Militaristic. Emergency Stations such as this were originally intended for containing human populations during any sort of extreme danger. This one succeeded in its original goal and continues operating under altered parameters.”
The door dented again and the two mares took a tentative step back from it, only to hear a piercing, echoing scream rock the cavern around them, and they glanced back to see similar dents and pits building outward from the door behind them. They were entirely boxed in, and whatever was outside those doors wasn’t happy being locked behind them.
It wanted in.
Daring grabbed Lyra by the shoulders and turned to look her in the eye. “Lyra, I need to know… can you get us out of here or not? We’re running out of time and the guardian isn’t going to be able to help us. We’re wasting our time the longer we stay here.”
The unicorn however, shook her friend off.
“I might be able to… I don’t know. But you and I both know once we leave, we’re never coming back here”
“Damn straight. Now you’re talking sense.”
Lyra straightened back up and turned towards the glowing red eye again, her jaw steeled and a small fire in her eyes once more. “If that’s the case… then I have to know what’s going on here, otherwise we’ll never find out what this place is or what happened here. Why… why humans are trapped in there with monsters instead of somewhere safe, why they’re in there at all in the first place, why-why they haven’t been let out.”
Daring flared her wings and hissed, but the other mare paid her no mind. “Lyra are you ins-”
“Guardian!”
The unblinking red glow of the dark orb on the wall stared at her, as if trying to sap her will through its gaze alone. But Lyra would not be deterred. Not when she had come this far, and she was this close. She would finally get answers to the questions about humans she had been trying to answer for years, and if not that, she would find out what was so dangerous about unlocking those secrets.
“What caused you to lock the humans in there?”
“Catastrophic failure of surface civilizations caused by unforeseen circumstances forced the evacuation of human populations into emergency stations.”
“The surface world is fine now though! Whatever you were protecting them from, it happened a long time ago, so you can let the humans out! It’s safe up on the surface again!”
“Affirmative, it is safe on the planet’s surface for the subjects of this and other emergency stations.”
“Wait, but you said-” The cacophony of banging, clanging, scratching and screaming continued to mount, so much that Lyra now had to shout to be heard over it. The whole room seemed to tremble with the weight of the rage that the creatures were pouring into it, trying to get through each door. Daring flared her wings, jittering in place as she backed up against Lyra, her fatigued body tense and ready for action; she just didn’t know what she’d be able to do if the doors gave in.
“You said that humans aren’t your subjects! So then who or what is?”
“Members of subject species in vicinity. Subjects must not be allowed to come to harm. Error. Beta-class lockdown insufficient. Multiple breaches detected. Non-human entities pose threat to surface subjects. Local subjects unlikely to survive current breach. Initiating countermeasures.”
“Wait, Guardian! What’s going on?!”
The two mares whirled about, looking back and forth as more dents appeared on both doors, and the thin line running the length of the main door began to bulge outwards, seeping black fluids that slowly dribbled into the room, while the screaming grew more intense. Thin, sharp shapes poked in and out of the crack, attempting to gain purchase on the edge, but there were too many of them and they jammed up, wriggling and writhing like hook-headed worms while dozens of ragged voices roared through the opening incoherently.
“Guardian, what are the local subjects?! What ‘countermeasures’ do you mean?! Can’t you keep those things out of here?!”
Lyra’s voice was high and shrill, and her eyes were wild. Daring could see her matted mane as both of them started sweating uncontrollably. Though the seam in the door seemed miniscule and had jammed up with monstrous appendages, it continued to grow, slowly. The door groaned and shrieked like a creature trying to hold back the tide of monsters, and the mares’ collective sobs, quiet as they were, went unnoticed alongside the hellish symphony of metal and unrelenting rage.
Above it all, echoing along the cavern walls, was the Guardian’s deep, booming voice, still somehow heard over the volume of the wails.
“Local subjects identified as Daring Dew and Lyra Heartstrings. Subject’s chances of surviving contact with human- and non-human entities minimal. Human subjects were contained as per original protocols. Primary subject designation changed during containment to species designation: Pony. Human- and non-human entities were designated threats by subject identified as Clover Clever and must remain contained as per altered parameters. This emergency station must prevent surface subject population from coming to harm.”
The red glowing eye, pierced through Daring and Lyra, appearing to look at both of them at the same time while an insistent scrabbling noise began to emanate from the smaller door to the tunnels. Scarcely a few moments had gone by before a long, ragged rip began to tear into the middle of the door, while claws, hands, and gnarled, thorny limbs sprouted from the opening, pressing on the sides and pushing it down, in attempt to widen the hole.
“Countermeasure selected; charges armed. Tunnel collapse highly likely. Destruction of all human-, non-human, and subject entities within vicinity of Emergency Station four-oh-one-five imminent. Countdown initiated. Goodbye, Daring Dew and Lyra Heartstrings. Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight…”
“Lyra!” Daring shouted, pressing as close to her companion as she could, her knees shaking as the reaching claws of whatever lay beyond the doors attempted to drag their way into the room. “We have to get out of here! I know you’re not sure if you can teleport us back to the camp up on the surface, but it's our only hope!”
“But Daring, you heard the thing! It’s gonna bury the whole tunnel network! Our camp is right on top of that. We were wandering for days! If it can bring down the tunnels, the whole mountain range might buckle beneath us and bury us anyway!”
Daring gave a mighty flap of her wings and leapt off the ground before quickly turning around and wrapping her legs around Lyra’s barrel. Leaning forward, she screamed into the other mare’s ear over the cacophony. Her whole body trembled, from fear or adrenaline or exhaustion, she couldn’t tell, but she refused to think about it and hoped she wouldn’t give out if they survived the next few seconds.
“... eleven, ten, nine…”
“It doesn’t matter! Teleport us above it! I’ll fly us down! Just try it!”
The unicorn’s horn lit up as she closed her eyes, gritting her teeth in pain as she tried to concentrate, pulling on the vestiges of magic just out beyond the edge of her consciousness even as it tried to slip away from her. She opened her mouth and a primal yell tore its way past her lips as she poured all of her remaining strength into the spell, grasping for it like a drowning mare trying to reach sunlight. Her voice mixed with the shrill alarm and the countdown that reverberated over the endless screaming as her will took hold of the magic within herself and directed it.
Daring had her eyes and ears open to her surroundings as her friend powered up her horn, attempting to unleash the spell and save their lives. As such, she heard the numbers counting down to their demise, she saw the glow of Lyra’s horn intensify... and with that light, she saw as the doors in front of her finally buckled, and endless shadows surged into the room.
They were nothing like anything Lyra had ever described or speculated about humans, and dozens of long, brittle limbs reached out for the two of them, filling the entire room instantly. Hair, thick and wiry flew about in long wisps and seemed as insubstantial as smoke. Hundreds of bloodied, sharp teeth clacked together from uncountable mouths which roared, screaming their pure hatred of all life.
And the eyes.
In those that had them, their eyes shone like dark pits in sunken nightmare faces, as brilliant and horrific as a black hole, ready to suck up everything, even light. Daring only managed to see them for a split second before the world flashed bright yellow with magic, but the image was imprinted into her mind forever. As soon as she saw them, she nearly collapsed, wanting to pluck her eyes from their sockets, but even then, she knew she'd see the scene over and over again for the rest of her life, however long it would be.
But she still had a duty, and a friend counting on her. So as the light blinded her, instead of letting go and falling to the ground in terror, she tensed up, ready to flap at the first sign of daylight, her hold on Lyra tightening into a death grip. Unable to scour the image from her mind and sight, she did the only other thing any pony confronted with such horrors could do: she screamed.
Her voice carried along with the crescendo of ceaseless noise and mounting roars; Daring’s scream of pain and fear mixed and flowed together with Lyra’s own yell. The ground trembled beneath them, the unspeakable creatures surged forward like a tsunami of flesh and teeth, the klaxxon and countdown of the guardian piqued, and a deep, gut-wrenching rumble carried through the whole mountain.
For a moment, the scene was suspended in time, everything happening at once, the sound overloading the ponies senses, the light shining brightly in the dim cavern and finally giving color to the surroundings while dark horrors were framed in every corner. The next moment, time resumed.
The light flashed out. The world went black.
