My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic: Heart of Friendship

by ShadowDurza

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Violence, Death, Human, Main 6, Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Thriller
Length: 52333

After recovering from their epic battle, our heroines discover an ancient secret about the very origins of friendship, and the origins of friendship problems, and set out to solve it by reuniting the ponies with their ancient two-legged friends.

Set between "The Ending of the End" and the flashback in "The Last Problem" The Main 6 are called before the princesses to discover the mystery of the world's first friendship, by solving the world's first friendship problem. In the distant past, the ancient ponies were defended from the dangers of the untamed world by the humans: the mightiest warriors the world ever saw and users of powerful elemental magics. However, something happened between them that drove the humans underground to the very heart of the world.

Down in the cavern our little ponies find a vast but treacherous city, and must work to repair the bonds broken by time through facing dangers untold. However, several unsavory parties seem to want them for their own agendas.

Published 2022-02-04 20:20:00 UTC
Last updated 2022-12-30 15:41:42 UTC

Chapter 0: Journey to the Heart of the World

The ponies trotted into the throne room and bowed before Celestia and Luna. Twilight raised her head first. “Hello, Princess. It’s nice to see you again, and it’s nice to see the rebuilt throne room. Your message said to come immediately, but there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong. What did you want?”

Celestia smiled. “There’s nothing wrong, at least not in our world. But I didn’t call because of what I wanted, my little ponies. I called you for what he wanted.”

Starswirl the Bearded cantered in from the side. “Good day, Princess Twilight. I’m sorry for bothering all of you and taking your time away from your daily lives.”

“It’s no bother, we’re always ready to hear out one of the wisest ponies in the land, and an expert of friendship if I do say so myself.”

“You have no idea how much it means to hear that coming from you, but friendship is exactly the reason why I came here, or rather the unfortunate by-product of friendship.”

Twilight raised her eyebrow in curiosity. “What does that mean?”

“I suppose the best way to make things clear would be to show you.” Starswirl closed his eyes as the tip of his horn began to glow. He pointed it toward the wall and a beam of magic shot out. At the point where it collided, an arched entryway appeared, leading into a path lit by torches.

“Follow me.” Starswirl entered his newly-created hallway. The others looked at each other for reassurance and followed.

***

A short trek later, they came upon a large chamber full of ancient treasures of all shapes, sizes, and forms. Pottery, tablets, tapestries, glasswork, frescos, wall paintings, scrolls, textiles, statues, wood etchings, all depicting the history of the long past. Twilight looked around in awe. “Woah… These artifacts predate equestria by centuries! They go back to the earliest recorded days of the three tribes!”

Starswirl nodded in approval. “Indeed they do, Princess. But tell me, do you see something here that isn’t familiar? Something strange and out of place, yet constantly depicted alongside the ancient ponies?”

Twilight squinted in concentration. “I see earth ponies tending the land, alongside something doing the same with tools they’re carrying in, something… not quite paws or claws. I’m also seeing pegasi making weather in the sky, with some things flying with them and standing on clouds with their… back legs? And I see unicorns practicing magic, alongside something else performing a different kind of magic. Magic like I’ve never seen!”

“And they’re all wearing… clothes! All the time!”

“And singing!”

“And traveling in wagons pulled by ponies! All over the place!”

“And playing music!”

“And fighting monsters with crazy weapons! Awesome!”

“And dancing!”

“And eating… meat? Oh my…”

Twilight approached Starswirl with a concerned look on her face. “Starswirl. This is a huge part of our history that isn’t even mentioned in any books! What are these creatures, what happened to them, and what is their relationship with our ancestors?”

Starswirl sighs and gazes at his collection forlornly. “Ever since I first laid eyes on these images within the ancient ruins I explored, I’ve been obsessed. I’ve been gathering every trace of this hidden lore I could find since back when they called me Starswirl the Stubbled.” “After years of translating numerous dead languages and decoding ancient glyphs, this is what I’ve found: In our species' earliest days, we were not alone in this world.

“No doubt the first friendship the world ever knew was shared between ponies and a race of creatures called… humans.”“From what I could gather, the humans were the mightiest warriors the world ever saw. They could take down any manner of foe by combining their innate magic powers with fighting styles taught to them since childhood. Some even said that monsters tell their children stories of humans to scare them.”

Rainbow Dash rises in amazement. “No way!”

“Like the ponies, they were divided into tribes based upon their innate magical abilities embodying the elemental forces that compose our world. Earth: Substantial and rigid. Water: Perseverant and adaptive. Air: Free and fluid. Fire: Passionate and aggressive. Ether: Specialized and undefinable. And on occasion when they mixed: Everything in between.

“Beyond that, they were also incredibly diverse and had a lust for adventure. As they traveled throughout the lands, each group would form a distinctive culture with their own likes and dislikes. But what they all had in common was a love of telling stories, eating, and music. In fact, I have reason to believe that their music was what attracted the primitive nomadic ponies to their encampments. As they traded their goods and tales, they began to bond. Eventually, they began traveling together, teaching and learning from one another, with the humans defending their new friends from the dangers of the wild.

“However, where there was once the world's first friendship, there soon emerged the world’s first friendship problem.”

Twilight trotted closer to Starswirl. “What happened? What was the problem?” “That’s the painful truth my dear, I can’t say. Every account of the event says something different and contradictory to the others, or focuses more on the emotional impact of the aftermath. All that I know for sure is that a great injustice was performed, and whatever the case, the humans could no longer bear to live in the same land as their former friends.

“They all combined their power and created an entryway leading to the very heart of the world, and went through to build a new civilization for themselves. As you can imagine, this devastated the ancient ponies. Blinded by grief, each tribe held the others accountable. They began slandering and quarreling with each other so intensely that over time, they forgot the reason for all of the hostility in the first place. And thus began the age of inter-tribal prejudice that ended upon the founding of Equestria.”

Twilight looked at her friends. One by one, they all nodded. “Starswirl, no friendship problem can be allowed to last for that long. We want to go to the heart of the world.”

Starswirl smiled and nodded. “Excellent. I have the means right here.” Starswirl went deeper among his artifacts. He emerged dragging a drum several times as large as himself with his magic. “This is the Drum of Mending. Before the humans left, they imbued this artifact with the same magic that they used to create the entrance.

“It took a lot of research, especially since human magic is very different from unicorn magic, but this is what I understand about triggering its power: Firstly, an earth pony, pegasus, and unicorn must get on top of and beat the drum with their hooves. This will release an energy that another unicorn must channel through themselves and another pegasus and earth pony while holding feelings that desire reconciliation in their hearts.”

Twilight turned to her friends. “I suggest we do this tomorrow morning. I have a feeling we all need to appoint delegates to cover our responsibilities while we’re away.”

Starswirl nodded. “Excellent. I’ll set up the preparations for the ritual in the castle courtyard.”

***

The ponies trotted up to the giant drum in the middle of Canterlot’s castle courtyard. Starswirl trotted out from behind it. “Welcome. I believe you know what to do next.”

Twilight nodded. “We do. Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, you get on the drum. Applejack, Rainbow Dash, you’re with me.

One by one, the three ponies were levitated on top of the drum by Starswril.

“I hope this doesn’t ruin my hooficure.”

“This’ll be fun!”

“Oh my… Is that real hide?”

The three ponies then began to bounce on the drum, cantering in place. At first they were haphazard, but soon they found a unified rhythm.

Rainbow Dash flew to Twilight’s right side with Applejack trotting to the other side. “This is gonna be awesome!”

“You know it! I wonder how many books humans wrote these past few thousand years! I hope they like our books! We have so much to catch up on!”

“Somehow, I knew you’d go right there Twi’.”

They all closed their eyes and pictured sentimental moments in their life where they reconnected with ponies they cared for. Twilight’s horn began to glow. Two tethers of magic connected to Applejack and Rainbow Dash’s chests. From Twilight’s horn, an orange, blue, and purple beam of magic shot out and hit the barrel, which glowed with a pink, yellow, and indigo light. Each of the lights grew more and more intense as they mixed in an aurora that danced throughout the courtyard. And then, the lights faded.

Everypony looked at one another in concern. Rainbow Dash frowned. “Well that was anticlimactic!” Suddenly, the ground beneath the drum began to shake, the shaking began to spread outward until a small earthquake filled the whole courtyard, shaking the leaves from the trees and knocking over statues.

Rarity turned to her friends on the drum. “I-think-ink-ink-this-is-is-is-our-cue-to-oo-oo-get off!” The three ponies leapt off the drum and galloped next to their friends.

As the drum shook, it’s lower half sunk into the ground. Then, a series of cracks began spreading outward in a triangular shape from a point around the rim. Once the cracks had reached ten feet in width, the shaking stopped and the cracked ground fell away, revealing a sloping passage into darkness as if it were always there.

Pinkie shivered, or rather wiggled. “Spooookey!”

“You think there’s enough room to fly down there?”

Twilight arched her eyebrow. “I assume they wouldn’t migrate to a location without making sure it’d be able to sustain them.”

Starswirl cantered over to the other edge of the entrance. “I know this is a mission of peace, but be careful. We have no idea how their civilization evolved, how much they remember, or how much they’ve forgotten. There’s no guarantee they’ll react calmly to what amounts to contact with aliens.”

Twilight smiles daringly. “We’ve saved Equestria many times, from many different types of threats, by this point, I think we can handle pretty much anything.” Twilight turns towards her friends. “Come on everypony, we’ve got a long overdue friendship problem to solve!” Side by side, they trotted into the darkness below.

Chapter 1: The Gatekeepers of Core Metro

Author's Note

From here on out, expect a monthly serialization!

Chapter 1: The Gatekeepers of Core Metro

“Oh! It’s so dirty! And dank! And this hard, rocky ground is definitely going to ruin my hooficure!”

“Well sugarcube, at least you have a horn to light the way. I can barely see past my snout!”

“You think you have it bad? I can hardly stretch my wings, much less fly!”

Twilight squints while looking into the distance. “Hold on everypony, I think I can see something ahead.”

After cantering for several minutes, they saw a dim light at the end of the tunnel. They cantered right to it to behold a vast cavern. It looked big enough to hold a quarter of Equestria. Around the edges, rivers of lava flowed from the top down. But the source of the light they saw from the tunnel was undoubtedly in the exact center. Surrounded by walls as tall as a mountain was a city at least ten times the size of Manehatten, full of more lights and buildings than any of them could count. From the front gates of the wall, a worn path extended outward and branched throughout the cavern and into numerous caves such as their own.

Twilight’s eyes brightened at the sight of it all. “Well, it certainly seems that they’ve done well for themselves! Even despite this environment.”

Applejack looks upon the sight with skepticism. “They’ve done pretty well for themselves despite a lot. I don’t really see anything resembling farmland, or any land suitable for farming at all. I didn’t think any community could thrive without agriculture.”

“There’s clearly enough room to fly here, but I don’t see any clouds either. Where do they get their water? The pictures didn’t make it look like they were the kind of creatures that didn’t need it.”

“And I also don’t see much in the way of critters. If they really eat um… meat… where could they find any of it?”

Suddenly, they were beset by a rapid series of booming quakes. From out of the darkness leapt something huge and hairy that landed in front of them. Applejack leaned closer to Twilight, slowly. “Twilight. What is that?”

“I… don’t know. I guess it kind of looks like the pictures.”

Rainbow Dash assumed a crouched position. “If you ask me, it kind of looks like the pictures the same way a pony kind of looks like a horse.”

Fluttershy was the first to take the initiative. She flew upward and forward so she was eye-level with it. “Hello there, mister, um… creature. I’m sorry if we’ve intruded on your territory, but we mean you no harm. If you’ll allow us, we’ll leave without causing you trouble.”

At first, the creature just stared at her. Then, it straightened it’s back, inhaled deeply, and thrust its face directly at Fluttershy. “GWAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!”

Fluttershy was caught by a speedy Rainbow Dash after being flung back by the force of the creature’s roar. After touching down, she scowled at the creature and pointed her hoof at it. “Now look here! There’s no reason to bring my mother into this! Especially with that kind of language!”

Rainbow Dash scraped at the ground with her hoof and snorted. “I take it that it’s not interested in letting us go?” The beast answered by baring its fangs and charging.

Twilight flew back and shot a series of powerful magical beams into its face. The beast shook its head but continued its charge. It swept its claws at Applejack and Pinkie, who jumped out of the way. Meanwhile, Applejack gripped her teeth around the rope sticking out of her saddlebag and swung her lasso at the beast’s other claw. She wrenched her neck to the side and managed to pull the beast off-balance. Pinkie pie jumped up after pulling a party cannon (out of nowhere) and blasted it in the face, sending it toppling. Rainbow Dash sweeped down several times and got in multiple kicks to its stomach.

The beast managed to rise and roar right as Rainbow Dash sweeped down, knocking her back and disorienting her. The beast charged towards her, but Rarity managed to shoot magic from her horn and protect her with a barrier of ethereal crystal. As the beast fruitlessly struck at the dome with its claws, Twilight began concentrating her magic above herself. She shot her magic bomb at the beast. It collided with the beast’s side and blasted it away, but it quickly recovered to its feet.

Rainbow Dash gritted her teeth. “Nothing’s working! It’s taking everything we’re throwing at it and shrugging it off!” The other ponies regrouped around her.

Twilight’s horn began to glow intensely. “I could blind it with a flash and we could make a break for it.”

Fluttershy shook her head. “If it could track us from a distance, it might have other well-developed senses. The flash would only stun it for a few seconds, but it would still chase us.”

Suddenly, they all craned their necks as they spotted something huge and bright flying in from above. The beast was smashed into the ground by a big flaming boulder. After a few moments, longer than any of the ponies’ attacks did, the beast rose from the smoldering rubble and roared.

Dashing out of the darkness, something larger than the ponies but less than half the size of the beast hefted something long, broad, and blunt jumped, and smashed it against the beast’s head. After a momentary flinch, the beast tried to swipe its claws at the figure, only to have each of its strikes turned aside by the same weapon held in a defensive position.

As the beast recovered from it’s onslaught, a stream of fire flew out from the distance, briefly illuminating a figure holding a staff at the point of its creation. It floated over the beast and spread out, before coming down as a deluge of darts made of fire.

The beast roared and thrashed around, but it’s small rampage was brought to an end as the figure with the weapon made an upward sweep, causing a pillar of stone to erupt on it’s path and jab the beast into a stagger. The beast recovered from its stagger and leaped into the air with it’s arms extended overhead. The figure with the weapon countered by doing a short leaping slam of its own into the ground, causing a number of shorter but stouter spikes of stone to erupt and intercept the beast as it made landfall.

The beast quickly rose after it was flung back, but it appeared to be moving sluggishly. The figure with the staff created a large quantity of fire and concentrated a small sphere of flame. It let it fly and the fireball hit the beast’s neck and exploded. The beast fell over, and this time it didn’t get back up.

The figure with the weapon gestured overhead with one of it’s upper appendages. The figure with the staff was illuminated by a series of fiery orbs shooting from it’s tool, which hung in the air illuminating the surrounding area. The figure with the weapon looked around and froze as it saw the ponies. It hefted its weapon over its shoulder and slowly approached them.

When it got closer, the ponies could finally get a good look at it. This time, the creature they saw looked exactly like the pictures from the artifacts. It had brown hair, hazel eyes, and a tan complexion. It wore metal armor around it’s torso, the ends of its limbs, and a metal mask covering its forehead and cheeks. At first, they just stared at each other for a minute. Then, it looked around as if searching for something. When it appeared that it couldn’t find what it was looking for, it spoke, or rather yelled: “Hello? We heard a ruckus and sensed some magic! I think I’ve found your beasts of burden! They’re really well trained, they stayed close together!”

Rarity scoffed and tossed her mane aside. “Beasts of burden? Why, I never!”

The human stared at Rarity, blinked a few times, and screamed, falling on its behind. “SANCTIFIED MOTHER OF ULTIMA!”

The figure with the staff called out from a distance. “Gus! What’s going on?”

The human stood back up and called out to the figure. “Gus! Get over here! You’ve got to see this to believe it!” After a few minutes, the figure with the staff came into view. It had brown eyes, black hair, and a lighter complexion. It was wearing cloth robes, a leather apron, and for some reason had a pewter soup cauldron on its head like a hat.

It looked over the ponies, then turned to the other human. “Gus, we’ve known each other for years, and you should know I’m open-minded enough to believe in multi-colored beasts of burden when I hear about them.”

Rainbow Dash furrowed her brow and extended her neck. “How many times do we have to say that we’re not beasts of burden, or even beasts?”

The human with the pot’s eyes grew very wide as he leaned on his weapon. “‘Sanctified mother or Ultima’ indeed!” The human with the armor looked like he was about to say something, but the human with the pot held up his upper appendage with one of his digits extended upward. He walked closer to the ponies and took a more straight posture. “Who are you people, and do you come in peace?”

Twilight stepped forward and bowed her head, smiling. “I am princess Twilight Sparkle of Equestria. These are my friends, Applejack…”

“Howdy.”

“Rainbow Dash…”

“‘Sup?”

“Pinkie Pie…”

“Hellooo!”

“Fluttershy…” Fluttershy nodded her head, smiling.

“And Rarity.”

“Charmed, I’m sure.”

“We come as ambassadors to reestablish friendly relations between the ponies and the humans.”

The human with the pot scratched his chin. “Reestablish? Are we supposed to know you? Are you from another cavern or something?”

“Actually, we’re from the surface, and we-”

“The surface?” The human with the pot got a dreamy look in his eyes. “You mean, with the sky, and the sun, and the moon, and the clouds, and the mountains and seas, and the grass, trees, and flowers?”

The human in the armor started arrogantly laughing. “Gus, you’ve been reading too many old story books! Every grown-up knows that the surface and all those silly things are a myth to get kids to sleep!”

The human with the pot scowled at him. “Oh yeah, Gus? Who told you that?”

The human in the armor puffed out his chest. “My dad, of course!”

“Didn’t your dad also tell you that if you drop a big rock and a little rock from the same height at the same time, the bigger one would hit the ground fist?”

The armored human slouched and looked at the ground. “Yes…”

“And…?”

“And he was wrong! I admit it! Happy?”

Twilight arched an eyebrow. “Um… Sirs? I think we’re getting off the subject matter.” They glanced at Twilight and back at each other.

The Gus with the pot pointed at Twilight with a digit. “The pony’s right…” He looked back at Twilight. “That’s what you said you were called, right?” Twilight nodded. “If there’s even a chance of there being a civilization of creatures every bit as smart as we are and able to use magic living right over our heads, we’ve got to tell someone! We’ve got to tell the Directors! Heck, this’s gotta go all the way to the High Director!”

The Gus with the armor leaned back. “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Slow down there! Even I understand that we’ve found something way, way, WAY big, but we haven’t even told the Gatemaster yet!”

“So you agree that we should bring them back with us?”

The Gus with the armor gave a quick worried glance to the ponies. “Yep.”

The Gus with the pot went back up to Twilight. “Looks like you bunch’re going back to Core Metro with us. I’ll take the lead, Gus’ll man the back. And tread carefully, you never know what could’ve been attracted by all that noise.” The Gus with the pot made a snapping sound with his digits, and all the flames above went out. He pointed his staff forward and its tip burst into flame.

Twilight turned to look at her friends. “Come on everypony. We’re in their world now, so we must follow their rules.” Twilight followed the Gus with the pot. The others looked at each other for reassurance and followed.

***

“You know, Twilight, right? The more I think about it, the more I remember stuff I’ve read about you folk.”

Twilight perked up. “You have no idea how glad I am to hear that… Gus?”

The Gus in the back shouted ahead. “Yeah?”

“She was talking to me, blockhead!” The Gus in the front glanced back at Twilight. “I’m sorry, this whole event has been a big shock, but that’s no reason to discard etiquette. I’m Gus as in Gustoff.” Gustoff gestured behind them with one of his larger digits. “He’s Gus as in Augustus.”

“What?”

“I was introducing us, boulder brain!”

“Burn butt!”

“Mud mouth!”

“Sizzling sneeze!”

Twilight raised her brow in concern. “Um… is there an issue between you guys?”

“Nah, this is just how we act casually. We're actually really good friends.”

Twilight looked relieved. “That’s good. I could kind of tell. Friendship is what I’m all about. In fact, it’s what all of us are about.”

Gustoff shrugged. “Well, that’s what I’m getting at.” He pointed at Pinkie and Applejack with the back of his staff. “I remember that they’re what earth ponies look like…” He pointed at Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. “They’re pegasi...” Then, he pointed at Rarity. “And she’s a unicorn.” Finally, he pointed to Twilight herself. “But I don’t know what to call a pony with both wings and a horn. Are you some kind of hybrid or mutation or what?”

“It’s a long story, but I was born a unicorn. When I proved myself worthy of being a princess, I just sort of turned into an alicorn.”

Gustoff glanced back at Twilight. “You mean like an immortal?”

“What’s that?”

Gustoff looked back forward and shook his head. “Oh, nothing. Just an old legend.”

“Now look who’s being incur… incru…”

Gustoff turned to shout back at Augustus. “Incredulous, you twit!”

“The immortals are real! And when they return, they’ll lead us to glory!”

“Did your dad tell you that too?” Augustus loudly groaned, but held his tongue.

After an awkward pause, Rainbow Dash flew up closer to Gustoff. “So, I just gotta ask. What’s with the pot? Seems like an awkward choice for going into battle.” Augustus tried to cover up his grin.

“Whoops.”

Gustoff jerked his head back to Rainbow Dash. “Watch it, quadruped! My father fell in battle wearing this cauldron! And his father! And his father! And his father before him!”

“And let me guess, you hope to one day fall in battle wearing that helmet?”

“What? No! I hope to go out peacefully in my sleep surrounded by my many descendants! Do I look like some kind of freak to you?”

Rainbow Dash flew back behind the others. “Gee. Sorry I asked.”

Augustus laughed under his breath and leaned closer. “I asked him the same thing when I first met the guy, the exchange was word for word. He’s usually the people person, but when it comes to that dingy soup pot, he gets wound up so tight.”

Rainbow Dash giggled. “I think I can think of somepony just like that, or rather, somepony that used to be like that.”

“Really? Do tell.” Twilight gently smiled as she listened to the conversation, and rolled her eyes as certain unflattering subjects came up, which coincided with a series of muffled giggles.

Eventually, they came upon a crest on a hill, and beheld the gates of the city. The giant plates of riveted iron served as an entry point in an otherwise impassable wall of smooth, solid stone. But what really drew their attention was the thing standing in front of them. The metal construct stood twice as tall as the beast they encountered previously, holding an ax with a blade bigger than the beast’s head with one appendage. Gustoff guided them towards it, and as they neared, the construct’s empty visor began to glow with two orange lights as it stepped towards them. “WHO GOES?”

Chapter 2: Quest of the Gatemaster

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 3: Heart of a Warrior, Spirit of a Beast

“Please, Mr. Monster! You’re not going to catch me, so leave me alone before I… do something nasty to get away!”

“HHHSSSS!”

“How rude! Does your mother know you talk like that?”

“HCCK! HSSS! HSSS! HSSS!”

“Oh! Well, I guess you had to learn from somewhere!”

Fluttershy tried everything her limited mastery of high-speed flight allowed her to get away, but the beast was relentless in its pursuit. She weaved around the canopy stools, but the beast either hopped out of their way or tore them out of the ground with a bat of its claws. She flew over and past outcrops of rock, only for the beast to smash them to rubble in its headlong charge. She tried to use its momentum against it by leading it to and dashing away from the walls of the cave, but its powerful limbs were more nimble that she expected as it merely hopped against and rebounded off of them to continue its chase.

Fluttershy’s stamina was running out, and it didn’t help that she had to exert even more strength to evade the pounces of this determined monster. Opening her eyes after dodging another sweeping claw, she saw what may be her salvation: a ravine up ahead. She’d hate to endanger even a monster, but she learned the hard way more than once that she couldn’t help others if she didn’t help herself.

She flew with all her might towards the ravine and past the edge. The beast leaped towards her with its front limbs flailing. Before it fell, it snagged her tail with a claw, sending her spinning. The beast barreled towards the ground while a dazed Fluttershy repeatedly bounced off of umbrella-sized shelf fungi on her way down.

Fluttershy hit the ground on her belly. She rubbed her head with her hoof until everything stopped spinning. When she recovered, she quietly thanked Celestia that nothing was hurt. She scanned her surroundings until she found the monster lying on its back, unmoving. She slowly got as close as she dared in order to inspect it, and was relieved to find it twitching slightly as a low trilling came from its open mouth.

Fluttershy flapped her wings in preparation to ascend out of the ravine, but yelped as her back was filled with a sharp cramp. “Oh dear! I must have strained something with that last dash! I’m just not used to flying like that…”

Fluttershy tried to roll her wings in their sockets, but winced each time she twisted them just so. She swayed her head side to side, taking stock of her situation. The walls were too sheer for her to climb out, and the mushroom clusters were too far apart to parkour her way out. Silently wishing she’d been born a mountain goat, she proceeded on hoof deeper into the ravine.

As she traversed the dark and rocky terrain, she reflected upon the doubts she’d been having ever since she and her friends started this journey. When she was more young and less wise, she’d received many scoldings from animal handlers and veterinarians for her attempts at trying to make predators less predatory. Over time, she’d learned to accept that she had to let animals be themselves, but insisted on nonaggression when she was tending to animals from different parts of the food chain at the same time. But her feelings about predation were quite different when creatures that could talk were involved. It was one thing to get violent in self-defense, but these humans seemed to look for trouble for the enjoyment of conflict.

She jerked to a stop as she heard a rock being displaced. She turned her head side to side before craning her head upward, swearing she could see something glimmering in the darkness. She nervously swallowed. “Um… whoever’s up there… I mean you no harm, so please come out…”

Fluttershy stared as the source of the glimmering descended. She momentarily forgot to breathe as it came into the light of the luminous lichen. It was a spider, but none like Fluttershy had ever seen. Its body alone was the size of a full-grown hippopotamus. Each leg was as long as one of Applejack’s trees was tall when fully extended. And its pedipalps ended in claws sharp and long like a farmer’s scythes. Each segment was covered in a glistening, bone-white enamel instead of the usual hairy chitin.

Fluttershy always liked spiders, and many ponies that knew her couldn’t fathom why, but now she was feeling more empathetic towards that opinion as she stood frozen before the monster. She shook herself out of her trance. “Mr. Spider… monster… thing… I’m not any trouble at all. I’d be very… happy… if you’d let me go in peace…”

Fluttershy heard a low rattling coming from the monster’s mandibles that chilled her to the bone. So… Hungry… So… Long… Fresh… Meat… Warm… Meat…

The monster steadily advanced while Fluttershy slowly backed away. “Well, Mr. Spider Monster… I really wish I could help… But my kind doesn’t really eat meat… I really hope you find something soon, so… Goodbye!” Fluttershy galloped away as the spider scuttled in pursuit.

As she galloped, Fluttershy repeatedly hopped and flapped her wings regardless of the pain, but she couldn’t muster the strength to take flight. Every time she heard the rhythmic pounding of the monster’s legs upon the hard ground grow closer, she galloped and flapped with greater intensity, fueled by terror and adreneline.

Fluttershy’s stomach sank as she reached the end of the ravine. She turned back to the ravine proper as the spider steadily approached her. As she spotted the glistening of its dark eyes, she disregarded all inhibitions and performed her stare once again. The spider slowed to what seemed to be a stop, but one-by-one, it still put one leg in front of the other. She broke out in a cold sweat as she listened to the rattling of its mandibles. Hungry… Hungry… HUNGRY…

“Oh dear. I thought the stare would be more effective against a creature that can’t shut its eyes, but it's just that ravenous!” Beyond the terror infesting the surface of her mind, she felt pity for the poor, starving creature before her.

As her eyes strained, the monster only grew closer to the point where she could smell the venom dripping from its mandibles. However, it froze its pursuit as the both of them heard a guttural howl that shook the ravine. The howl rapidly grew closer as Fluttershy noticed a figure diving in from above. As it hung over the creature, it extended a fist right into the monster’s front eyes. It leapt off, landing between the spider and Fluttershy as the creature squealed and staggered backwards.

Fluttershy took a good look at the figure that may have saved her life. It was clearly a human, taller and broader than any other human she’d met thus far, with bright mane-like hair growing past its shoulders. He wore a denim vest and a pair of shorts. His weapons were interesting, he gripped them with horizontal handles connected to a long plate which encircled his knuckles studded with big blunt spikes that in turn connected to a crossed mesh of thin plates guarding the top of his hand. Unlike the dull weapons of the gatekeepers, they gleamed in several shades with the color of indigo-grey.

The spider reared up on its back set of legs, holding its front pair aloft, and squealed. HUNGRY…! FEED…! NOW…!

The human made a low, nasally snarl. “Oh yeah? Well I’m hungry for battle! How ‘bout I feed you my cestus, RIGHT NOW!”

Fluttershy blinked a couple of times. “Did he… Did he understand it too?”

The spider charged, when it got close, it swung its pedipalps repeatedly with the human deflecting each strike with his weapons. As the monster recovered, the human got it in the eye with an overhand punch.

The monster was sent reeling, but once it regained its footing, it gnashed its mandibles and made a headlong rush with them extended. The human pulled back his arm and his hand began to glow. The human slashed with giant ethereal bear-like claws that glowed with a dark blue light, forcing the monster back again as it left deep gashes across its vital limbs.

This time, the human charged the monster. The spider stood up and extended its legs as its abdomen brandished a sting. The human lowered his shoulder as the aura surrounding it morphed into the shape of a giant boar’s head with big, curved tusks. The sting glanced off the aura’s forehead as the tusks pierced the abdomen.

The spider shuddered as it was forced back once again. The spider bent down low as the human took a prepared stance, clashing his weapons against one another. The monster jumped in the air, its legs extended outward as it sailed towards the human. The human’s arms glowed as two oversized longhorns extended from both shoulders before he jumped to meet the creature. The spider practically howled as the ethereal horns buried themselves in its abdomen, protruding out of its back as they both fell to the ground.

The monster’s legs began to twitch as the rattling from its mandibles grew fainter. Huuuuunnngrrryyyyy…

The human dropped his stance and approached the spider. He laid a hand on its curled leg. “You fought valiantly, mighty beast. But it was either you or me. Thank you for the great battle. I swear to you that no part of your remains will go to waste.” The human hung its head in silence for a few moments.

The human lifted its head, turned to and walked towards Fluttershy. She noticed that he had a goatee covering his chin and green eyes that seemed to change shade with his expression. His vest was unbuttoned to show his hairy chest. “What have we here? Would you like to come home with me? I’m sure you’d make an excellent-”

Fluttershy interrupted him by clearing her throat, trying not to think about his unusually large canine teeth. “Um… I’d prefer not to be called a beast of burden… Wilda, I presume?”

Wilda, after making his weapons disappear in a flash of indigo-grey light, tilted his head to the side and crossed his arms. “Now that’s a shocker for a lifetime. I take it you’re from the surface?”

Fluttershy blinked a couple of times. “H-How did you know that?”

“Oh, many of us have elemental powers involving things none of us have seen before. It’s safe to assume that there’s more to this world than this cavern, however big it is. You’ve met the Gatemaster, right? His element is iron, mine is beast, and I know a couple people with plant elements. All of them are variants of the earth element.”

Wilda abruptly left the conversation and went back to the spider. He fished around in one of his pockets and brought out a bundle of cordage that sparkled in the darkness. He zoomed around the monster’s body, wrapping it up in the cordage before tying the end of it around his waist. He walked back over to Fluttershy, shocking her with his strength as he dragged it behind him. “You’ve got wings. Can you fly out of here?”

“Um… I would, believe me. But I must have pulled something flying away from another monster…”

“Well! We can’t have that now, can we? Looks like it’s up to Wilda Urson to save the day again!”

Wilda started approaching Fluttershy with his arms extended. “Oh- Um- That’s really not necessary! I… -oof! -hey! -see here! -watch those fingers!” Wilda confidently placed his fists on his hips, despite the awkward arrangement of a pony slung over and tied to his shoulders with a monstrous spider dragging along.

He thrust an arm into the air. “No man left behind!”

“I’m a pony, if that helps…”

“Nopony left behind!” Wilda ran to the wall of the ravine, leapt to cling to it, and started climbing at an impressive pace.

Fluttershy was amazed as the cord supported the weight of the massive creature. “W-Wow! Um… this is some strong stuff…!”

Wilda scoffed, giving no visible signs of struggle. “Mythil rope! Spun from the purest minerals as they were bathed in the most intense magic during the smelting process! Once it cools, there’s not much that can make it give so much as an inch! Even the strongest monsters would be hard pressed to wreck anything made of mythril! Shame that only a little can be made at a time.”

Despite his almost squirrel-like climbing, the way to the top was far. Their pace was marked by counting the number of shelf-fungi they passed. “I noticed that you managed to down another monster back there. If you would’ve led this spider thing back to it, it couldn’t have resisted the easy meal.”

The statement took Fluttershy aghast. “Oh, Celestia no! I could never do that! I can hardly imagine doing such a thing!” Fluttershy expected to be chastised over what the ferocious warrior may consider as weakness, and already had several counterarguments.

But Wilda responded with a hearty chuckle. “In that case, good on you! No hesitation! If your heart speaks to you, mercy is never a mistake!” Fluttershy wasn’t expecting that response, so she remained quiet for the rest of the climb.

Eventually, they reached the edge of the ravine. Wilda practically leaped over it, startling Fluttershy. She was about to ask to be let down, but hesitated as Wilda went rigid. He waved his head around, sniffing rapidly and deeply. He tapped a knuckle against Flutteshy’s flank, getting a small peep out of her. “You smell that?”

“S-s-smell what?”

“Trouble. You didn’t come to this cave alone, did you?”

“How did you know? What’s happening?”

“I don’t know, but it’s bound to be intense!” Wilda’s legs began to glow in another Aura that elevated him off the ground, with a shape Fluttershy recognized as that of a cheetah’s legs.

“Thank you for your um… concern, but can you let me- ooh!” Fluttershy’s request was lost in the tailwind as Wilda took off like a rocket.

***

“Mmphh!”

“Hang in there Rarity!”

“I knew it! We should have just taken off when we still could!”

“Shut up, Gus! It's too late for that kind of thinking now!” Gustoff thumped Augustus right on his injury for good measure, willing to accept the extra burden of his friend’s recoil to make his point.

Gustoff professed that he was better at attacking than defending. The fire magic barrier made the beasts hesitate before striking it, as if its touch burned them. But they kept at it until it fell. Despite the more rapid onslaught, Rarity’s crystal barrier stood up for much longer, but cracks were beginning to criss-cross over it much like the lace she enjoys to make in her free time.

The ponies and humans alike could only watch in horror as the beasts relentlessly attacked them, eyes mad with hunger. Rainbow Dash simultaneously wished that Fluttershy were there to calm them down, but at the same time wanted her to stay away out of fear that even she wouldn't be able to do anything. As she scanned the fang-faced hordes, she spotted something glowing in the distance past them.

Rainbow Dash pointed with her hoof. “Look! It’s Fluttershy!”

Gustoff’s eyes widened after he craned his neck. “And Wilda!”

Augustus, who was forced to follow his friend’s gaze, grimaced in horror. “And there’s a huge skeleton stalker right behind them! RUN AWAY- ...oh. It’s dead. Never mind.”

Gustoff winced as he rubbed his ear with his free hand. “Now you tell me…”

Fluttershy trotted forward with a haunted look, somehow able to get her message across on the last stretch of their quick journey. “Oh… no… This is terrible! Why didn’t they run away when they had the chance?”

Wilda harrumphed at the sight of it all. “That’s the thing about great heroes and good friends, they never leave when they’re supposed to.”

While Fluttershy was starting to work up the nerve to do what she had to, Wilda was already running up to the horde attacking her friends. When he got within shouting distance, he stopped, went rigid, and took a breath deeper than what should be possible. Then, he roared. The ones within the barriers could only hold their ears to avoid the splitting pain. Mushrooms from miles around shook and their spores dislodged. Every once in a while, a small stalactite dislodged and shattered against the ground.

The monsters stopped their onslaught and moved to stand directly parallel to Wilda, but they didn’t charge. They hissed and barked at him, brandishing their claws and scratching against the ground.

Wilda just stomped his feet, furrowed his brow, straightened his back, and raised his hands with his fingers curled and teeth bared. “You want some of this? DO YA?” The monsters froze, staring at him transfixed.

Rainbow Dash also stared, mouth agape. “That’s just like Fluttershy’s stare!” Wilda lowered his arms and closed his lips over his teeth, but maintained his expression. As he approached, some of the monsters stepped back.

He extended his head right into their faces. “Get out of here, you mangy vermin!”

With that, the beasts scattered, retreating into the shadows of the cave. Fluttershy galloped up to her friends as they dropped their barriers. “Are all of you okay? Any injuries?”

Rainbow Dash flapped her bad wing. “Nothing I can’t walk off.”

Pinky Pie hopped up and down. “It was crazy! Like being at the zoo! Only there was one cage and we were in it!”

Rarity slouched, trying to catch her breath. “Oh… Darling…! It’s so nice… to see you… in one piece!”

Applejack trotted up to Fluttershy. “Honestly, as bad as we’ve had it, I’m sure you’ve had it ten times worse!”

Twilight smiled. “Thankfully, that’s all behind us now. I see you found the missing human.”

Fluttershy turned back to Wilda and smiled. “Actually, it’s more like he found me. But I think I’ve found a new friend. ...Probably…”

Meanwhile, Wilda gave a big grin, puffed out his chest, and trapsed right up to the Guses. “Well, looks like you guys got yourselves into a bit of a pickle! What would you do without me?”

Augustus groaned. “Sleep soundly without nightmares?”

Gustoff rolled his eyes. “Have a lower insurance premium?”

Wilda gave another deep hearty laugh. “Fair enough! Fair enough! Come on! Let’s get back to the gates! I’ve got a few more monsters to bring and you’ve got to get some well-deserved rest and relaxation! And I have a feeling we’ve all got something to tell the Directors!”

Chapter 4: Life in the Deep City

“Psst… There they are… the quadrupeds...”

I’ve heard of horsefeathers, but this is ridiculous…”

“Do you think any part of them can be used to make glue…?”

“I heard that some of them can use magic… I wonder if the horns let them read minds and fry brains…?”

“Ugh… Don’t they have any sense of decency…? All those colors are just gaudy… And not to mention the fact that they’re naked…!”

The ponies anxiously traversed through Core Metro's Industrial Sector. In Applejack's words, they stood out more than "An autumn leaf in a spring pickle jar at the summer sun celebration." Normally, Rarity liked standing out, but even she felt the burn of the gazes surrounding her, which was enough to suppress a fashion freak-out from witnessing their dull jumpsuits, goggles, and bright yellow helmets.

When they entered past the city gates, Harvey decided that they should hide in the gatehouse until he could go through the proper channels to get the word out and avoid starting a panic. While they waited, the Guses decided to show them a simple educational movie about Core Metro's civilization.

From what they could tell, the city is divided into five districts structured as rings. The Industrial District processes any incoming resources from the cavern, and are sent to the Market District to be distributed throughout the city through several trading companies and innumerable wholesalers and retailers. The gross revenue is sent to the Financial District to be placed in banks, invested, assessed, and eventually distributed to employee salary. The Party District is where most of the population go every once in a while to renew themselves, increasing the effectiveness of their magic. The Grand District is where numerous high-profile individuals live to avoid potential threats from any unsavory characters. Each District is governed by an Director, and all the Directors are governed by the Central Administration where the High Director and their numerous Secretaries oversee Core Metro as a whole. Twilight noticed several inconsistencies, such as parts where it sounded like they were about to lead up to something important but abruptly cut off.

The Guses left on their vacation to a resort, saying that they’re confident in the Ponies’ ability to make friends. Before returning to the gates, Harvey said that they should eventually receive a message to allow them permission to meet with the Sector’s Director, but it may take a while to go through the bureaucratic process.

Pinkie’s stomach growled. “All this public scrutiny is making me hungry!”

Rainbow Dash nodded. “Agreed. I could use some fuel for the tank, and maybe something to help with the wing.”

Twilight gulped and stepped forward. “Um… Excuse me. Can somepony tell us where you go to get some food around here?” The crowd of humans surrounding them just stared. Some of them looked at one another, some of them whispered to each other. Finally, a tall human slowly raised their arm and pointed down an adjacent road. The ponies looked in the direction and spotted a row of neon signs, one of them saying Eat at Joe’s! Twilight turned back to the human, smiled, and nodded. “Thank you, sir!” The ponies turned and trotted down the road towards the sign. Meanwhile, the humans stared at them until they were out of sight before continuing on their way.

The ponies entered the establishment. Every other patron stopped to look at them and the music silenced with the sound of a record scratching. The Ponies slowly trotted up to an empty booth in the corner. Pinkie tried to give everyone she glanced at a big smile. Fluttershy meanwhile, tried to avoid eye contact entirely, at one point by covering her face with her wings.

Once they took their seats, a server glided over to them without a glance, unfurling a notepad. “What’ll it be? Need a menu?”

Rarity flipped her mane back. “Do we have the pleasure of addressing Mr. Joe?”

The server didn’t give her a glance. “Joe’s dead. The owner-chef is Jim, his son. I’m Jim’s son Jake. I work here so I don’t have to bust my back in a factory. Need some menus?”

Pinkie bobbed her head up and down. “Well, why don’t you change the sign then?”

Jake scoffed. “In this economy? Wouldn’t bet on it, sister! Say, why are you asking so many-” Jake raised his head and stopped short when he saw his customers. Pinkie waved her hoof. Rarity fluttered her eyelids. Fluttershy bend down below the table. Rainbow Dash flapped her wings. Applejack winked. And Twilight just smiled.

“You’re the- ponies? What do you even eat?”

Twilight tipped her head and gestured with her hoof. “Oh… grasses, hay, assorted oats and grains, fruits and vegetables, sweets and pastries.”

Pinkie bent towards Jake. “And Rocks! If they’re available!” Rainbow Dash quickly shook her head and mouthed No…

“Well, how about I start you off with some salads and dinner rolls. So… how do you intend to pay?”

Applejack placed her saddlebag onto the table. “You take bits?”

“What are bits? Only credits can pay for things! If you don’t have real money, then you can get- Wait. What’s that?”

Jake reached out and took one of the bits that fell out from the saddlebag. He held it in his fingers, carefully inspecting it. “Is… Is this real gold?”

Applejack raised an eyebrow in confusion. “It’s a bit. Money. What else would it be?” As Jake marveled at the meager coin, its glint got another patron from across the restaurant in the eye. They glanced over and their mouth fell open at what they saw. They nudged the one they shared their table with and pointed at the ponies. Soon, the oblivious ponies were at the center of attention in the restaurant, caught in a sea of mutters.

Jake gulped and gripped the bit in his palm. “I’ll… just put your order in and my dad can start tossing the salad. I’ll also see what we have out for dessert today.” Jake walked off behind the bar and to the kitchen. Slowing his pace occasionally to gawk at the bit in his hand.

Applejack looked at her friends. “All that fuss over one little bit? And he just took one for all of us.” Rainbow Dash was about to respond, but she refocused her attention as she felt a light tugging on her splinted wing.

She turned her head to see an old, hunched-over woman with a shaking hand extended. “Pardon me, dear. If it’s not too much trouble, I could fix up that little ouchy… for a pittance.”

“Oh! Um… go ahead…” Rainbow Dash bent her wing down to the old lady’s level. She raised her hand as it became enveloped in a blue light that undulated like a fluid. She lightly touched the injured wing and it began to glow in a way that resembled sunlight passing through the surface of water. Rainbow Dash herself felt as if her wing were immersed in a bath at the spa.

After the woman removed her hand and the glows faded, Rainbow Dash did a few practice flaps. She gripped the bandages in her teeth and pulled them off. She rolled her wing in its socket, extended and retracted it, and made a small breeze. “Huh! Feels great! Didn’t know magic could do something like that!” She gave a playful glance at Twilight, who grinned and rolled her eyes.

“Anyway, thanks a bunch!” The woman raised her open, shaking hand once again with a smile, gesturing in a beckoning fashion. “Oh, right.” Rainbow Dash bent towards the saddlebag and gripped three bits in her teeth before flinging them onto the woman’s palm.

The woman rolled them around with her finger before closing her grip on them. Then, her hand stopped shaking as she stood straight up. She walked into the middle of the restaurant, drew out a rag from her pocket, and flung it onto the floor. “From now on, youse’ slobs can clean up your own messes! When little Jimbo leaves his greasy cave, tell him I’m gonna spend the rest of my days living it up in the Party District, howsever little I have! Oh, and that he’s not half the cook his ‘pa was!” The old woman gave a haughty laugh and strided out the door.

The other patrons watched her go out, then redirected their attention back to the ponies, who attempted to avoid eye contact. They were almost relieved when Jake came back carrying a platter of leafy greens and biscuits on plates. He passed them around nervously. “Um… we don’t have enough credits in the register or safe to give you enough change for that gold coin. If you’d give us a day or two, we could get it exchanged at the bank.”

Twilight looked at Applejack, who shrugged. She turned back to Jake. “We’d like you to keep it, maybe use the difference to pay for the other’s meals.”

Jake’s eyes widened and he turned back to the greater restaurant. “Hey everyone! Dinner’s on the ponies!” On that note, everyone cheered. “Hey wait! Has anyone seen Misty? Someone made a mess out of booth six again!” On that other note, the cheers quickly died and everyone turned their full attention back to their meals.

The ponies decided to use this opportunity to finally dig in. Applejack leaned into her plate and took the first bite out of her salad. As she chewed, she got a weird look on her face. After swallowing, she turned back to Jake. “What… kind of farm was this lettuce grown at?”

Jake turned back to the ponies with a confused look on his face. “Let us what? That’s kidneywort, most of our daily dose of vitamins and minerals come from that stuff.”

Pinkie Pie, who decided to sample the dinner rolls first, struggled to swallow and roughly coughed. “How coarse is the flour you use to bake these? Do you grind the wheat yourself?”

“What’s wheat? We only use one hundred percent pure grade-A starch moss. Now about what we have for dessert…”

“Uh, no! That’s alright! This stuff really makes us lose our… hunger! Really foul- filling! It’s really filling!”

Jake rolled his eyes. “Whatever. Just let me know if you need a beverage or something.”

After Jake flipped his notepad up and walked to a newly seated table, the Ponies looked at one another and slowly pushed their meals away. Applejack turned to Twilight. “Honestly, something’s telling me that this city might need us more than we thought.”

Pinkie pie was starting to look a little green. “Especially in the culinary department! Who uses moss to bake bread? And I don’t even want to think about what they had for dessert.”

Rarity glanced around the restaurant, met with waving hands and raised glasses. “On the bright side, it seems we’ve made a good number of friends very quickly.”

Twilight frowned. “It’s a start, but I’m not sure if friendships made through wealth are worth having.”

Fluttershy peaked out from her hiding place. “Well… it is a good way to get some attention. Um… the right kind I mean.”

Rainbow Dash held up her hoof to gesture. “Well if you ask me… Huh?” Rainbow Dash paused as she felt a strange yet subtle disturbance in the air. Somehow, her flyer’s instincts kicked in and her senses accelerated, causing her to perceive everything moving in slow motion, finding that she could neither move nor breathe in this state. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted something moving towards her at regular speed. She used all of her concentration to move her eyes to get a better look at it. A shorter human with dark red hair, gray eyes, and freckles wearing a skin-tight tracksuit causally strided up to the table, grabbed Applejack’s saddlebag, and slung it over his shoulder. As he turned, he appeared to notice Rainbow Dash, who gave her all to make a scowling face at him. The human just winked, flashed what Rainbow Dash remembered to be a peace sign at her, and grinned, revealing a gap in his front teeth.

When the human walked out of the restaurant, Rainbow Dash’s senses went back to normal and everything started moving at a regular pace. She shook her head in confusion.

Applejack raised an eyebrow at her. “Ask you what Rainbow- HEY! WHAT HAPPENED TO BY BAGS?”

Rainbow dash shot upwards into the air. “Thief! We’ve been robbed!” This caused an intense commotion among the patrons. Everyone hurriedly checked their pockets to see if everything was still there.

From out of the kitchen burst out the cook holding two big glowing hot knives. “Someone said thief! Where are they? I’ll chop ‘em up and serve them for tomorrow's special!”

Jake took notice and dashed right up to him, turning him around and guiding him back to the kitchen. “Okay Dad, we wouldn’t want you to say or do anything incriminating would we? Why don’t you head back in the kitchen and fry something or use the pressure cooker to calm your nerves.”

After making sure the cook was back in the kitchen, Jake went over to the ponies and flipped his notepad. “Okay, there’s no need to cause a scene. If you’ll give me a description, I’ll file a case with the Central Forces and you should get your stuff back in no time. What kind of magic did they use, and did they have any distinctive characteristics?”

Twilight turned to Rainbow Dash. “Why were you the only one to see them, Rainbow?”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and crossed her hooves. “Well, they were moving fast. Like way fast! It took all I had just to see them!”

Jake looked up from his notepad. “Wait. That can only be…” Jake paused and coughed. “Okay, I’ve got good news and bad news. The good news is that I know of this guy. Trace, the only human whose magic can let him move so fast that he can appear invisible.”

Applejack frowned. “Okay, what’s the bad news?”

“Uh… the bad news is… that nobody’s ever been able to catch him. So your stuff is probably… gone for good.”

Rainbow Dash flew up even higher and tensed her body with a determined look on her face. “Maybe nobody can catch him, but maybe somepony can!”

Rainbow Dash flew out the restaurant’s doors in a rainbow-colored blur, scattering silverware and napkins in her tailwind. Jake turned back to the ponies. “Um… are you sure she’ll be okay out there on her own? I mean, this sector has tons of unsavory characters.”

Applejack leaned her hoof on the table. “Don’t worry ‘hun. Rainbow can handle herself well in any kind of trouble.” All the ponies around expressed their approval.

Jake shrugged. “Whatever. I’ll get you some boxes for your food.” Jake walked back to the kitchen before any of the ponies could work up the nerve to refuse. “Seriously, has anybody seen hide or hair of Misty? Someone’s gotta clean this mess up!”

Chapter 5: The Fastest Warrior Alive

“Come on, where are you, you little hairless monkey…?” Rainbow Dash continued to mutter to herself as she zoomed throughout the Industrial District, startling and knocking over any humans unfortunate enough to be in her path, the only clue to their misfortune being a rainbow-colored streak in the air.

She wove around the factories, to the amazement of the workers hauling materials and products in and out of the plants. She had to hold her breath when she passed through the factories’ fumes and over the steaming pools of toxic waste. “Jeez. They weren’t kidding when they called this the Industrial District! How can these humans live like this? If I want to find that low-down thief, I’m going to have to change my perspective a bit.”

Rainbow Dash twisted her wings and began her ascent high into the air. She surveyed the drastically developed land below her. All throughout, the machinations of the humans moved as one. The twin monorails circled the circumference of the district, carrying humans and cargo alike. In individual sectors, trams, lifts, and cranes carried them to their intended destinations upon arrival. It all came to rest in neatly packed residential and warehouse sectors.

“You know, once you get past all the yuck and stank, it’s all pretty awesome, like one big fine-tuned machine. Even we don’t have anything on this scale. But first things first I suppose.” As she scanned the scape below her, she found her attention drawn to one point in particular, where she could make out the faintest white streak traveling at a pace only her well-trained eyes could follow as it zoomed around, up, and over the various buildings. “There you are. Better look out!” Rainbow Dash tensed her body and dove toward the streak’s path to intercept it.

Rainbow Dash slowed her descent as she approached and rolled to fly next to the running human. “Feeling a little weighed down?”

Trace glanced at her with a surprised look, then grinned. “Ah, the quadruped from Joe’s. You should count yourself lucky, not many can see me when I start moving in my fast zone, let alone move quick enough for me to notice.”

Rainbow Dash scoffed. “Luck? Like that has anything to do with my skills! But enough about that, I’ve found you, so give me back what you stole from my friend!”

Trace gave her a competitive glance. “Finding me is one thing, a few people can do that, but catching me is quite another.”

“I think I’m keeping up with you just fine.”

“Oh, you haven’t seen anything yet, little lady!” Trace rocketed forward, out of sight.

Rainbow Dash scowled. “Don’t call me a little lady!” She accelerated to follow.

She chased Trace’s trail down the winding road. Not quite a minute later, she caught sight of him again. Trace’s head twitched and he looked back towards her, only to grin at her and flash another peace sign before turning back to his path and accelerating some more, his streak being followed by a red-faced Rainbow Dash.

They went left and right several times following the road. Once in a while, he’d leap to run up the side of a building and race across the top, but Rainbow Dash would merely ascend to keep up the chase. When he came to a downward stairway, he leapt onto the handrail and slid the way down before hitting the pavement and continuing his pace with Rainbow Dash weaving along the curving terrain. When he got on an upraised path between several buildings and came to a curve, instead of following it, he leaped forward and rebounded off of the buildings in the adjacent alley, forcing Rainbow Dash to tuck in her wings to avoid getting injured again. Eventually, they came to a path parallel to a monorail railway.

After dashing along it for a distance, the monorail itself started coming in from behind.Before the monorail completely passed, Trace leapt on top of it and dashed down the carts, forcing Rainbow Dash to accelerate with all her might to keep up. As the wind sped past her, all went silent for her as she approached the speed needed for her sonic rainboom. As Trace sped down the machine, he looked back after hearing a thunderous noise, and for the first time lost his composure as he gaped at the shimmering explosion of color behind him, and the rainbow-maned pegasus rocketing towards him.

He leaped off the side of the monorail, extended his arms and straightened his legs as he floated across the gap towards the nearest path, albeit much more slowly. Rainbow Dash quickly noticed that she passed her quarry by a longshot and slowed her pace to turn. She caught up with Trace right as he touched ground and took off like a bolt of lightning.

“You can fly too?”

“I’m an air tribesman. We can all levitate somewhat, but it takes time and talent to make any good use out of it. I hate to admit that I’m a slower flyer than a runner, but every element and derivative comes with its own set of innate abilities.”

“That explains why the pictures showed you guys standing on clouds.”

“What was that? Clouds? Like the nasty stuff that comes out of the factory smokestacks? Why would we- nevermind. Speaking of talents, you’re pretty skilled yourself. Nobody’s ever been able to chase me for this long before.”

Rainbow Dash gave him a confident grin. “Is that so? Well, nobody’s ever made my sonic rainboom fail before, so I guess you’re pretty awesome too. For a thief.”

“Oh, is that what you call it? I guess we both have our share of tricks then. You just might be worthy enough to see what the speed element can really do!”

“Let’s see then!”

Trace extended his hands forward as they began to glow in a mysterious white light. He began moving his hands around and gesturing with his fingers. Rainbow Dash noticed that as he did this, strange glyphs she couldn’t recognize began appearing before him.

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and frowned. “Are you gonna show me what you’re made of or make a pretty light show? Come on!”

Trace scoffed. “Have a few problems with patience, do we? That’s understandable, but unfortunate considering what’s coming for you!”

Trace began to hold his hands parallel in cupped positions and the glyphs gathered in a mass between them. He accelerated a few positions ahead of Rainbow Dash, held them aloft for a moment, then threw them down onto the ground below him. Where they impacted, a horizontal line of glyphs appeared that he left behind. Before she knew it, Rainbow Dash crossed over them and they reacted to her by disappearing in a flash and covering her with their light. When the light faded, Rainbow Dash found that she was still flying, but very, very slowly. She felt like she was stuck in one of Pinkie’s extra-large molds of gelatin as her wings flapped at a snail’s pace. Trace meanwhile, was mockingly marching slightly ahead of her, raising his knees unnecessarily high with a big grin on his face.

Rainbow Dash struggled with all her might to get her words out. “I… thought… your… element… was… speed…!”

Trace arrogantly laughed as he circled around her. “Oh, it is! Slow is a speed, or has life in the fast lane made you forget that?” He moved to walk backwards in front of Rainbow Dash, held his hands up and shrugged. “Well, that was fun while it lasted, but I have to go home and count the loot! And don’t worry, that spell will wear off. Eventually!” He shook Applejack’s saddlebag in her face saying “Meep! Meep!” before dashing out of sight.

After several minutes of silently lamenting her failure while struggling against the spell with everything she had, she suddenly zoomed forward and nearly collided with the side of a nearby building, her impact cushioned by a pile of garbage bags. She lied on her back and loudly groaned. “How am I supposed to catch him if I don’t know where he went! He might as well be on the other side of the city by now!”

“Don’t be so hard on yourself. You came closer to catching him than any of us did after all.”

Rainbow Dash bounced to her hooves and swung her head around. “Who said that? Show yourself!”

“Woah, woah! Hold your horses!” The voice in the shadows laughed at its own joke. “Sorry. We’re coming out now.” Several humans slowly emerged from the shadows between the buildings. They all had different looks, but were all dressed the same: In baggy one-piece suits covered in buckles and buttons enclosed by several pieces of tarnished metal armor with their joints covered by pieces of rubber resembling the tires of pony-drawn carriages. Rainbow Dash maintained a prepared stance on account of all of them carrying weapons.

“Hey there, no need for that! We’re all friends here, aren’t we?” The one that talked with the same voice as before stepped forward. He was different from the others due to his armor being painted with uneven wavy purple streaks. He had thick, greasy green hair tied in a fraying bun, a face covered in warts and moles, a snaggle tooth-filled grin, and walked in a slouched posture with two short scythes slung across his back.

“Hey there, little pony. They call me Mort.”

Rainbow Dash maintained her stance and scowled. “The name’s Rainbow Dash, and what do you all know about Trace?”

Mort laughed again. “Well for one thing, we know where he lives.”

Rainbow Dash dropped her stance, but kept scowling. “Okay. Go on…”

Mort got closer and spread his arms. “Y’see, we’re part of… an association of able-bodied citizens that offer our skills for protection to people and places the Central Forces don’t have the time or resources to oversee, I myself hold the rank of Administrator. That quick little scamp has been zooming throughout the districts, looting from whomever he pleases without a second thought. We’ve been trying to make him pay his dues for years, but sadly we don’t quite match up to a top-class warrior like him.”

Rainbow Dash raised her eyebrow. “Top-class? I thought you guys were just divided by your elements?”

Mort gave a loud but sad laugh. “It’s a bit deeper than that. I’m sure that even in your world, some creatures are just smarter, faster, stronger and all-round more talented than their peers. That’s just life. For us humans, we organize ourselves around how good we are in battle. Low-class warriors know a few basic spells or techniques and are at their best in groups. Mid-class warriors like myself perform well on our own but tend to be biased towards particular fighting styles and situations.

“But top-class warriors are in a league of their own. They become so intuned with their weapon that they treat them as an extension of themselves no different from their magic, to the point where the weapon in question becomes a metaphysical part of them which never breaks nor wears that they can make appear and disappear at will, among a few other fantastic things. Many train their entire lives before reaching that point, but some have so much talent that they reach it in their youth and only grow from there. They’d be running the city if it wasn’t for one fact.”

Rainbow Dash twisted her head in concern. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

Mort made a mischievous grin and put his fingertips together. “Even a top-class warrior can be defeated by a good plan.”

***

Among the derelict factories in the abandoned sectors, a white streak zoomed about. Then, it suddenly stopped behind a corner from which a red head emerged to check for something. Once the head retracted back behind the cover, the white streak emerged to zoom back along its path. This process was repeated several times across various forms of cover until it reached a crumbling residential sector, stopping behind a plastic dome with holes in it within an untended playground.

Trace held his hand out next to his face and sang out several notes with his puckered lips, which was soon answered by an extended version of his song. Spending a moment counting the notes, Trace relaxed and walked out from behind his hiding place. “We’re all eating well tonight, Tim! You have no idea what I went through to get this haul!”

“Oh, I might have some idea.” Trace looked shocked when he heard the familiar but unexpected voice, and even more so after Rainbow Dash landed in front of him.

“Well! You’re far more adept than I thought to track me this far! But where did you learn my signal?”

Rainbow Dash crouched and scowled. “That’s none of your business. Now hand over my friend’s stuff or else!”

Trace gave her an aloof smile and put one of his hands on his hip. “Or else what?” Rainbow Dash glanced to a shadowy corner beyond the playground’s fence, where a crouching Mort extended one of his scythes.

“Or this!” Rainbow Dash took off right towards Trace who skillfully evaded her at the last minute.

She chased him around the playground for a few minutes, cutting him off whenever he approached one of the exits. When he dashed towards the exit nearest to Mort, Rainbow Dash slowed her pursuit. Mort meanwhile, hefted his scythes with a spinning upward slash and a trail of fuming gunk appeared from their path and ran down to the other side of the playground, right in Trace’s way.

“Gah!” When Trace crossed it, he lost his footing and tumbled to the ground. He managed to sit up but struggled to rise completely “My legs! Poison magic?” He gave a confused look to Rainbow Dash. “But- How-?”

“She had some help.” Trace glanced in the direction of the new voice and got a haunted look as Mort hopped the fence, which grew worse as he scanned the surroundings with Mort’s associates closing in on him from all sides.

He gave Rainbow Dash a forlorn look. “You worked with the Underworlders? Do you even know what that means? Or who they are?”

Rainbow Dash extended her frowning face towards him. “Hey, it’s not like you gave me much of a choice! I had to get back what was mine!”

Mort made a big grin, swinging his scythes around as he approached Trace. “The pony’s right. Sometimes, we’ve all got to do things we’re not proud of to get what we deserve. Speaking of which…” He held the tip of his upturned scythe to Trace’s chin. “Where’s your stash, Tace?”

Trace turned on his stomach and tried to crawl away. “I don’t have a stash, Mort! I spend my loot as fast as I get it!”

Mort hoisted Trace up with his forearm and pinned him to his chest with his bicep, moving the point of his free hand’s scythe to his throat. “Now that’s not very good business sense for a thief!”

Trace grunted as he struggled against Mort. “Oh yeah? Neither is hurting people to take their wealth!”

Rainbow Dash tilted her head and gave a confused glance to Mort. “Wait. What about hurting people?”

Mort appeared to not notice her words. “Come on, Trace my man. What could you have possibly spent all that loot on? Gold? Jewels? Designer clothes? The latest in modern magic-powered conveniences?”

“Tlays! I’m hungry!” Rainbow Dash moved out of the way as a small human child hobbled with an even smaller crutch towards Mort and Trace, who had a look of utter terror on his face.

“Tim! Get out of here! Go back to your mom!”

“Momma too sleepy to play! I wanna eat and play with big bro Tlays!”

“Then go to the other kids at the clubhouse! They have lots of snacks and games!”

Trace looked like he wanted to scream as one of the Underworlders walked over and pointed a short spear at Tim. “What should I do with the kid, Mort?”

“I don’t know!Get rid of him! Drop him in the nearest cesspool! Throw him down one of the exhaust vents! Just don’t let me see him again!”

“WAIT!”

Mort cringed at Trace’s scream. “What is it?”

“I don’t have anything valuable to pay your levy, but if you let Tim go, I’ll give you my life instead!”

Mort gave him an arrogant laugh in his ear. “Why would I want your high-and-mighty life?”

“You’re one to talk about the value of lives, Mort. Not only are you ugly and can hardly cut it as a warrior, but you were born with the stinkiest, foulest element of them all! It’s no wonder everyone you know feels so sorry for you!”

Mort made a slow, sinister laugh as he tightened his hold on Trace. “I’ve got to hand it to you, you sure know how to bargain! Taking your sorry life is sounding like a better deal the more I think about it!”

Rainbow Dash readied herself. “That’s all I needed to hear!” She rocketed forward to give Mort a flying kick in the back of his head, after which he fell face down on the ground. As she passed, she scooped up Trace on her back and picked up Tim in her hooves as she circled around. She hovered in place as the Underworlder grunts were still trying to figure out what happened.

Trace leaned forward to speak into her ear. “What are you doing?”

“I’m saving your hide from these bad guys! If you can make me slow, I’m thinking you can make me faster too. So how about I fly and you attack them?”

At first, Trace looked confused, then he made a confident smile as a long, ivory-colored staff with thicker, darker segments at both ends tipped with perpendicular ovoid bulbs appeared in his raised hands with a flash of light. “Now that’s a deal I can get behind!”

When the grunts realized what was going on, they readied their weapons along with floating stones, small balls of fire, and little globs of water. Trace twirled around his staff as glyphs started appearing in the path of one of the ends. Then he pointed the staff forward which caused the glyphs to form rotating rings in front of them. Rainbow Dash flew through, and with a flash of light, everything else appeared to be going in slow motion.

Rainbow Dash raced around each of the sluggish grunts, allowing Trace to hit each of them with a sharp, precise strike to the head with his staff. When the last grunt was struck, Rainbow Dash slowed to a hover and everything started moving as normal, including each of the grunts as they fell to the ground.

Rainbow Dash let Tim back on the ground, who bobbed up and down going “Wee! Do it again!”

She turned her head to look at Trace. “Can you hand me the saddlebags now?”

Trace pulled them off of his shoulder. “I guess I definitely owe you one.”

Rainbow Dash took it around her hoof and began fishing in one of the bags with her muzzle. She retrieved a bottle of one of Zecora’s potions labeled by a skull and crossbones covered by a red strikethrough circle and flung it into Trace’s hand. “Here. This is a universal antidote. I think it’ll also work on poison made of magic too.” A confused Trace hesitated for a moment before uncorking the bottle and downing the contents. She descended onto her hooves to allow Trace to step off of her back, bending his knees several times.

Rainbow Dash slung the saddlebags over her back as Trace stepped forward. “In all the hoopla, I never bothered to introduce myself.” He held out his open hand. “Trace Paragon.”

Rainbow Dash trotted forward, put her hoof in his grip, and shook. “Rainbow Dash.”

“One more thing…” She bent into one of the bags and retrieved five bits from within, giving them to an amazed Trace. “That ought to cure the little guy’s hunger for a while.”

Trace held up each one to inspect it. “It’ll cure that and then some!”He gripped them in his fist and smiled at her. “If you ever need any help, look me up around here! You know the signal!”

Rainbow Dash started hovering. She looked back and gave him a smile in turn. “Same here, slowpoke!” Before he could retort, she zoomed off into the air.

Chapter 6: The Mall-Nado

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes as she held her head low. “Well, that was boring!”

Rarity shook her head and smiled. “Considering what we’ve been through since we got down here, I’d say it was delightfully dull.”

Twilight was still shaking in excitement. “Are you kidding? That was some of the best organizing I’ve done in a long time! Who knew a warrior species could come up with such an intricate and multi-faceted bureaucratic system? We had to fill out forms to get forms to enter the waiting room, then we had to go all around the office collecting more forms before meeting with the Director’s secretary’s undersecretary! And don’t get me started on the booth and floor system!”

Applejack trotted up next to Twilight. “Alright, we won’t get you started!” They all shared a laugh while Twilight rolled her eyes and blushed.

Eventually, the gondola they were all riding came to a stop. They all exited as a voice rang out on an intercom. “Industrial/Market District gondola fourteen. Noon stop complete. Have a nice day.”

Pinkie hopped down and bounced the rest of the way. “Thank you, mystery voice!”

Fluttershy followed quickly, glad to be out of the metal box whose only guarantee at avoiding a fifty-foot drop was a flimsy metal cable. “Um… I think it’s just a recording, Pinkie.”

“The quadrupedal female is correct. Please do not speak to me. I am a recording.” Soon after gathering together, the ponies paused and anxiously looked at one another, then around the station before proceeding without a word.

Upon exiting the station, they came upon a road where more (and to Rarity much better dressed) humans walked to and fro, and in, out and around various stores. To their left stood a bed store, a bookstore, and a quilt shop. To their right stood a grocer, a cutler, and a potter. Further into the distance on their right were several rows of stalls. Further to their left was a larger building they couldn’t identify.

Suddenly, from the side of the path, a human came right up to the ponies, wearing a yellow shirt, black vest, and orange bow tie. “G-g-g-g-good afternoon, f-f-f-fair ladies!”

Rarity smiled and fluttered her eyes at him. “Why, good afternoon mister…”

He smiled and bent forward, rubbing his hands together. “M-M-Michael. Micheal F-F-Flamel, at your s-s-s-service, m-miss. I can’t help b-b-b-but n-n-notice that you all aren’t-t-t exactly from ar-r-r-round here, are y-y-you?”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes, shrewdly smiling. “Oh, is it that obvious?”

Michael gave a small chuckle. “G-g-g-g-good one, miss! I-I-In all seriousness though, it’s v-very easy for one t-t-to lose their way am-m-m-mid all the hubbub. Tell M-m-me, did you all ha-v-v-ve a d-destination in mind?”

Twilight trotted forward. “Well, for now, we’re mostly killing time until we can start the process to move into the next District.”

Micheal reared back and clapped his hands. “Excellent! I-I-If it’s not too much t-trouble, I’d like t-t-to show you all ar-r-r-round! Get past the h-h-humdrum and show you some m-m-m-memorable sights!”

Rarity dramatically sighed. “That sounds positively lovely! Please lead on, good fellow!”

Rarity proceeded towards the market stalls, but Micheal pointed in the other direction. “Um… M-M-M-Miss, the shopping mall’s th-th-this way!”

Rarity abruptly turned around. Her eyes wide with wonder. “What’s a… shopping mall?”

***

Applejack rubbed her folded ears with her hooves as she sat down on a nearby bench, wishing she had human fingers to stick in and scratch around. “Gee Rarity, if you squealed any higher, Winona might have come running all the way from the farm!”

Rarity was still twirling around, taking it all in. “Well, how could I possibly contain myself? It’s all just so… so… much! There’s a store for everything here, and an entire department dedicated to fashion! Rows and rows of outfits and accessories for any mood, season, and occasion! And these human designers are simply brilliant, especially considering how little inspiration they have to work with in these absolutely dreary caverns!”

Twilight came following, floating several batches of books in plastic bags with her magic. “I’m impressed with their varieties of stories! You know that Ultima these humans keep invoking? Well, they were a real historical figure! If even half of the things they’ve supposedly done are true… then again, they seem a tad arrogant.”

Pinkie trotted back to the group, carrying a small mountain of stuffed whatsits and plastic doodads. “I really like the game arcade! So many bright and shiny lights! And the prizes are neat too!”

Micheal politely approached Pinkie. “W-w-well miss, It cert-t-t-tainly helps on the dance m-m-machine that you have f-f-f-four legs.”

Fluttershy got up from the bench and approached the group herself. “I’m just glad to have a nice, peaceful time just seeing the sights.”

Suddenly, from one of the upper levels came the sounds of a ruckus, shattered glass, and weapons clashing. Fluttershy sighed. “Well, so much for a peaceful time. I suppose we should do something about that before some poor human gets hurt!”

The ponies left their swag by the benches and cantered up the nearest stairwell with their human guide regretfully running after them. “Um… L-L-Ladies! Where are you g-g-g-going? I’m sure the C-Central Forces can handle this c-c-c-c-crisis!”

Eventually, they made it to the second-floor armor shop, which was currently under attack by a bunch of Underworlders led by a woman wielding a lance whose armor was painted with a green spiral pattern. She had a tan complexion, mauve hair done in a long, curling ponytail, bright blue eyes and was striking at the shield-like hexagons of energy in the hand of the mace-wielding shopkeeper, who had a dark complexion with red eyes and indigo, flattop hair tied back by a headband.

Micheal nervously approached one of the surrounding onlookers. “Um… e-e-excuse me, has anyone c-c-c-called the Central Forces about th-th-this?”

The onlooker sighed and shrugged. “Right now, they’re a bit preoccupied. There’s been a bombing on the other side of the sector right near a cluster of gas lines. It’s taking all of their elemental units just to contain the fires. Quite a coincidence, hm?”

Their attention was turned back to the battle as the loud clashing filled the air. The shopkeeper was forced back after the Underworlder Administrator made a series of hard thrusts against his makeshift shield. Then, the Administrator was lifted up as a whirlwind appeared below her. Riding the vortex, she charged towards him at a breakneck speed to deliver a mighty thrust, shattering his barrier to glowing flecks. The Administrator gave a wicked grin as she made a curving upward sweep with her lance, creating a spiraling stream of air that flew out to slam the shopkeeper against the wall.

As the shopkeeper sat dazed on the ground, the Administrator gestured for the Grunts to move into the store. However, the ponies galloped in their way. Twilight trotted forward and extended her hoof. “Hold it right there! Nopony or nobody has any right to just hurt whoever or take whatever they want!”

The Administrator got a weird look on her face and gestured to the Grunts, who moved aside to let her through. Once she was directly in front of the ponies, she took a good look at them. “Hm… Hey, you’re all those creatures that have been all over the official announcements.”

She leaned back with a big, mischievous grin. “But Mort had a lot to say about you too. He was absolutely fuming, this time in more ways than one! The name’s Katrina by the way.”

Rainbow Dash crouched low and grimaced. “Well, after we send you packing back to the hole you crawled out of, you can tell Mort that Rainbow Dash says hello!”

Katrina put her hand on her hip and shook her head. “Oh, like I’d dirty my hands on the likes of you!” She made a gesture overhead that caused all of the Grunts to ready themselves and move in to surround the ponies. “Waste ‘em!” The Grunts charged the ponies as one, but Pinkie Pie threw down a smoke bomb that disoriented them and allowed the ponies to scatter.

Twilight soared towards two Grunts wielding a halberd and glaive, who readied themselves and enveloped the heads of their weapons in flames and a whirlwind. However, right as they brought them down on her, Twilight teleported behind them and zapped them with her horn, entangling them in ethereal chains.

Applejack charged a Grunt wielding a battle axe, who made an upward sweep to cause spears of rock to erupt out of the ground in front of him. However, she leaped to clear both the spears and the Grunt and proceeded to buck him in the back upon landing, sending him flying into another Grunt wielding a club, leaving them both on the ground.

Pinkie bounced into the middle of several Grunts carrying bows and slings, who took aim with ammunition made of solid fire, water, and energy. Pinkie however, drew a package (out of nowhere) and threw it below her, causing a small bounce house to erupt and send her skyward. When the projectiles made contact with the bounce house, it exploded and sent flying a salvo of pies and cupcakes, knocking all of the Grunts to the ground in piles of creamy sweetness.

Fluttershy cowered as a growling Grunt bared a partisan and charged towards her. At the last second, she flinched and flew skyward, leaving the Grunt to barrel right into two of their allies and sending them toppling over the edge of the floor’s deck.

Rainbow Dash rocketed towards a Grunt and attempted to unleash a flurry of strikes. However, the Grunt brought out a big shield that blocked each blow. When Rainbow Dash backpedaled, the shield began glowing with a green light that concentrated into a sphere of wind which the Grunt launched at her with a push. Rainbow Dash responded by zooming around in a circle and creating a whirlwind of her own which the sphere u-turned around and returned to the Grunt, sending them flying.

A grunt with a pair of knives leaped towards Rarity with her weapons extended. But Rarity simply zapped their armor with her horn, turning it into a big frilly dress that disoriented the Grunt. Rarity simply hopped to the side as the Grunt tumbled to the ground, hopelessly entangled in the many layers of fabric.

Katrina made a big, nervous frown as she surveyed all of her incapacitated Grunts. Meanwhile, the Ponies surrounded and converged on her, making her take a few steps back. Twilight turned her head and flashed a haughty grin. “You were saying?”

Katrina’s eye began to twitch. Then she shook her head and regained her composure, taking a stance with her weapon held up with both hands. “Okay. Maybe you quadrupeds do mean business. Alright, I’ll show you the full destructive might of my vortex magic!”

Katrina adjusted her grip to hold her lance doward. Then she thrust it into the ground, and from the point of impact emerged a dense whirlwind that quickly grew to a great size. Odds and ends from around the store were caught in the wind and sent flying everywhere as the unfortunate shoppers were forced to hang on for dear life and take cover if they could.

As for the ponies, Applejack and Pinkie were flung aside. Applejack managed to cling to a pillar as she passed by, and Pinkie managed to snag her tail with her teeth as she was flung around. Twilight and Rarity managed to put up barriers to break the wind around themselves and the unconscious shopkeeper, but struggled to hold them in place. Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy had to fly with all their might to keep in one place.

Her eyes watering, Rainbow Dash carefully turned her head towards Fluttershy. “WE HAVE TO DO SOMETHING! BEFORE SOMPONY GETS HURT! OR WORSE!”

With a grimace of sheer terror, Fluttershy attempted to respod despite the roaring wind. “Okay! I’ll try my best!” Following Rainbow Dash’s lead, Fluttershy steadily soared towards the tornado. When they got close enough, they began circling around it in the opposite direction it spun. As the pegasi accelerated, the wind began to slow. Soon they became a rainbow and pink ring spinning around the shrinking vortex.

Moments later, the debris that was once flying all over the place came to rest on the ground, and the terrified bystanders came out from their cover to see what happened. Up above, Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy made a few final loops as the now miniscule whirlwind disappeared in a puff of hot air. The pegasi came to rest back on the ground, completely winded. Fluttershy’s hooves gave out from under her and she came to lie on the ground gasping for breath.

Once the onlookers came back out, they clapped for and cheered the Ponies, chanting “Ponies! Ponies!” and clamoring around them.

Micheal managed to push his way past the crowd and waved his arms around to get them to back off. “M-M-Make room p-p-people! Th-Th-Th-They’ve been through a l-lot!” As the crowd backed away from the ponies, Micheal approached with a concerned look on his face. “I-I-Is everyone Ok-k-kay? I c-c-c-can hardly believe it! You l-l-lot were j-j-just like heroes of old!” Then, his attention was drawn to the stirring shopkeeper.

The shopkeeper groaned as he rubbed his head. He slowly opened his eyes to his equine saviors gathered around him. “I am Pohl. Is the shop okay?”

Twilight used her magic to help him to his feet. “Your shop is fine. We stopped the Underworlders from taking anything.”

Pohl took a second to make sure he was balanced, then he looked around the area to the people surrounding his shop. “I am Pohl. Where did the brutes and the scary lady go?”

Twilight looked around and sighed. “She probably had no intention of fighting us after the Grunts fell. She must have made that hurricane just to sneak away.” Twilight turned back to Pohl, an eyebrow raised. “Why did they go after your shop in particular?”

Pohl just stared at her blankly with a flat expression. “...I am Pohl.”

“Don’t bother questioning him, dear. Nobody ever could get much out of him.”

The ponies and the pair of humans turned towards the new voice. Micheal himself completely lost his composure at the sight of the new speaker. “M-M-M-M-Madam v-v-von Wr-Wr-Wr-Wr-Wrinkle!”

A tall, old woman glided in from out of nowhere. She wore a silken black dress under a white coat with gold trimming, and a pair of spectacles on her nose. She had dark eyes, pale wrinkled skin, and white hair tied to the side in a double braid with a small disk-like ornament on the end. Despite her weathered features, she held herself with a regality and confidence even Rarity couldn’t help but admire.

She made a mirthful grin and extended her finger, waving it back and forth. “Well boys, you two certainly know how to get yourselves in some real peril. Thankfully, there were some strong, smart, and above all kind young women around to bail you out.”

Twilight grinned and approached the lady. “We appreciate your praise, Madam von Wrinkle. But I’m surprised you all know each other.”

She opened her hand and made some dismissive gestures. “Madam von Wrinkle is what they call me in my office. Please, just call me Maxine, Princess. It just so happens that these two are some of my best clients at my Employment and Temp Agency back in the financial district.”

Maxine pointed at Micheal. “I got this one a gig for over half the stores and chains here in the Market district. For a few weeks more, he’ll be getting a small commission on anything anyone buys as long as he brings them to the store.”

Twilight and the ponies flashed Micheal some mischievous grins. “Oh, really?” Micheal just fidgeted with his hands and shrugged.

Then Maxine pointed towards Pohl, who was occupying himself cleaning up the mess made by the Underworlders. “This one is an odd case that pops up every now and again. Some things most may find easy, he has difficulty with. But he can prove to be exceptional in areas he can find his flow in. I arranged for the bank that owns this store to employ him to sell out the remaining inventory after the resident manager and artisan was carted off by the Central Forces for dealing armor to the Underworlders.”

Pohl got up after sweeping some glass in a dustpan and held his broom aloft. “I am Pohl!”

Twilight turned back to Maxine. “Well, that explains it. They must’ve thought they were entitled to something.”

“Well, they’re gone now, and after a beating like that, they won’t be back. Come on, why don’t we talk more at the food court. I’m buying.” She gestured towards Micheal and Pohl. “You two can come along, don’t be afraid to take a break.”

Micheal wrung his hands followed behind as Maxine turned around and headed deeper into the mall. Pohl carefully set down his supplies and turned to follow himself. “I am Pohl!” The ponies gave each other some worried glances and followed the group.

Meanwhile, in a dark corner above, Katrina gazed at them as they left and turned to speak into a small round object in hand. “The horses have been led to water, time to make them drink. Initiate operation: Justice is no longer blind.”

Chapter 7: Out Of The Baking Pan...

“And so I said: ‘Why worry this time? Time is always on my side. I have all the time, all the time.’”

All around the table, the multi-species party erupted into a chorus of laughter in response to Madam von Wrinkle’s funny story. Micheal and Pohl held their fern colas high in toast before setting them down next to their baskets of moss fries and troll nuggets. The ponies simply clopped their hooves against the table’s surface. The ruckus caused some of the surrounding mall goers to stop and look at them, leading the self-conscious ponies to stop. But after seeing who was making the noise, some of the patrons started beating the palms of their hands on the tables and stomping their feet. Leading Fluttershy and Applejack to turn away blushing, but Rainbow Dash to fly up and pose, Rarity to blow kisses at the applause, Twilight to just wave her hoof, and Pinkie to jump up and down waving both hooves.

Maxine smiled at the sight of it. “My, my. It seems the lot of you have managed to get quite a number of admirers in a very short amount of time.”

Twilight gestured with her hoof and rolled her eyes, smiling. “Oh, it wasn’t much. We do that kind of thing all the time!”

Fluttershy sadly lowered her head. “A little too often for my liking…”

Maxine squared her shoulders and set both hands onto the table. “‘Wasn’t much’? You saw that someone needed helping and didn’t hesitate to do what needed to be done! You didn’t stop to think about whether or not there was something in it for you, didn’t question whether or not someone might come along with abilities more equipped to the situation, or whether or not you would make it out unscathed! It was just like the old days! It was everything this city stands for!” Then, Maxine turned her gaze downward and began to slouch. “Well, it used to stand for anyway…”

The ponies just looked at the humans for a moment, expecting a follow-up to the statement. Micheal turned to Pohl while frowning a desperate grimace, but Pohl just took another swig of his drink and shrugged with his free hand.

Applejack beckoned with a hoof. “Um… would you like to talk about it? I like hearing stories about the old days, mostly ‘cause my Granny never stops talking about them.”

Maxine straightened her posture and made direct eye contact. “Oh, don’t make anything out of it, dear. Just an old woman’s nostalgia. Besides, there aren’t few in this city that believe that some things are best left unsaid.”

After another awkward pause, Rarity made a soft coughing to draw attention to herself. “So, Madam von Wrinkle, would you mind telling us what you do at your Agency?”

Maxine gave Rarity a gentle but sad smile. “I suppose it goes back to this city again. To maintain it and its functions and utilities requires most of the citizens to work nearly constantly.” She glanced at Micheal and Pohl. “If this city can’t find any use for you, it won’t hesitate to cast you to the gutter. But thankfully, there’s always something that needs done that someone doesn’t want to do themselves. All that’s needed to bridge the gap is connections, which I’ve thankfully cultivated over a lifetime of hard work that I intend to dedicate to the wellbeing of the people this city left behind so they don’t fall into the clutches of the likes of the Underworlders out of desperation.”

Rainbow Dash clicked her hooves together with a sour look on her face. “Hey, if they’re willing to go to the Underworlders of all things, I say let ‘em suffer!”

Maxine maintained her disposition, but her brow lowered ever so slightly. “Don’t get presumptuous on me, little pony. Nobody does bad things for no reason. Is it so hard to believe that sometimes, even for good people, things can just go wrong?”

Suddenly, Twilight, Rarity, Maxine, Micheal, and Pohl were struck by a massive tingling sensation. The others didn’t feel it, but they did notice something wrong with their friends. Fluttershy craned her head to look at each of them. “Um… Is something the matter?”

Twilight shook herself out of her stupor. “I don’t know, it felt like somepony just cast a massive spell!

Micheal ducked down but stuck his face out to look to and fro. “W-w-w-what kind of sp-sp-spell do you th-think it was?”

Pohl appeared to be focusing on something in the distance, then his eyes widened in shock as he stood up and pointed. “I am Pohl. I think we’re about to find out!” They all craned their necks to look. What they found was a strange distortion in the light spreading across the mall, painting everything in a strange mix of darkness and bright colors. Twilight attempted to raise a barrier around the group, but the encroaching phenomenon affected both it and them, changing the Twilight’s magic to a strange chromatic color and herself in several shades of yellow.

Twilight looked at her friends in mild horror as they were all, for lack of a better term, pallet-swapped. Applejack became a mix of purple and pale blue, Pinkie turned to several shades of spring green, Rainbow Dash’s mane inverted it’s colors while her coat changed to a bright yellow, Fluttershy changed to a couple shades of yellow-green and pale blue, and Rarity became a mix of black and an unpleasant shade of green, leading her to dramatically raise her hoof to her forehead and faint, dragging a sofa out of nowhere to fall in. When Twilight turned to her human friends, she found that they suffered similar fates.

Twilight was about to speak up, but her words were quickly drowned out by an undefinable but booming voice that seemed to be coming from everywhere at once. “Good day, capitalist sheep of the Market District Mega Mall. It has come to my attention that the one I’ve been seeking for several years now, the one that committed an unforgivably heinous act against mine, is a patron today.

“You know what you did; I’ve been stockpiling my magic for decades in case I really needed it, and I’ve decided to use it all at once to force a confession out of you. In case any of you were thinking about fleeing, don’t bet on it. I might not be able to use my space element like I used to, but I’m confident in this spell to make sure that no-one can get in or out of this mall without my say so.

“I’d suggest you’d all work together to force the perpetrator to confess. I assure you that I will hear it, and will release my spell once I have what I want. And I’d be quick about it if I were you, for I guarantee that every ten minutes I don’t get what I want, something terrible will happen. You have been warned.”

Maxine straightened up and gestured outward with her hands. “I suggest we get to the exit and see what we all can do.”

Twilight turned around. “Agreed.” They all race towards the exit. Along the way they spotted numerous mall goers in several states of shock. Sometimes sitting and rocking by themselves, other times huddled closely together in groups. However, as they got close to the exit, they also found some shouting at one another and even some running out of stores, arms full of ill-gotten merchandise.

Rainbow Dash scowled at the sight of it all. “Lousey ingrates! The moment things get tough, they start turning on eachother!”

Fluttershy shook her head. “They can’t help it. They’ve been whipped up into a frenzy! Some of the smartest, most gentle critters will stampede if even one of them panics!”

Applejack focused on the distance ahead of them. “Save the debate for later, fillies. I think I see the doors!”

They came upon the automatic doors that mystified the ponies the first time they passed through them (Especially Pinkie, whom they had to pull away from dancing in and out of the sensor). However, when the doors opened that time, all they saw was the same inky dark light that covered the mall condensed into a fluidly rippling wall. Rainbow Dash tried to fly out of them, but the phenomenon spat her back out the other way the moment she dove in. “Darn it! That’s some weird magic! Can you figure out something, Twilight?”

Before she could answer, Twilight was interrupted once again by a sudden loud crashing noise followed by a chorus of loud screaming. Maxine held her head low. “It’s been ten minutes since the announcement…”

Twilight blinked a couple times in surprise. “How did you know that?”

Maxin gave a sad smile. “Time magic. Gives me a perfect sense of timing, and that’s on top of us Ether-tribesmen’s special sensitivity! Anyway, if the one behind this really has space magic, we have no idea what to expect… The space element specializes in sending things from one place to another regardless of distance, and this field must give them influence over the entire mall! But you had an idea…?”

Twilight took a deep breath. “I might have something. It’s a spell used to clean up spatial anomalies caused by wild magic, like bottomless pits or endless corridors. I don’t know how it’ll react to all this, but I’ll give it a go…” Twilight turned to the doorway as her horn started to glow. She shot a wide beam of magic at the anomaly which made a sizable hole that let real light back in, but before any of them could react, it closed as quickly as it opened. “I was worried about that. The anomaly’s too big to disperse with one spell!”

Rainbow Dash reared back in the air with a determined look. “Quick! Do it again! I think I can make it!”

Maxine quickly gestured to the negative. “Better not risk it! I’ve seen dimensional slices before, the results are never pretty!”

Micheal approached Maxine anxiously. “M-M-Madam von W-Wrinkle, if your r-r-r-really have t-t-time magic, Why d-don’t you just r-r-reverse all this and st-st-st-stop it from happening!”

Maxine sighed and placed her hands on Micheal’s shoulders. “Maybe if I were twelve years younger, but I can barely manipulate three seconds anymore without my back seizing up! But maybe you can do something to help.”

Micheal’s eyes grew wide. “B-B-B-But Madam, you know I c-c-can’t d-d-do anything by m-myself!”

Maxine grins at him and waves her finger in his face. “Ah, but you’re not by yourself, are you? You’re surrounded by people with all kinds of fantastic powers!” Somehow, this statement left Micheal utterly speechless. He looked around at all of them with fascination.

Twilight trotted towards the pair of them. “What are you talking about? Does it have something to do with Micheal’s element?”

Maxine gives Twilight a big grin. “My dear, it has everything to do with Micheal’s element. You see, he was… fortunate enough to be born with catalyst magic. It allows him to use external sources of magic to his desire. Unfortunately, it doesn’t allow him to do much else. One of his key spells allows him to combine the properties of two or more spells. So if we combine my time magic to turn a mere moment into an eternity…”

Twilight began to smile too. “...With my spatial dispersion spell, we should be able to make a functioning gateway in and out of the mall!” Then, Twilight frowned. “Wait. If we tried to herd everyone out of such a small exit, it could cause a panic! The mall goers would trample each other trying to get out!”

Maxine turned towards Twilight. “I know, which is why I suggest we send out just one of us to go for help while the others stay behind and try our best to mitigate the damage.”

Rainbow Dash zoomed upward in anticipation. “Let me go! I can round up a posse and be back lickity-”

Maxine held her hand up to Rainbow Dash to stop her mid-sentence. “I volunteer: Applejack.”

On that note, Applejack looked around at the group and then directly at Maxine. “I’m flattered, really, but why me? In the air at least, Rainbow Dash is the fastest!”

Maxine turned towards Applejack and smiled. “It wouldn’t do any good to get a group of warriors to help in this situation. But there is one warrior in this city with abilities just suited to solving this problem that happens to be the most… unique employee at my Agency that I know should be on their lunch hour at the Gilded Trail Cafe just due north of here.”

Applejack turned her head away and raised an eyebrow. “But you still haven’t explained why I have to do it!”

Maxine shrugged. “I have a feeling you’ll make the best… impression on him. Remember, he responds to Percival, and he’ll understand whatever you try to tell him.”

Applejack held her hoof to her forehead for a moment in concentration. “North, Gilded Trail, Percival, got it!” Then she held her head back up and frowned. “Wait, what does he even look like?”

Maxine gave a soft laugh. “Trust me, you’ll know him when you see him.” Maxine turned towards Micheal with a determined look. “Now, Mr. Flamel, are you ready?”

Micheal stared at Maxine for a moment, then gave a look to each of the group, then nodded. He held his hand out and a smoke-like mist appeared in it which quickly shaped into an empty glass bottle with a ball-like flask and short neck. He held it towards Twilight, who’s horn began to glow. Suddenly, the light from Twilight’s horn got sucked into the bottle and swirled around inside. Micheal then held it towards Maxine, who held out her hand as a pale orb of energy appeared within it with a curved line spinning around inside at a rate of one revolution a second. This also got sucked into the bottle and mixed with Twilight’s spell in a strange, colorful reaction.

Micheal took a deep breath, turned towards the open doors of the mall, brought the bottle back, and threw it at the anomaly keeping them in. On contact, the bottle erupted into a small but brilliant explosion of colors. Once the ether cleared up, what’s left behind was another hole in the anomaly, this time one that stayed.

Pinkie Pie trotted up to Applejack. “Hurry Applejack! We’ll do our best on this side!” Applejack nodded, turned towards the hole, and raced out into the real light, returning to her normal colors before disappearing into the distance.

The ponies and humans turned around as they heard another series of crashings and even louder screams. Maxine raised her finger. “It’s been another ten minutes, if anyone cares.” Without another word, they all raced off back into the mall.

Chapter 8: The Faceless Warrior

“North, Gilded Trail, Percival. North, Gilded Trail, Percival. North, Gilded Trail, Percival.” Applejack galloped northward in the streets of the market district, while passing humans could only leap out of the way or stare at the strange mumbling quadruped.

As Applejack repeated her helpful mantra, her eyes wandered to and fro, observing the humans as they went about their business. She was a little disappointed, but not surprised, to see that most of them were acting like nothing was wrong despite the several disasters that had befallen their district. From what she’d seen during her previous times in big cities, most folk tend to prefer to only pay attention to what’s directly in front of them with no time for others. But they seemed disturbingly aloof despite the sheer scale of the last one. “Or maybe they’re just used to stuff like that.”

Applejack focused on what was directly in front of her, repeating the instructions. Then she abruptly stopped and backtracked after seeing something utterly startling. Sitting at a cafe table, awkwardly fumbling with some silverware, Applejack spotted… Applejack. When she looked more closely at her doppleganger, it ended up making eye contact. Applejack cantered up to the table and cleared her throat. “I take it you’re not a changeling, aren’t you?

The doppelganger tapped their chin with their hoof and rolled their eyes back in concentration. “Changeling, changeling, that’s them pony-like bugs that can change form and eat love, but some of your friends showed ‘em a better way and they’re good now, right?”

Applejack blinked and pulled her head back in amazement. “Okay, that’s mighty amazing of you! Percival, I take it?”

The figure hops off her seat onto her hooves. “You take it right, sugarcube. And holey worm-eaten apples, is it weird to walk on all-fours!”

“Well, maybe you’d find it easier if you turned back to your normal self?”

Percival awkwardly breaks eye contact and gestures with their hoof. “Well, I would, but sadly I don’t really have a normal self…”

Applejack turns her head to focus an eye on them. “Pardon?”

“It’s rare, but not unheard of. In fact, a handful are sure to be born every generation. Y’see… Sometimes… a human’s magic has more influence over them than they have over it. There’s a fancy name for it… Something, Something, Disorder… But most folks have taken to calling it Embodyment. For me, my transformation element makes me turn into anyone that fulfills any one of a set of conditions, and as you saw before, it’s not just on the surface. Honestly, even I haven’t got it all figured out…”

An awkward silence broke out between them while Percival held their head low. Applejack trotted up to them and placed her hoof on her shoulder. “Look, hun, I admit I can’t begin to understand what you go through every day or the kind of life you’ve lived, but Madam von Wrinkle recommended you by name and-”

Suddenly, Percivil’s head jolted up as their eyes grew wide. “Madam von Wrinkle! The mall! What are we wasting time here for?”

Applejack’s face mirrored her Percival’s as realization hit her like a mule’s kick. “Land’s sakes! This was all so weird, I plum forgot! Let’s go!” The twin ponies took off, galloping southward.

Several minutes passed as they backtracked along Applejack’s path. Percival adjusted their pace to gallop besides Applejack. “I just want you to know, when I turn into someone, I don’t suddenly learn everything about them, just the stuff on the surface, the information, memories, and personality quirks they don’t mind anyone else knowing.”

Applejack flipped her mane in the wind. “I don’t mind nothing, I ain’t got nothing to hide.”

Percival smiled at her. “Well, that’s what I’m getting at! You’re a very open book that I can’t help but read! I remember the satisfaction of a harvest well-done like I bucked all the trees myself! I can remember the satisfaction of helping my neighbors on chores big and small! And I feel homesick for Sweet Apple Acres even though I’ve never been there! Honestly, I’ve never met anyone that embraced what’s real like you. Honestly, it’s just so liberating to finally be someone with so little to hide. Honestly… I feel like I’m saying the word ‘Honestly’ way too much!”

On that note, Applejack giggled and rolled her eyes. “Yeah, it’s like that. But only because it matters to me so much!”

Percival repeated her action. “I’m so sorry. I always end up weirding people out! Usually, they don’t appreciate having someone else lay all their thoughts and feelings bare!”

Applejack turned their head to them. “You’re just being honest about your feelings, that’s one of the most important ways of being honest! Besides, you’re not telling me anything I or anypony else doesn’t already know. I appreciate hearing exactly what you think and feel when you think and feel it!”

Percival smiled at her and rolled her eyes. “Hey, all I do is just feel and think the same things you do!”

Applejack shook her head. “I don’t think so. In fact, the more I talk to you, the more I feel like I’m starting to know the real you!”

Percival cocked their head to the side. “What do you mean? Aren’t I saying the things you’d normally say?”

“If you didn’t have your own identity, you wouldn’t care so much about who you do and don’t turn into, or how much turning into them would bother them! You’re your own person underneath all that, it just lets you have a lot of perspective, which not a lot of creatures are lucky enough to have!” Percival smiled at her as a few tears streaked down their cheeks. Applejack frowned in concern over that. “Was it something I said?”

“No, it’s just that a long time ago, one of my best friends said almost the exact same thing! It’s just been so long, I’d nearly forgotten.”

Applejack smiled, but turned her head back forward as their destination came into view. “There’s the hole in the shroud! Let’s hurry”

Percival’s eyes narrowed as they lowered their head. “Right.”

They abruptly paused for a moment to let the sliding glass doors open and dashed through the hole into the strange environment within the mall. Applejack swung her head back and forth, clearly distressed. Percival got closer with a look of concern. “I know what you mean. It’s not like how you left it.”

The mall before was chaotic, but now it looked like an earthquake hit the place. Nearly all of the windows were broken with the ruined remains of the merchandise strewn about. Several of the walls were knocked down and potholes had opened up in the floor. And most of the lights went out, covering the mall in a weirdly obscuring whiteness. The pony and the transformed human looked at each other and nodded before turning and racing deeper into the mall.

Eventually, they came to stop and peered down at the main courtyard with looks of great worry. In the center, most of the younger or older mall goers were huddled together under a dome of energy that looked like a mixture of Twilight’s solid barrier with Rarity’s crystal segments and Pohl’s energy hexagons evenly distributed throughout with Micheal in the exact center holding his arms aloft. Each of the ponies plus Maxine and Pohl had rallied many of the more able-bodied and now armed humans, but they were barely holding their ground against their enemies.

The dozen monsters resembled crabs, but their shells were round and edged like a tortoise's, their claws were thinner and more open, and they each only had four very broad legs. The smallest among them were the size of cows, and the largest was the size of an elephant. Applejack whistled at the sight of it all. “Golly, those things look tough!”

Percival’s eyes narrowed. “I know these monsters… They’re not just tough, they’re smart too. Look!”

Every time Rainbow Dash and Twilight tried to divebomb one of the larger monsters, a smaller one would leap onto its back and make a jump at them, forcing her to break off her attack. Madam Maxine, wielding two swords, one shorter than the other, appeared to move with an unusual vanishing speed, but the monsters would surround her and box her in, forcing Fluttershy to airlift her out of harm’s way. Pohl, Rarity, and Pinkie pie were trying to hold the line in front of the barrier by launching onslaughts of party cannons, magic beams, and hexagonal prisms of energy, but the monsters were locked together supporting one another to withstand the beating, slowly but surely advancing on the civilians.

Applejack shook her head at the sight of it all. “How are we supposed to fight something like that?”

Percival backed away from the edge. “Only one way: Hit them with something completely unexpected!” Applejack looked at them with curiosity as Percival tightly shut their eyes, lowered their head, and tensed their whole body. “My element is mine, I am not my element... My element is mine, I am not my element. My element is mine, I am not my element!” Applejack’s eyes widened and her head raised as Percival underwent a startling transformation. (If their colors were normal) Their skin turned inky black and gained a texture similar to leather, their limbs and body morphed as their front hooves left the ground and divided into fingers, and their face began to harden into a white, featureless shell with two vertical slits. Applejack gazed in amazement at what she figured to be the closest thing Percival could get to their own true self. Then they straightened their back and shouted with a strange voice that sounded like countless voices layered on top of one-another. “I am Percival Sonoma! And I will protect those who cannot protect themselves!”

Suddenly, six long tapered knife-like objects with curving bladed crescents on the other end whose inward-curling edges faced outward appeared in a flash of (Normally) electric yellow light and levitated around them. They soon jumped over the side of the floor to Applejack’s astonishment, but the knives flew one after the other under their feet to support them. Applejack raced down the non-functioning escalator as she heard Percival shout with an amplified volume: “LOOK OUT BELOW!” The ponies and combatants paused their efforts and looked up with shock as they spotted a figure suddenly grow twenty times its size overhead. They rushed over to the other side of the courtyard as Percival fell, scattering the monsters and breaking their formations as he slammed down.

Suddenly, Percival shrunk back down to size as their weapons zoomed to circle around them. Then, they extended their arms as their weapons grew ten times their size and were suddenly coated by fire, ice, and electricity in pairs. They thrust his arms outward and the spike-like blades flew out striking against each monster and preventing them from moving back together in formation with the rapid swinging of their arms.

Applejack quickly raced up to Percival. “If you can keep them confused, I can herd them all together in one place! Can you do something with that?”

Percival’s mask-like face turned towards Applejack. “Actually, that’s exactly what I needed! Go for it!”

Applejack raced off to the outer monsters and started slamming into them with her shoulder and shouting at them, forcing them closer together. “HYA! HYA! GET ALONG THERE LITTLE CRABBIES! GET ALONG!”

Soon, the monsters were all huddled together in one spot, forced in place by Applejack’s jeers and penned in by Percival’s weapons circling around them. Then, Percival stepped up to them, bent down, and slammed his hands into the floor. From the points of impact, a (White in the anomaly) black tar spread out towards the monsters. The ground beneath the creatures turned completely black and they all started sinking into it. Soon, all the monsters were hopelessly entrapped in the dark and sticky pit.

Applejack circled back to Percival, who’s knives returned to his sides. “Yee-haw! Job well done, Perce’!” Applejack held up her hoof. Recognizing the gesture, Percival held his hand low and Applejack smacked it.

Meanwhile, Micheal lowered his composite barrier and the crowd met up with the combatants and started celebrating, hugging, and crying tears of joy. The ponies, Maxine, and Pohl soon raced up to the pair. After spotting Percival, Maxine paused and placed her hand to her chin. “So, they’re up to six focuses now. Interesting number considering…”

Meanwhile, the ponies rallied around Applejack. Fluttershy got closer and made a big grin. “That was amazing, Applejack…! I couldn’t have done it better myself…! Especially since they kept sneaking up behind me when I tried to do my stare on one of them…”

Twilight soon trotted forward. “It’s good that we took care of this problem, but we’re not out of the woods yet!”

Maxine stepped forward and held out a hand, her (normally) vivid crimson swords disappearing in two flashes of the same light. “She’s right, you know. As long as we’re trapped in this veil, we’re at the mercy of a mad human that clearly cares nothing for our wellbeing until we meet their demands.” She stood in front of Percival, hands pressed together. “Since you came here with Applejack, I assume you know why I wanted you specifically, my dear.”

Percival hesitated for a moment before nodding, and suddenly their weapons disappeared as they morphed into the likeness of Maxine. Applejack raised her eyebrow and turned toward them. “I thought you said that you couldn’t find out what other folks wanted to keep hidden.”

Percival sighed and held their head low. “Normally, I can’t. But if I can directly touch their heads, I can bypass that limit. I don’t enjoy it, though.” They look upon the civilians forlornly. “But sometimes, we have to do things we don’t want to for the greater good.” On that thought, Pohl, peering out from a ways behind Maxine, holds his head low and looks away.

Maxine turned to face the crowd and cleared her throat to get their attention. “We might have won the battle, but we’re not out of danger yet. We might not like it, but if we want to make it home tonight, we’re going to have to comply with the demands of the one that holds us in bondage. There’s no reason to suspect that they believe that they may have been wronged for a rational reason, so odds are, the one among us may have done it without realizing. Thankfully, we have someone that can peer into each of our minds from an external but sympathetic perspective. I myself will be the first to volunteer.” She turned towards Percival and nodded. Percival hesitated for a moment, but soon raised their arm and placed it upon the crown of their twin’s head. They made a sharp intake of breath, but she continued to make direct eye contact with them.

Percival turned towards the crowd. “It’s not her.” Maxine walked next to them and placed her hand on their shoulder.

“I suggest we form a line. This could take a while.” However, Pohl raced towards Percival and eagerly gestured for them to place their hand on his head. Percival appeared shocked at his sudden enthusiasm, but stepped forward and quickly shifted into Pohl’s visage, then placed their hand utop their new twin’s head.

Percival rapidly flinched and shook their head. “I am… Percival… Do you really feel… that you… abandoned her…?”

Suddenly, thunder rang throughout the mall, making everyone flinch. The strange light receded from the surroundings, returning everything to its proper hues (Especially to Rarity’s relief). It all came to swirl around and disappear at a figure that was not there before, but seemed to have been standing close the whole time. It appeared to be a hunched over old man with a long walking stick and a gray hood. They hobbled right over to the real Pohl and aggressively shook their oversized cane. “Thought you could get away with it did you? Thought you could promise your life to my only daughter and abandon her when the going got tough? THOUGHT YOU COULD JUST-”

The old man suddenly came down with a severe hacking spell and dropped his walking stick as he doubled over. Maxine, Micheal, Percival, and the Ponies raced over to help him stay on his feet. However, they are unnerved as his wheezing erupted into a sinister laughter. “You know, I was hoping that you’d stay the coward I know you are just to keep my spell going. I was prepared to kill everyone in this whole stinking mall to know without any reasonable doubt that I’d gotten to you. That one great big spell was all I had, and now I have nothing but the satisfaction of forcing a confession out of the dirtbag that seduced and abandoned my daughter.”

Everyone was utterly speechless at these words of unparalleled malice that came from such a small and frail figure. The Ponies had faced hatred on this level before, hatred willing to destroy the world, but it still shook them to their cores. Suddenly, tears started streaking down the old man’s face. “She was an ether-tribesmen through and through: Despite her weak heart, she was independent enough to live well on her own, but she drew in so many promising men vying for her hand. Kept secrets too, the only way she’d disappear to get hitched is if she knew she chose a spouse I’d never approve of.”

Then the old man shook off the unwanted aid of the surrounding people. Then, he aggressively hobbled right over to Pohl, who shrunk back under the scrutiny of his accusing finger. “Strangely, I used to be proud of the fact that I knew next to nothing about my own daughter and was always finding new surprises, but now it causes me nothing but pain wondering why my wonderful daughter would choose an addled, malformed, idiotic, shifty-”

He was suddenly silenced by Madam Maxine manifesting and pointing one of her bright red swords at his face, her expression turned from pity to anger. “I’d suggest you save your words for the Central Forces and the court.”

The old man sneered at her and spat, but held his tongue. However, Percival marched right in front of him and turned into his likeness. “Nasya was the one that annulled their marriage, not Pohl!”

This information caused the old man to suddenly go rigid and drop his walking stick. “WHAT?”

“She chose Pohl because she saw in him what she respected you the most for in its deepest form: In spite of everything, even the hand life itself dealt him, he just kept moving forward no matter what!”

This stuck the old man utterly speechless, his glassy cataract-ridden eyes wide with shock. His calmer twin continued. “For as long as she was able to understand, she hated herself, and thought you must hate her too. Because for her to be born, her mother, your wife, had to die. But then you told her that the ability to keep moving forward required the greatest strength and love of them all. And she wanted Pohl to keep moving forward even if it had to be without her, so when her chronic condition took a turn for the worse, she forced Pohl into consenting to annulling their marriage.”

The old man started shaking, and this time, Fluttershy was the only one that rushed to keep him propped up. “H-H-How do you know all of this?”

Percival pointed at Pohl, whose face was now buried in his hands. “I know because she told him, and he knew her well enough to know that seeing what you’ve become would make her heart split open all over again!”

The old man just stood there for a moment, looking down with an expression of extreme shame. Fluttershy bent down to grab his walking stick in her jaws and hand it to him. Suddenly, a dozen armed humans in polymer armor moved in to surround the group. The old man stepped forward and raised his hands. As the Central Forces apprehended the perpetrator, Percival got a look of shame of his own. Applejack noticed and cantered over to them. “The truth is hard to hear. But it’s even harder to tell, especially when it’s needed the most. But the fact that you could do it regardless shows that you truly care. Just give them a while and they’ll come to accept it.”

Percival shifted back into Applejack's likeness and smiled at her. “That means a lot, especially coming from you.” They brightened up at the sight of the ponies approaching the pair of them. “Tell you what, let’s all have a pot of tea at the Gilded Trail, on me!” They giggled at the sight of the ponies’ looks of disgust. “Don’t worry! They’re the only place that cultivates a patch of real tea right from the surface! It’s why they’re the only place that’s been in business since we all got down here! And from what I can tell in this body, it’s as good as the stuff in your world!”

The ponies looked greatly relieved and started trotting along.

Rarity held her head high. “A cup of tea sounds absolutely lovely!”

Pinkie started hopping along the way. “It’s been way too long since my last tea party!”

Fluttershy gave a gentle smile. “After what we’ve been through, tea sounds nice… right Twilight…?” After a moment without an answer she turned towards her friend. “Twilight…?”

Twilight looked lost in thought for a moment, then shook her head and looked at her friends leaving. “Tea! Sounds great! Sounds great…” Twilight turned towards Madam von Wrinkle, who along with Micheal, were offering their sympathies to a depressed-looking Pohl. When she saw Twilight, she just smiled and made a dismissive hand gesture. Twilight, with a look of apprehension, turned towards her friends and trotted along, following Applejack’s twin.

Chapter 9: The Guilds of Core Metro

“Yeah! Yeah! Slash! Parry! Slash! Thrust! Dodge and counter slash! Now give ‘em a jumping slash! Pow! He’s down! One…! Two…!”

The ponies leaned away in caution as the human shouted at the terminal in the upper corner of the gondola station. It appeared to be a fight between two armed humans. One was wearing baggy clothing with long hair and attacked with sparking bursts of magic and heavy strikes combined with teleportation aided by their staff with a heavy, hammer-like end. The other was a human with brown hair, bright red eyes, and a tan complexion wearing a red tunic with yellow trim and some chainmail garments underneath. They fought with incredible might and technique with their broadsword of solid amber energy being emitted perpendicular to their clasped, aura-covered fists, yet under his right eye was a pair of scars, one vierticle, one horizontal, making an unmistakable cross shape.

Applejack narrowed her gaze at the screen. “Is this some kind of news broadcast? Shouldn’t somepony stop them?”

The human just laughed. “It’s not the news! It’s our most revered sport! Pro dueling!”

Fluttershy glanced worriedly at the screen. “Um… isn’t that a little dangerous for a sport…?”

“Don’t worry your pretty little head, little pony! There are rules and a ton of safeguards! We’re not savages!”

Rainbow Dash raises her eyebrow. “Oh yeah? What kind of rules?”

“Well, for one thing, we use a points system, first to ten wins by TKO. Clean hits gets you one, critical hits get you two, and knockdowns get you three. If you knock your opponent down, you have to wait for the count of ten, if they don’t get up, you win by KO. You also get a KO by forcing your opponent to the floor or wall of the Arena’s ring for a count of three. Of course, the referee will break up the fight when things get too perilous, and different refs have different criteria for giving out points.”

Twilight turns her head to him. “Like what?”

“Well, some referees grade on how hard the opponent gets hit.”

Rainbow Dash smiles and rolls her eyes. “Playing hard is its own reward.”

“Some refs grade on style, technique, and subtlety.”

Rarity flips her mane. “How else?”

“And of course you get refs that grade on the audience’s reaction. They’re why they do it after all.”

Pinkie Pie excitedly clapped her hooves together. “Ain’t no party like a wild party!”

Rainbow Dash flies closer to the screen and squints at it. “That all sounds good in theory, but senseless violence is still senseless violence no matter how you play it, I don’t see- AW, DID YOU SEE THAT! HE DID A FRONT FLIP SLASH TO COUNTER THAT TELEPORTING BACK STRIKE! GO HUMAN! GO!”

The human chuckled at Rainbow’s words. “Looks like the Kris army has expanded into a whole new species!”

Twilight’s eyes widened in shock. “Um… what kind of army?”

The human made a low, hearty laugh. “It’s just what they call the fans of the reigning champion and latest King Under The Mountain, Kris Deulis!”

Twilight raised her eyebrow in curiosity. “‘King Under The Mountain’?”

The human smiled a big grin missing a couple of teeth at her. “It’s the title of a champion who rises to the top of the rankings without losing once and holds that position undefeated! Very few have ever had the honor of receiving the crown, and Kris Duelis came out of nowhere five years ago and took it for his own quicker and younger than anyone before! Supposedly, there was a similar title for a different rite long ago when we all lived on the surface, but when we all moved underground we came up with King Under The Mountain. It sounds intimidating, but there’s no shortage of formidable warriors that’d do anything to break that legend, and Kris sends them all packing as they come!”

Applejack held out her hoof to the human. “That’s all well and good, but what’s he like outside of the ring?”

“That’s the thing, nobody knows. He never does interviews or public appearances. After every match, he just goes right back to his private penthouse dojo the league provides for him. Because he never goes for any sponsorships or product endorsements, he actually makes a lot less than fighters holding ranks below him and lives only on his fight earnings. Of course, some interpret this as a sort of warrior fundamentalism, like seeking honor and glory only in battle and cutting off any worldly distractions, but again, he never gives interviews so nobody knows for sure.”

“Market/Financial District Gondola nine, afternoon stop coming in. All aboard that’s coming aboard.” Right on cue, the gondola came sliding downward into the station. The ponies gathered around the dock as the hatch doors slid open. Before nervously boarding, Fluttershy turned back to the human.

“Um… Are you coming mister…?”

The human laughed into a small coughing fit and shook his head. “Nah, dear. A hobo like me don’t have any business in the fancy-shmancy financial district. I just sit here all day watching the fights for free until they start serving in the kitchen! Go on! Pay no mind! I’m not putting on a show here!” The ponies anxiously looked at one another before awkwardly boarding the gondola.

***

“Well, this is certainly a step down from the last district, at least in terms of style.” Rarity regarded the sight before her and her friends with mild disappointment.

This sector was constructed with mostly business in mind. The view gave way to concrete cubes studded with paned glass windows, behind which countless humans sat at desks writing and typing. The humans that strided across the streets paid the ponies no mind as they carried suitcases, papers, paper cups of what smelled like strongly caffeinated drinks, and spoke into small round objects that apparently allowed them to communicate with each other across distances. The only interesting landmark was a very tall clocktower with four very large faces built into a box-shaped structure on top of a more slender pillar and capped with both large and small tapering turrets.

Rainbow Dash slouched while in the air. “Doesn’t look like there’s much to do in this part of the city. Where are we supposed to go while we wait for the meeting with the next Director?”

Twilight pointed her hoof at the clocktower. “Why don’t we go there? There might be something worth seeing at something so different.”

Rainbow Dash groaned but started flying in that direction. “I suppose it’s better than just standing around.”

Rarity held her nose high in the air and trotted behind. “It certainly adds some much-needed aesthetic to this otherwise dull and drab district.”

The others agreed with the both of them and proceeded, only Twilight lagged behind with an uncertain look on her face. “I don’t like deceiving my friends, even if only for a little while. But this is something I need to know.”

Twilight went back to the mall incident, recalling how she was about to celebrate with the others over their victory. However, she noticed a strange sensation in the air, similar to how the anomaly first appeared. When she looked around, everything except her took on an odd red tinge and was completely halted and silent. However, she quickly turned around when she noticed the steady paces of some footsteps, finding that Maxine was also unaffected, and in fact was warmly grinning at her.

“He’s not the only one that can stockpile their magic when they sense themselves declining. Over the last twenty years, I’ve managed to save up about one hundred hours of time I can manipulate, and I never use them lightly, my dear.”

Twilight was about to ask at least five questions, but Maxine held up her hand to silence her. “I’d rather not dally, so I’ll just get right to the point.” Maxine held out her hand to offer something to Twilight, which she floated with her magic to get a better look at. It looked like a square-cut emerald, but within was a crimson symbol: IX, the numeral for nine. “If you want to learn the true history of Core Metro, the one that those in power think better off forgotten, take this to the western base of the clocktower. But don’t tell your friends until you’re inside, there are ears everywhere that won’t hesitate to silence any voice that speaks words they don’t approve of.”

Twilight, back in the present, sighed and began following her friends along from behind.

***

Rainbow Dash huffed and crossed her hooves. “I don’t see how this is better than being back there! Where’s the entrance? Does this place even do tours?”

Pinkie Pie hopped up and down. “Oh, it’s not so bad! We can make our own fun! Let’s start by counting the bricks! One brick, two bricks, three bricks, four bricks…”

Fluttershy quietly follows along until she notices a red glint out of the corner of her eye, turning her head to look at it. “Twilight, are you glowing a different color than usual?” Twilight levitated Maxine’s gem forward, the crimson characters within flashing in a steady rhythm.

Rarity made an excited sound. “Twilight, where did you get such a lovely emerald?” However, Twilight didn’t say a word. Instead, took it with her closer to the clocktower, its flashes growing more frequent.

Applejack got a worried look as Twilight cantered right past her. “Um… Twi’?” Eventually, Twilight came to rest at a smaller but still large clock face built into the side of the tower’s base, the emerald now glowing continuously. She floated the item towards the clock and set it directly against the number nine.

The clock face began to fade away, revealing a pathway directly into the clocktower. Twilight looked back to her friends’ confused faces, gesturing for them to follow, she proceeded in. The others looked at one another and did just that.

Eventually, they came to some manner of lift which they all stepped into. When they were all in, a grate over the entrance slid closed and the lift took them upward.

***

“YIIIEEEEEE! Not more!” As the ponies left the corridor and found an entry hall, the human standing at the desk shrieked and cowered behind it.

Applejack approached the desk with an inquisitive and slightly worried look. “Um… excuse me miss, can you tell us where we are exactly?” As Applejack craned her head over the desk, the human tried to bend down even lower and started covering her eyes. However, Applejack managed to get a good look at her. She had pale skin, white hair done in a small but thick ponytail, and dark red eyes. All wearing a plain bluish suit. Her clenched teeth showed off her unusually long and sharp canines.

A concerned Fluttershy approached, which somehow got a sharp wail out of the woman even though her eyes were covered. “Um… are you okay miss…?”

“Please, just… go away!”

“Relax Carmi, I’ll do the rest from here.” The ponies turned towards the relievingly familiar voice as Maxine came in from the other end of the entry hall. “You have to forgive her. Carmilla Waybright here’s a blood elemental, but a mishap in her childhood involving her stubborn grandfather refusing to get a cut treated gave her a crippling case of hemophobia. That combined with her ability to sense the blood in others left her quite neurotic, this is the only place I could have her work. She usually does a good job with people she’s grown accustomed to, but she always has a bit of an episode when multiple new people show up, especially ones a lot heavier than the average human.”

Rarity turned her head away and pouted. “I’m not that heavy…”

Twilight turned around to face her friends. “I’m sorry for not being entirely honest with you, girls…” This got a sour look from Applejack. “...But Madam von Wrinkle said that it might be dangerous to talk about.” Twilight turned back to Maxine. “So, you mentioned something about Core Metro’s history?”

Maxine started beaming and put her hands together. “I thought you’d never ask! Come with me ladies, let’s go to exhibits dedicated to this city’s most important but now tragically suppressed history!” They followed her past the entrance hall deeper into the clock tower, but Applejack had to go back for Pinkie, who was currently engaged in a screaming contest with Carmilla.

***

“Many years ago, I found these chambers hidden within this clock tower after discovering it reacted to time magic. It’s no surprise, in the old days, many of the carpenters liked to hide secrets in their works. In fact, I’ve decided to turn this whole place into a museum to show the trusted masses all the neat things they did in the old days.”

As the ponies and their guide made their way deeper into the hall, they came upon the fist chamber, which illuminated all kinds of interesting exhibits. On one end, there was a case containing brightly colored weapons of all makes just like they find with certain humans, except these had multiple cracks in them and had old pictures of humans hung above each one. In another end, there was a case containing awards inscribed with titles such as For Distinguished Services to Core Metro, For Discovery of Vital Importance, and For The Preservation of the Lives of Citizens. In the middle was a display depicting nine brightly colored banners with different designs.

“Almost immediately after the ancient humans settled in the cavern, they had to assign duties to those whose skills were most suited to each one. However, there tended to be breakdowns of communications whenever certain situations arose, it was often these specialists who received the brunt of the fallout.

“Later on, these specialists discovered that they could handle these situations if they banded together, and so the first Guilds were born. Over time, these guilds fostered a sense of unity and community among the humans that they rarely saw even during their glory days on the surface, and core metro grew into what it is now today. In the end, nine guilds rose above the others for their excellence and contributions to the city: North Star: Home to the most seasoned and detailed mapmakers and explorers. Glorious Forge: Fosterers of the greatest craftsmen the city ever knew. Phoenix Tears: Where millions of lives were saved by the most merciful of healers. Golden Griffon: Where the most driven and single-minded treasure hunters shared the bounty of their efforts with all. Wild Heart: Tamers and tenders of even the most savage of beasts that make their homes in the vast caves. Elegant Elephant: Though they took it upon themselves to take the filthiest jobs to maintain the city, they did so with the highest of pride and dignity. Shadow Iris: The investigators who would prowl the darkest nests of corruption to safeguard those that live in the light. Silver Hand: Few consider dealing with numbers to be the most pleasant experiences, but these expert eccentrics relished the thought. And Rising Dragon: Though humans are considered a warrior race as a whole, these combatants never hesitated to push that standard and themselves to new heights.”

Twilight and her friends marveled at this story. And with Maxine’s beckoning, they raced throughout the exhibits. Pinkie Pie giggled almost nonstop as she played with the interactive exhibits. Rarity could barely contain herself at the sight of the artisan guilds’ original clothes designs. Applejack regarded the exhibits and cases containing the tools each guild did their work with admiration. Rainbow Dash marveled at the awards and plaques dedicated to great deeds and competitions. Fluttershy eagerly read the entries on the exhibits pertaining to the wildlife of the caves, but tried not to look at the real taxidermied creatures. And Twilight peeled through the preserved copies of the old texts and logs of the guilds.

Eventually, they all met back in the main hall, clamoring towards Maxine. Twilight was the first to ask a question. “This is all very amazing Madam von Wrinkle, but what happened to all the guilds?”

On that note, Maxine suddenly got a very sad, very tired look on her face, which brought down the mood in the hall severely. “Well… I have an exhibit for that too. Follow me.” Maxine proceeded to a darkened adjacent hall, followed by the now apprehensive ponies.

Maxine flipped a switch on the wall and the hall was illuminated. Inside each case were several newspaper clippings relating to disasters, massive political reform, and several financial crises. The ponies got a distinctively different vibe from this hall. Maxine strode to the middle of the exhibits. “I suppose it all started about seventy-five years ago. Over the course of a week, the city was rocked by several disasters of great magnitude that shook it to its very foundation. By the end of it all, it seemed like the whole thing would collapse upon itself no matter how hard everyone worked.

“But where most saw calamity, others saw opportunity for greater prosperity. Five of the most wealthy business moguls in the city offered to rebuild it using their own resources, bigger and better than it had ever been before. In exchange, they wanted to reform the city’s policy with themselves on top. With no options available to them, the people and guilds were forced to accept. And out of the ruins were built the districts we know today.

For many years, the economic growth of the city skyrocketed, but it had the unfortunate effect of concentrating in the hands of a wealthy few and widening the gap between the rich and poor. To quell the dissent of the citizens, the Directors decided to reform the city’s political affairs once again on their own terms. Most of the major administrative power was concentrated into the Central Administration, and the position of High Director was formed.

There were more jobs, but growth was slow. So ten years ago, the latest High Director accused the guilds as the source of the lull for taking the jobs for cheap, and signed an order to abolish the guild system, promoting a philosophy of self-interest and individualism in its place to encourage ambition in the citizens. In the end, the Guilds were just a victim of political scapegoating.”

After finishing the story, Maxine started looking more solemn than ever. Fluttershy trotted up to Maxine. “Madam von Wrinkle, were you part of a guild?”

Maxine wiped something from the corner of her eye and regained her composure. “Yes, I was. It wasn’t one of the big nine, just one of the smaller, not-so-special guilds.” Applejack sensed that there was more to it than she was letting on. While she was debating internally on whether or not to pry, unknown to everyone, something dark slid out from underneath Twilight and quickly made its way into an adjacent hall.

Before any of them could break the silence, they were all stunned by the sudden appearance of a platoon of underworlders charging out from one of the halls. Right before both groups made contact, the hall suddenly took on a red tinge. The ponies slowly opened their eyes after their anticipation was met with utter silence and found that all of the underworlders were frozen in place, covered in the same red hue as everything else.

Rainbow Dash swung her head around and scowled. “This is just like Trace’s spell!”

Pinkie Pie perked up at the sound of that. “Does this mean the whole world’s covered in cherry gelatin?”

Maxine coughed to get everyone’s attention. “I’ve stopped time for now to give us a chance to keep our senses. It seems my little museum has been invaded by the Underworlders. I don’t know how and it doesn’t matter how. But these old halls have more than a few tricks to defend themselves from intruders. My accumulated time magic won’t allow me to alter anything caught in the stopped time, so I could use your help to operate these defense systems. But I won’t blame you and will even help you if you want to escape.” On that note, the ponies responded in the negative, making their decision very audible. Maxine gave them a warm smile. “Very well. Follow me, we should collect Carmilla before moving into some hidden rooms. Follow me then.” Maxine strided as fast as she could with the Ponies following close behind.

Chapter 10: Clocktower Countdown

Suddenly, the red tinge faded as time resumed. The grunts continued their charge but abruptly ceased it after seeing that there were no targets in their path.

A sandy-haired grunt carrying a mace scratched his head with a disappointed expression. “Where did they all go?” Before anyone could deliberate, suddenly, a small hatch opened up on the floor in front of them and quickly extruded a narrow pillar capped by an orange crystal which fired a bolt of magic. The sandy-haired grunt twitched as his body sparked and fell down.

The pillar continued to fire sparks at the grunts as more appeared out of the floor, walls and ceiling to add to the salvo. The Underworlder grunts quickly raised barriers of various types of magic to hold off the fire. In the back, a lanky underworlder with a slingshot created a mass of rock that compressed into a small but dense projectile. They placed it into their slingshot, drew it back, stood over the barrier and fired at the first turret. The crystal shattered and the Grunt repeated this process until all of the turrets were disabled. Before the Grunts could offer their clout, a trapdoor opened up below the lanky grunt and he fell into it screaming.

The Underworlders at first began to panic, but one of them, a girl with long red hair, whistled loudly. “Come on! We’ve cleared out one hall! Let’s press on! Or do you want to face the Boss’s wrath for failing because we lost our wits?” The underworlders quickly rallied and charged deeper into the halls, all of the exhibits before them quickly sliding into the ground behind closed hatches before they could break something.

They advanced into a new hall, but the frontmost part of the group was knocked dazed to the ground by a large, blunt pendulum suddenly sweeping out of the adjacent wall and slamming into them and blocking the path of the rest of them with its continuous swings. A blue-eyed Grunt pointed a long wand at the base of the pendulum and let loose a stream of solid-white vapor. On contact, a mass of ice appeared and quickly jammed the mechanism pre-swing.

The Underworlders continued their march into the next hall, but a hidden hatch opened up right on the threshold and sent the next frontmost-part of their troop falling into nowhere. A pair of Grunts held their arms aloft and created a bridge of stone to make a path over.

In the next hall, the Underworlders stood at the ready, prepared for anything. But none of them expected the hall itself to start rotating on an axis, sending them all tumbling into more trapdoors that opened to catch the rolling Grunts.

A Grunt with a purple bowl-cut managed to suspend themselves in midair, enveloped in an azure light. They suddenly brought their hands together and appeared to be concentrating with all their might. The remaining Underworlders that barely found their footing were suddenly enveloped in the same light and started floating in midair. The purple-haired Grunt thrust their arms towards the hall’s exit and the levitating Underworlders were sent flying into the next hall while the Grunt that saved them fell, exhausted, into another trap door.

In the next room, the less sizable troop of Underworlders shakily got up, but had finally paused their charge to recover. Meanwhile, in a dark corner above, a swirling vortex of shadow appeared and a bright orange eye stuck out, peering at the resting Grunts.

“This place was more fortified than we were led to believe. We’ve taken a massive beating and I still haven’t found what I’m looking for. I need more time, so I guess I have no choice but to sick the next Administrator on them.”

The eye vanished within the shrinking vortex, and suddenly, it was as if neither of them were there to begin with. Meanwhile, the Underworlders stood back up and held their many weapons in tight grips before advancing further into the hall. The invaders were met by several large mannequins popping out of the ground carrying weapons of their own. As the Underworlders charged at an obstacle their weapons would prove effective on, the mannequins swung their oversized weapons and managed to send most of them flying. However, two of the mannequins were struck down by an onslaught of lightning bolts, fireballs, and ice spikes by the red-haired, blue eyed, and a new yellow-eyed Grunt. However, this group was sent flying back into a new hatch by a horizontal battering ram flying down from above.

The remaining Underworlders held their ground in front of the remaining mannequins. But suddenly, a hole was blown into an adjacent wall by a large explosion and an Underworlder Administrator walked out, carrying a beach-ball sized iron flail covered in broad spikes that they held by a long chain wrapped around their other forearm.

He was very large with dark skin, white hair, and light brown eyes. His armor was painted in waves of an outwardly expanding pattern of jagged red lines with the addition of a bright red metal mask clasped around their mouth with several breathing holes bored into it.

The Administrator held their free hand aloft as three spheres covered in spikes appeared in flashes of reddish-orange light. The Administrator sent them flying with a swing of his arm and blew up three of the mannequins, their pieces flying everywhere.

He approached the remaining two mannequins, swinging his flail around himself. The mannequins’ weapons were deflected by the rotating flail and they were both smashed to scrap with a couple of mighty swings.

The remaining underworlders cheered for the Administrator, chanting his name: “Crazy Joe! Crazy Joe! Crazy Joe!” Meanwhile, in a hidden room, Twilight got a worried look as she turned her gaze away from a protruding spy hole.

“An Administrator’s gotten in too and took out the fourth-line defense system!”

Rainbow Dash flew up to the spy hole to take a look for herself. “Geeze! How many Administrators do these guys have?”

Maxine rose out of the command chair and strided towards the ponies. “Nobody’s quite sure how many or what kind of resources the Underworlders have precisely. For such a violent organization, they can be surprisingly secretive, but that Administrator’s identity is no secret, he’s infamous.”

Fluttershy gave Maxine a frightened glance from the control panel she was regretfully operating. “What do you mean…?”

“Crazy Joe is a bomb elemental notorious for causing widespread collateral damage. They mostly send him to draw aggro away from their main force. However, they also use him to intimidate by sending him to destroy the property of those that have defied them one too many times. All to send a message to never challenge the Underworlders”

On that note, Fluttershy began convulsively shaking, but Applejack trotted up to her to put a hoof around her shoulders. “We’ve been through much worse, hun’. We won’t be scared off that easily.”

Maxine grinned as she shifted her glasses. “Quite right.” Then she gave a protective glance at Carmilla, who was in a fetal position in a corner, mumbling, “toomanypeople, toomanypeople, toomanypeople…” Then, Maxine approached Pinkie Pie, who’s hooves were excitedly hovering over more controls. “Pinkie, my dear, you know that big red button you’ve been eyeballing since you got in here?”

“You mean that one?” Pinkie Pie bounced in place as she excitedly stretched her hoof to point at a very large button on the end of the furthest control panel labeled: For Emergencies Only.

“Yes. When I give the signal, I want you to press it. Not before, not after. Understand?”

Pinkie Pie stood up on her hind legs and gave her best hoof salute. “Abso-tively! Posi-lutely!” She then zipped over and stood ready with her hoof right over the button.

Meanwhile, Maxine strided over to Carmilla and took both of her hands into hers. This caused her to stop shaking and look directly at Maxine. “Carmi, my dear, I’m afraid I’m going to have to leave you alone for a minute while I take care of the bad guys.”

On that note, Carmilla tightened her grip with tears in her eyes. “Don’t leave me alone, Madam von Wrinkle!”

Maxine gave her a warm smile as she pulled her hands away. “It’ll be fine, I have the invincible time element, remember? Besides, if anything does happen, I need you to be safe so you can fix it. Few have any real ability to heal what’s broken, and I know that you’re only so scared because you care so much, dear! I just need you to be brave just this once. Not for me, but for yourself.”

Carmilla looked deep into Maxine’s kind eyes, gulped, and nodded. Maxine nodded at her and turned towards the ponies, who stood at the ready. “I’m going to have Pinkie use our final gambit to thin out their ranks completely. Then, if the Administrator’s still standing, we’ll have to take him on ourselves. Ready Pinkie?” Pinkie got a determined look on her face and stood rigid over the button. “On my Mark… Now!”

Quick as lightning, Pinkie slammed her hoof on the button. Suddenly, the whole clocktower started groaning. Then it started shaking. Twilight put her eye back to the spy hole to see what was going on.

Back in the halls, the Underworlders looked around anxiously. Even Crazy Joe was on edge and began swinging around his flail. Suddenly, the ceiling started folding inward to reveal the mechanism of the clocktower above. Just then, the gears started spinning faster and faster before suddenly starting to fall into the hall, slamming into the underworlders and knocking them out one by one.

When the shaking settled, all of the Underworlders were buried under piles of gears and clockwork. However, one pile of clockwork started shining with a red light. The pile soon exploded and Crazy Joe emerged, swinging his flail in a looping arc for good measure before advancing into the next hall himself.

In the hall’s corner, a hidden door opened and out of it charged the ponies followed by a two-sword wielding Maxine. “This will be your final warning, interloper: take yours and leave this hallowed place, or face my wrath.”

In response, Crazy Joe whirled his flail over his head and sent it flying, sending our heroes scattering as they left behind a crater in the floor.

Applejack raced up to Crazy Joe as he pulled back his flail, but he waved his free hand, creating three bright red orbs between him and her. Applejack quickly jumped out of the way as the orbs started glowing bright orange before they exploded, Rarity shooting a wall of crystal to act as a buffer from the blast.

Rainbow Dash attempted to dive down from above, but Crazy Joe whirled around his flail to block her off. However, she noticed small red flecks of light scattering from the spinning chain. She made a sharp bee-line turn as the flecks turned orange and erupted into a violent flame-like burst.

Pinkie Pie zigzagged across the distance, avoiding the fruitless flailing of Crazy Joe’s attacks. In a blur of pink, three lit party cannons encircled and pointed at Crazy Joe before they all went off at once. Crazy Joe staggered and shook the confetti out of his face before slamming his free hand onto the ground. In a starburst pattern, dozens of mines appeared outward from Crazy Joe. The ones Pinkie zipped across started glowing bright orange, but Fluttershy quickly swooped in and airlifted her out of the way as the mines exploded in a chain reaction beneath them.

Twilight flew towards Crazy Joe, shooting bolts of magic from her horn while flying low. Crazy Joe responded by throwing his flail in a straight shot at her. She managed to roll out of the way, but Crazy Joe made a gesture with his free hand, which caused a small red ball stuck to the side of the ball to glow orange and explode, changing the trajectory of the fail, getting Twilight caught in the chain as it wrapped around her. Crazy Joe reeled her in and raised an intensely glowing fist overhead, but Twilight closed her eyes and teleported out of the way of the punch that exploded the ground where she used to be.

Swiftly yet precisely, Madam von Wrinkle launched her assault by turning aside each swing of Crazy Joe’s flail with a spinning and twisting deflection from her swords. When Crazy Joe sent a salvo of bombs to interrupt her charge, she was enveloped in a red shimmer of light and disappeared to reappear on their other side, having skipped ahead. When she finally got in range, she pointed both swords at Crazy Joe as he was enveloped in a shimmering red vapor that froze him in place. Maxine unleashed a flurry of dancing and twisting strikes all around Crazy Joe’s body. Then, she abruptly came to rest behind him as the glow faded. He shook convulsively, feeling all of the previous strikes at once.

Crazy Joe dropped to the ground, supporting himself with his hands. Maxine pointed her weapons at him, but held her position. “Yield. Your Grunts have been safely thrown out of these halls with no way to re-enter. I don’t want the Administration to know about this place, you may leave without consequence.”

Breathing heavily, Crazy Joe glanced around the hall. He spotted a mass of shadow outside of everyone else’s field of vision form an X symbol. Crazy Joe raised one of his hands as it began to glow in an intense red and orange light tinged with a black vapor. Crazy Joe waved his enveloped hand in the air, sending out seven wisps of light that flew out into the hall right as Maxine pointed at him to freeze him in place once again.

However, the lights continued to swirl about near the hall’s ceiling. Maxine’s look of confusion quickly turned to terror. “RUN AWAY! HURRY!” All of the ponies’ faces got looks of shock as they turned around and galloped in the opposite direction. Soon, the lazily drifting lights froze in midair and suddenly bolted towards each of the fleeing figures, striking them all.

Twilight closed her eyes as she felt something hit her. Then she reopened them after feeling no pain or real impact. She craned her head around to look at her hit haunch and saw something unfamiliar attached to her. It looked like the face of some kind of clock counting down from nine hundred ninety nine. She turned towards Maxine, who had a grim look on her face.

They all reconvened in the center of the hall, anxiously gazing at the objects attached to them. Fluttershy trotted up to Maxine. “M-m-m-Madam von Wrinkle… What did he just do to us?”

Pinkie stared at hers with mild fascination. “Did that spell turn us into ovens? Am I going to pop out some muffins in eight-nine-five seconds?”

Rainbow Dash did a double take on that note. “Wait, mine still says nine forty-five!” Each pony and Maxine soon noticed that each of their timers was now counting down from different numbers, at different rates.

Twilight gave Maxine a worried glance. “What kind of human magic is this, Maxine? Is there anything we can do?”

Maxine looked downward and sighed. “It’s… curse magic! A spell designed to hurt someone or something in a way that’s impossible to defend against and nearly impossible to recover from. I believe he’s attached bombs to us with timers linked to our heartbeats.”

This started a panic among the ponies. Still cringing, Twilight looked Maxine right in the face. “But… but… why would your people invent a magic so terrible?”

“I believe at one point in our history, we had to contend with foes that couldn’t be defeated by ordinary methods and had to find a way to make them quickly go down and stay down. But that doesn’t matter now. We can’t get rid of these, and if we don’t find some way to ward off the effect, we’ll all be killed!”

Suddenly, they noticed the hidden door opening once again and Carmilla hurriedly creeping out. “I… I heard everything. I might be able t-to help.”

Maxine stepped forward with a look of great concern. “You want to go for help, Carmi?”

Carmilla cringed at the thought of it. “I-I-I can’t do that Madam von Wrinkle. But I can take someone’s curse into myself so they can go.”

Maxine shook her head. “My dear! I can’t ask you to do that!”

“You don’t have to! I waited my whole life to help someone, but I’ve always been too scared. I’m scared now, but if I don’t do something, all of you will die!”

Maxine grew silent. Then she closed her eyes and sighed. “Very well, but do it for Rarity. She’ll go for help.”

Rarity held a hoof to her mouth in shock. “Me? All by myself? Why?”

“The same reason I sent Applejack after Percival, dear. I think you’ll have the best impression on Sloop. When Carmilla takes the curse, I’ll have to stop us in time to buy you time. But I have a finite amount of stockpiled time magic, so I’ll have to release Crazy Joe before making sure we’re well hidden.”

Twilight sighed. “I suppose we don’t have many options.” She gave Rarity a worried glance. “If you’re okay with it, I’ll go along with this plan.”

Rarity paused for a moment, then got a determined look and nodded. “Well, all right then! Let’s get this underway now, shall we?”

Rarity trotted up to Carmilla, who flinched slightly as she got close. Rarity made a tender expression which caused Carmilla to relax. Carmilla extended a finger, which emitted a small vine-like stream of blood. This stream made contact with Rarity’s chest, and soon after the bomb on Rarity’s body glew bright red before disappearing. A red light appeared in the stream from Rarity’s chest and traveled toward and disappeared into Carmilla’s finger. Once the bomb appeared on Carmilla, the stream dissapeared.

Carmilla stepped away to allow Maxine to step in front of Rarity. “Remember, once you leave this place, you can’t mention anything about the guilds or this museum. Go to Masters Holdings and Loans due west of here and tell them that Maxine needs Sloop’s help! Head to the lift, now!”

Rarity gave them all a wink and headed back to the entry hall. The others turned around and headed back to the hidden door.

Chapter 11: The Aristocrat of Warriors

A human man sitting on a bench drinking from a paper cup paused for a moment as they spotted something out of the corner of their eye. Eyes widening, they nudged the one sitting next to them with their elbow. “Hey, check her out!”

The other man lowered their newspaper and gazed at the creature their benchmate was pointing at. “I don’t like to judge, but you’ve got some weird tastes.”

“No! I mean, did you see the expression on her face? Why does a pretty little thing like her have such a determined expression?”

“So you are into her!”

“It’s called aesthetics, man! Just because I think a statue is beautiful doesn’t mean I want to make out with it!”

“Yeah, right! You totally want to… hey, isn’t she heading right for Masters?”

“That looney’s place? Weird, considering that he was part of the…”

“Shh! Do you want the central forces to haul you off? You’ve got a family to feed!”

“Right, sorry. Just found it ironic is all…”

“I think the proper term is ‘fitting’ in this situation.”

“Look here you…!”

An unknowing Rarity left the argument behind as she entered the building with the plate emblazoned with the words Masters Holdings and Loans bolted above the doors which she pulled open with her magic. However, she hesitated for a moment when she saw what was inside.

“Whoever owns this place has such good taste!” Everything in the room was perfectly coordinated between its colors of sea green, brass, and ivory, which blended well with the nautical themed antiques such as authentic sea charts, bronzed anchors, and a chandelier made from a repurposed helm.

“Do you have an appointment… Miss?” Rarity just noticed the secretary wearing the lime-green blazer sitting at the front desk. Before her was a glass pane displaying various images with many smaller bits of glass below it with individual characters.

Remembering her mission, she cantered right up to the desk. “I need to speak to Sloop, right away!”

The secretary rolled her eyes. “I’m sorry. Mr. Masters can’t be disturbed, he’s with a client and can’t be bothered even for a political delegate.”

Rarity was starting to get visually agitated, hopping on her hooves. “But my friends and Madam von Wrinkle are in trouble and…”

Rarity grew silent at the sight of the secretary’s expression. She slowly reached over to an adjacent intercom and pressed a button. “Um… Mr. Masters, there’s a pony here that claims to know Maxine. She’s saying it’s an emergency.”

When she released her hand, the intercom made an electric click and a confident voice rang out. “Really? Wow! Send them in. I’m basically done with this guy anyway.”

The secretary pointed to Rarity’s right. “Take the hallway and enter through the last door on the left.”

Rarity smiled as she turned towards the hall. “Thank you so much dear! And your makeup perfectly accents your eyes and outfit!” She left behind the secretary, who had a flattered look on her face that hadn’t appeared in a long time.

Rarity arrived at a door emblazoned with the words Sloop Masters and the words Owner, Broker, and Chief Venturerer which in turn were above a symbol consisting of a tiller with a compass in the center with two outwardly curving waves adjacent. Rarity gently knocked on the door with her hoof. The same confident voice from the intercom rang out. “Come in, I’ll be done in a second!”

Rarity entered the office and trotted over to the side, enamored at the scene before her. In front of the desk was a small, bald man visibly sweating with an anxious look. At the desk was a board looking young man in a black suit with dark blonde hair, light skin with a sun kissed glow, and light brown eyes leaning back in a leather chair with a bored look.

Once the small man seemed to have worked up some nerve, he spoke up. “I can’t keep up with my mortgage sir, not with my kids and wife as sick as they are right now! I just need a little something to get over the hump, preferably with a low interest rate!”

The young man sighed, reached down, and effortlessly hefted up a large suitcase and set it on the desk with a loud slam, which opened it up to reveal it full to bursting with paper money in both halves. “Okay Jason, here’s two million, I’ll give it to you at one point five percent, pay me back in three hundred years.”

Jason looked like he was about to vomit in shock. “Butbutbut… this is way too much! I can’t ask you to give me that much!”

The young man sighed, spun the suitcase around, and tossed out a bundle of bills in front of it. “Fine, here’s two thousand, you can have that for three hundred percent interest, pay me back next Tuesday.”

If Jason was in a cold sweat before, he now had a hot sweat on top of it. “Okay, I admit, I’m desperate! But even I’ve got some dignity! I won’t sit here just to be insulted even by you!”

On that note, the young man straightened up, grabbed a few more bundles of cash, and threw them on the desk. “Okay, I was just having some fun with you before because I haven’t gotten out in a while. Here, take six grand, no bells and whistles. I just need a favor.”

Jason started looking confused. “What kind of favor?”

“You work in foundation repair right? Because you’re an earth elemental that can sense pulsations in the ground? I want you to accompany me to the quartz towers cave in a couple months. I have reason to believe that a volcanic pocket’s going to pop up there, and a power station I own has a lot of lightning elementals out sick and they could use the geothermal energy to make up for the loss until they recover. Can you do that for me?”

Jason started looking relieved, but a little anxious. “I definitely could do that, but aren’t there a lot of big monsters out there? What guarantee do I have that I’ll make it back alive?”

The young man started leaning forward on his elbows. “I can provide adequate protection, and if worst comes to worst, I can just lure them away while you sneak out.”

“Well… I… Um… Okay then, want to get that in writing?”

“I’ll have June out there draft up a contract and you can swing over to sign it in a week, maybe over lunch.”

With a smile, Jason reached over with his hand open, and the young man took it in his hand and shook. When Jason left the office, the young man took a relaxed position in his seat. “Come on, don’t be shy, little pony. Have a seat!”

“Thank you very much.” She trotted over to the now empty seat and dropped her rump onto it, cringing at the warm, wet sensation left behind by its previous occupant. “I take it you’re Sloop Masters? My name is Rarity, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind one bit, miss Rarity.” He leaned back in his chair and put his fingertips together. “You said you know Madam von Wrinkle?”

Rarity nodded. “Indeed.”

Sloop sighed and sat straight up. “So I take it there’s trouble at the place we shouldn’t talk about because it’s dedicated to the things we’re not allowed to talk about?”

Rarity narrowed her eyes and frowned. “You take it correctly, Mr. Masters.”

“Can you tell me what kind of trouble she’s in without mentioning the you-know-what?”

“I’m afraid it’s the Underworlders. Does the name Crazy Joe ring familiar to you?”

Sloop narrowed his eyes. “Oh, I know him. He’s blown up several of my best debtor’s businesses for refusing to pay their exuberant protection fees. I suppose we shouldn’t keep your friends and Maxine waiting any longer with someone as dangerous as that running about.” Sloop reached over to the intercom and pressed the button. “Miss June, please reschedule all my meetings for the day. I’m going to go on another adventure.”

He released the button, and shortly after, June’s voice rang out electronically. “Shall I get your adventure apparel ready?”

He pressed the button once again. “You’ve read my mind Miss June.”

Sloop got out of his seat and started undoing his tie. “Do you mind waiting a few more moments? If I’m going to fight with my life on my line, I may as well look my best!”

Rarity’s eyes widened and sparkled. “Oh, I have a feeling I’m going to like you, Mr. Masters!”

***

The doors made a sharp ding! As they opened up to allow the passengers to enter. One, an elegant white-coated unicorn, the other a magnificently (over) dressed human wearing a red and black naval officer uniform with gold trim and tassels and a black tricorn hat with a white compass symbol stitched into the side of the frontward point. When rarity first saw this ensemble back at the office, she was rendered speechless.

As they strided and trotted into the entry hall, they were suddenly startled by a loud explosion that shook the entire tower. Regaining his composure, Sloop stood up straight and corrected the angle of his hat. “Sounds like he’s in a bad mood.”

After flipping her mane back in place, Rarity trotted over next to Sloop. “I don’t think he appreciates my friends’ tactics.”

Sloop straightened his coat. “In a life-or-death battle, anything goes. He’s got no right to be upset after throwing down the gauntlet.”

Making a gesture, he pointed deeper into the halls. “But I digress, let’s not keep your friends and Madam von Wrinkle waiting, shall we?” Rarity nodded in approval before following Sloop as he raced into the fray.

Meanwhile, Crazy Joe was going ballistic, swinging around his fail making dents in the walls and haphazardly flinging bombs that exploded on contact. Despite the noise, he paused when he heard tapping of fine leather boots and the clopping of finely manicured hooves. Soon the fancy pony/human duo entered the densely scorched and cratered hall.

Sloop stepped forward. “Crazy Joe, this place is as sacred as it is secret! As an Underworlder, you must understand the sanctity of such a thing! Leave now or face my onslaught!”

Sloop suddenly raised his arms as his weapons appeared in them. They vaguely resembled small, scarlet red crossbows: Their bodies were composed of rings with four triangular points with the outward one serving as the barrels, being slender and much longer with a hollow scalene right triangle emerging from the bottoms, the right angle extending a short distance away from the body and the narrowest angle merging back into the barrel at the tip. Extending and curving upward from the handles were thick guards that each had six diamond-like shapes that were flat and bladed all lined up curving towards the barrels.

Crazy Joe responded by flinging a bomb with a wave of his free hand. Rarity however, erected a shield of crystal with a beam from her horn that the bomb harmlessly exploded against. Meanwhile, Sloop rolled out from behind it and shot four missiles of energy that erupted from the smoke and got Crazy Joe straight in the chest plate, causing him to stagger backwards, barely keeping his footing.

Keeping up this momentum, Sloop rushed towards Crazy Joe, holding his arrowguns outward. Crazy Joe defended by swinging his flail around him. However, a red arrow of energy appeared at sloop’s feet that sent him upward with a flip the moment he tread on it, allowing him to rain down the eight remaining shots from his weapons on Crazy Joe, who barely managed to shield himself with his free hand.

As sloop landed, he began to focus as he magically reloaded each shot from his weapons one by one. Crazy Joe took this opportunity to wave his free hand and create six mines on the ground in front of him which began racing towards Sloop.

They came to rest in front of him and began to glow bright red before exploding. However, a red circle of energy with an arrow pointing upwards from the center appeared between the mines and sloop which somehow redirected the force of the blasts upwards, leaving Sloop unharmed.

Sloop rose up and turned around to point his fully loaded weapons back at Crazy Joe. “Give it up Joe, my compass element’s a water derivative! A mid-ranker like you will have a hard time beating it with your fire derivative element!”

With hate in his eyes, Crazy Joe made a low, deep, growel and whirled his weapon above him at a great speed before flinging it towards Sloop as hard as he could. However, Rarity shot another shield of crystal to protect Sloop, this time angled to bounce the wrecking ball upward.

Making one of his twin weapons disappear, Sloop quickly pointed his free hand upward, releasing another arrow of energy that zoomed to attach itself to the ball and point directly at Crazy Joe. With a flash of red light, the ball was sent rocketing towards its holder and collided with him with a loud BONG!

Crazy Joe was still standing, but he was left dazed by the impact. Sloop made his other arrowgun reappear and pointed them, tops angled parallel to one another, at Crazy Joe. Rarity released her crystal shield. With a flash, all of the ammunition from both arrowguns disappeared as a giant missile of magic erupted from between both barrels, sending Crazy Joe flying to the wall, unmoving.

Spinning his weapons, Sloop made them disappear in two flashes of red light. “And that’s that!”

Rarity carefully cantered up to Sloop, staring at Crazy Joe. “Is he going to be alright?”

Sloop gave a low, confident laugh. “He’ll be fine. I set them to stun, so he’ll just wake up with a pounding headache after all that. More than he deserves if you ask me!”

Sloop then took a deep breath and pointed outward. “For now, I suggest we find your friends and see if I can do something about that curse! I don’t want to tax Madam von Wrinkle’s time magic any longer than we have to.”

With a smile and a flourish of her mane, Rarity elegantly galloped towards the wall. “Quite so! I’ll open the way for you.”

***

Everypony and everybody anxiously stared at the bombs attatched to their bodies, which now were surrounded by red circles of light with a triangular arrows pointing outward from them. Twilight turned towards the new human. “Are you sure this will work? This is a very… kinetic form of magic. How do you know it won’t just concentrate the blasts like a rocket?”

Pinkie glanced at her bomb. “Does that mean we’ll fly around like fireworks?”

Rainbow Dash squinted at her own bomb. “I just hope we don’t end up like fireworks at the end of their flame!”

Sloop gave a confident laugh and crossed his arms. “Don’t worry! I’ve dealt with explosives lots of times! my element can compensate for forces in all directions!”

Maxine placed her hands together, smiling at Sloop. “Young Mr. Masters is one of the most capable individuals I’ve ever had the privilege of working with. I trust him completely.”

Sloop made a less confident laugh, looked away, and made a parting gesture with his hand. “Thanks so much for that, Madam. But to be extra safe, everyone should spread out and brace themselves against the walls, pointing their bombs outward.”

With a mix of determination and unease, the group followed these instructions, spread out as far as they could, pressing themselves against the walls of the square, bronze and marble room. Everyone eyed their own counters, nervously watching each number fall. Moments later, each one was in their final stretch. As the numbers reached their ones place, each one of them tightly shut their eyes and turned their heads away.

With several deafening BOOMS! In succession, each bomb detonated with a cannon-like eruption of flame and light one after the other. When everyone regained their senses, the smoke cleared to show everyone still in one piece.

However, before they could express their relief, Carmilla’s knees gave out from under her and she quickly fell to the ground.

Everyone quickly rushed over. At first, the ponies crowded around her, but Fluttershy used her wings to give Maxine some space to inspect her. “How bad is it, Madam von Wrinkle…?”

Maxine gently patted Carmilla’s forehead, then bent down to listen to her breathing, then finally grasped her wrist in hand and pressed her fingers to its base. “Not good I’m afraid. I think she’s going into shock. She always was such a delicate thing, this whole ordeal must have been too much for her.”

Sloop soon bent down to Carmilla’s other side and looked at Maxine. “She’s a blood elemental, right?”

Maxine turned to give Sloop a look of confusion. “Yes, but what does that- What are you doing Mr. Masters?”

Almost immediately, Sloop brought his thumb towards his mouth, bit down, and tore the skin on its tip open. Then he hovered it over Carmilla’s mouth and allowed a few drops to trickle in. Soon, Carmilla’s breathing steadied and her eyes fluttered open. But once she got a good look at what was going on, she spasmed in horror.

In response to this, Sloop gripped his thumb to stem the flow of blood, but still held it over Carmilla’s face. “It’s okay, It’s okay, I know, I know. It’s not always easy to do what you need to do to keep going on, but you have to keep living no matter what, but you don’t have to do it alone. As a blood elemental, you can recover from nearly anything by consuming the blood of others, and I’m willing to give you as much as you need, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I hadn’t at least offered.”

After looking in Sloop's eyes for a few moments, Carmilla relaxed a bit and slowly opened her mouth for Sloop to drip more blood in, the color slowly returning to her cheeks.

Meanwhile, while everyone was focused on the heartwarming scene before them, a shadow came creeping from around the corner of the entryway and, giving off a satisfied yet inaudible laugh, slid back into the shadow below Twilight.

Chapter 12: Crashing the Carnival

All the ponies trotted out into the multicolored lights illuminating the way. Pinkie could barely contain herself, so she simply didn’t and started bouncing and dancing all over the place, her eyes glimmering. “Now this seems like my kind of place! These humans sure know how to have fun!”

Twilight turned around to face her friends. “Hopefully, this time we can just have a good time without any trouble!”

Rainbow Dash furrowed her brow as she flew low. “Never say that, Twilight. Like, ever! Everypony knows that’s the best way to get trouble to find you!”

The human that accompanied them stepped forward, straightening her glasses, keeping her encyclopedia gripped close. “That’s just superstition. Trust me, you have nothing to worry about. The Party District is closest to the Grand District, where the Central Forces headquarters is located. The Underworlders never come to this part of the city.”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and drooped her front legs. “Whatever you say, Simone.”

They met Simone Webster on their way to the next district when she ran up to the gondola shouting “Hold the door!”

When they chatted on the way, Twilight took an instant liking to the book elemental. She had light skin with dark blue eyes and sea-green hair styled into a row of curling pigtails draping over her shoulders. She was dressed in a short dark-green gown with a light-green cape draped over it.

Rarity, after marveling at the many lights and the freeform aesthetics of each building, trotted over to Simone. “Pardon me, but since you live in this area, do you know anywhere we can go to spend some time before our meeting with the next Administrator?”

Simone giggled and straightened her glasses again. “A better question would be, is there anywhere that you can’t waste your time? There’s miles of game arcades, carnival rides galore, dance clubs for every theme and genre, theaters for movies and plays new and classic, and of course racetracks and obstacle courses of all kinds. Seems like the only place that almost never gets any traffic is the library I work at!”

Fluttershy decided to speak to Simone for the first time. “Well… what’s here that’s special to you?”

Pushing her glasses back up, Simone got a dreamy look in her eyes. “Well… there is this one thing…”

Pinkie Pie took notice and cartwheeled right in front of Simone, startling both her and Fluttershy. “Whatwhatwhat? Tell me! Tell me now!”

Applejack managed to get her out of their faces with a well-timed pull of the tail. “Whoa there, Pinkie! Sorry ‘bout that. You were sayin’?”

Simone cleared her throat and straightened her glasses once again. “Well, there’s this little variety show they do every night. After they cornered the market in merchandising, all their shows are free.”

Pinkie started revving her engines. “Well, WHAT ARE WE WAITING FOR?”

Simone started clutching her encyclopedia extra tight. “Um, the theater’s the other way, Pinkie.”

Pinkie’s headlong charge was brought to a screeching halt, and she quickly rewound back into place. Everyone giggled and followed Simone down the way.

***

“The lovers, the dreamers, and you…” The curtain fell on the magically-animated puppets amid the applause of the crowd. Even the ponies showed their admiration by stomping their hooves on the floor.

Rarity turned towards the rest of the group. “I must say, I can hardly tell if it’s so sophisticated it’s hilarious, or if it’s so hilarious it’s sophisticated!”

Rainbow Dash finished her stomping. “I thought puppets were for little fillies, eh Pinkie?” After a moment without a response, Rainbow Dash got a confused look and looked at her friend. “Pinkie?” Rainbow Dash was stunned to find that Pinkie was holding her head low and softly crying into her hooves. “What’s wrong?

Pinkie wiped some snot and tears from her face and opened her eyes. “It’s just so… so… PERFECT! The funniest fun I’ve ever seen! The wordplay, the slapstick, the timing, even the satire was flawless! NOPONY GETS SATIRE RIGHT ANYMORE!”

Rainbow Dash backed off to give Pinkie some space. “Okay! Okay! I guess a party pony like you would be a bit of a fun coni- cona-”

Rarity rolled her eyes. “Connoisseur, my dear.” Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes in return, but got a sudden twitch in her eye and used her hoof to rub it.

Applejack took notice and turned towards her. “Don’t tell me you’re getting all emotional too?”

Rainbow Dash raised her head and shook it. “Nah, it’s just that something got in my eye, like a bit of dust or something.”

Fluttershy looked around and noticed that some of the surrounding humans were also rubbing their eyes. “Um… I think-”

Twilight tried to get a better look at Rainbow Dash’s now bloodshot eye. “Don’t just keep rubbing it! You’ve got to blink it out.”

Fluttershy noticed the densely floating sand swirling around overhead and between the rows of seats. “There’s some… Um-”

Applejack trotted next to Rainbow Dash and took a look of her own. “Nah, Granny Smith always said that the best way to get some dirt out of your eye is to hold it open and move your eye all around!”

Fluttershy noticed that all the sand was starting to swirl together near the ceiling of the theater. “I think, um… something’s about to-”

Simone started to lean in. “I could just conjure some eye drops from my book.”

However, the sand from above fell down in a great big flow, leaving a tall pile in the unoccupied front row of seats, startling everyone. Rainbow Dash rose up with a look of surprise. “Whoa! How come nopony saw that coming?” Fluttershy sighed and looked down.

Suddenly, the pile started stirring, as if being disturbed from the inside. From the top arose a humanoid figure. Once the sand cleared up, it showed that he was dressed in Underworld armor painted with a yellow pattern of pyramid-like triangles, each one having a shaded half to add a sense of depth. His face and arms were wrapped up in linen bandages with only his green eyes and sandy blonde hair being exposed. He then hefted his weapon, which loudly buzzed as it rotated.

Twilight’s eyes grew wide at the sight of it. “Is that a circular saw?”

Simone clutched her encyclopedia with both arms. “I’ve seen wanted posters of that Underworlder all over the sector! They call him Mummy, a sand elemental and guardian specialist, he can create magically-animated creatures to fight for and defend him!”

Rainbow Dash rose up and reared back. “I guess we’re in for a big fight then!”

Simone got an anxious look and squished down. “W-w-what?”

Rarity lit up her horn and got a determined look on her face. “Well then, what are we waiting for? We’ve faced the Underworlders before and always came out on top! Tally Ho!”

The Ponies charged the pile of sand. But they stopped as some of the humans drew weapons. The ones in the back escorted the younger or older ones out. The ones in the front charged the large dune. However, Mummy waved his free hand about, spreading glyphs of pale ochre energy spinning around the artificial dune. Soon, a menagerie of creatures burst out big, small, sharp, and pointy.

The frontmost rows of armed humans reached the onslaught of guardians first and unleashed a barrage of shredding gales, fireballs, ice shards, and lightning bolts that pulverized over half the guardians back into sand. However, atop his hill, Mummy made a creepy laugh and waved his free hand once again. The glyphs around the dune spun faster and the fallen guardians re-emerged from the sand in-tact and charged once again. This process repeated several times until the human combatants started growing sluggish, their spells getting smaller. Soon the front line was broken by the army of guardians.

The ponies attempted to group together. When a sword-armed figure charged the group, Applejack raced up to it and sent it flying with a hard buck. When others approached to back it up, Applejack unleashed a series of hard kicks from each hoof at a time on them, reducing them all into nothing but piles of sand.

A giant scorpion approached and brandished its stinger, but Rainbow Dash struck with a well-aimed divebomb and buried its own stinger into its carapace.

A stone colossus slowly advanced and raised a mighty fist, but Rarity zapped a shield of ethereal crystal and deflected it. With a flourish of her horn, she separated it into a hailstorm of small crystal darts and hurled them at the colossus with an elegant thrust, burying them in its torso. With one final spin, the shards all exploded, leaving the colossus to fall apart in a pile.

An urchin-like mass of spikes with a single, giant eye scuttled across the floor towards the downed humans, but Pinkie bounced in front of it and distracted it with a dance. And for her big finish, disappeared in a burst of pepper-filled smoke that turned its big eye bloodshot red, sending it scurrying away.

A pair of wolves with exposed ribs charged towards the downed humans. Seeing this, Fluttershy raced between them at a breakneck pace to perform her stare on them, giving them enough time to pick themselves up and get away.

With the injured safely out of the way, Twilight raised her horn and unfurled her wings. Her eyes and horn ignited with a powerful light and she created an incredibly dense wall of magic, trapping Mummy and his guardians on the other side. Then, she scowled and pushed her horn forward, making the wall curl around them and shrink.

Mummy growled and raised his free hand yet again, making three whip-like blades of sand extend from his pile and rapidly strike against the barrier. The remaining guardians joined him and struck at the barrier with their own deadly appendages. Finally, Mummy himself slid down from his pile and revved his saw before pressing it against the barrier with an extremely loud grinding sound.

At first, Twilight managed to hold her ground and dig her hooves in. But soon, the defeated guardians re-emerged from their spawning place and aided the others in their push against the barrier. Twilight groaned as small cracks began appearing.

The rest of the Ponies gathered around Twilight to cheer her on. This gave her a boost of energy and she managed to push back against the relentless onslaught, but the cracks kept forming one by one.

Simone, who was cowering behind the seats, took notice and slowly approached the Ponies. “Hey, um… I think I can… help…”

Applejack heard her and turned around. “Well, if you’re going to do something hun’ Do it now!”

Simone gulped and opened her encyclopedia in hand. Leafing through it, she came to a stop at a page and pressed her pale-gray glowing finger to one of the words. She drew it out as a wisp and flung it at Twilight’s barrier. The solid word Reinforce appeared stuck against the barrier and the cracks appeared to stop forming. Simone repeated this process with the words Secure, Solid, Sturdy, Fortified, and Reinforced.

Twilight relaxed as she felt absolutely no meaningful resistance to her spell. She was amazed to see the guardians and a very angry Mummy striking at it to no avail.

The ponies turned around to see a blushing and waving Simone with her open encyclopedia. Then, they clamored around her, praising and hugging her, followed by the remaining human combatants in the theater.

Twilight trotted in front of her. “You said that your magic works by taking things out of the infinite world of books, but I didn’t think it could be that powerful! I bet your only real limit is your imagination!”

Simone’s face grew even redder as she pushed her jostled glasses back into place. “Well, I’m not that powerful. I just added on to your already formidable spell.”

Rainbow Dash, eyes bright, started bouncing prancing on her hooves. “Hey, if you can bring things out of books, can you put things in? Cause I’ve always loved diving right into my Daring Do books!”

Simone turned her head towards Rainbow. “Well, I could, but the danger would be real…”

Rarity fluttered her eyelashes. “Well darling, how about a good mystery novel? Who wouldn’t want a conversation with Shadow Spade?”

Simone’s eyes grew wide and she nervously broke eye contact with Rarity. “Well… I suppose I could arrange something…”

While the group was celebrating, Twilight’s shadow extended a tendril upon the ground that slithered away to the back of the theater. Moments later, one of the humans surrounding Simone felt a poking on his back. He ignored it. He felt another poke, but he waved it off. The third time he turned around. “What is i- AUGH!”

An Underworlder grunt was aiming a crossbow loaded with a bolt of solid fire right at his face. The others took notice and quickly raised all of their hands before the large platoon of Underworlders at the back of the hall pointing their weapons at them.

***

The Underworlder raised his fiery hand at twilight’s outstretched hooves, wrapping her body in bands of solid yet pliable flames. Twilight immediately felt her magic becoming strongly suppressed. Following that, the barrier holding Mummy and his guardians came down.

With another sinister laugh, Mummy patted that Underworlder on the back and pulled the bandages around his mouth down to stick his tongue out at her. Twilight followed suit, but was kicked onto the ground by Mummy with another menacing chuckle.

Meanwhile, Simone was struggling against her bonds as an Underworlder was teasing her by pulling her encyclopedia to and away from the flame in his hand. Pinkie scooted up next to Simone. “You want me to drop-kick him for you?”

Simone sighed. “How can you do that when- Hey! How are you free?”

Pinkie silently giggled. “I fooled ‘em by wrapping myself up in a licorice whip. Then all I had to do was eat my way free. So, if I can get your book, you and I can-”

“No! None of us can handle a situation like this! I happen to know a top-class warrior that frequents the library I work at. But he can be a little… difficult.”

“How difficult?”

“Well, he never really reads or checks any books out at the library, I think he just appreciates the peace and quiet.”

“Oh, I totally get that! A little peace and quiet can be really refreshing, especially after dealing with people that just go on and on and on and on and…”

“Okay, I get it! I just need you to sneak out of here and get them to come here. Their name is Alphonse and around this time they should be lurking- uh… hanging around the flower clock due west of here.”

“Rightey-ho buck-a-rino!”

Pinkie Pie saluted and started crawling among the Underworlders’ feet. Miraculously, none of them took notice. Pinkie Pie soon disappeared behind the doors after giving a grinning wave to Simone, mistaking her Cut it out gestures as a salutation.

Chapter 13: A Weird Warrior

Pinkie Pie zoomed down the way, her feet whirling like wheels. In almost no time at all, she reached the flower clock. She soon got distracted by the pretty colors and stretched her neck to take a bite, but reeled back with tears in her eyes as she quickly realized they were all made of metal.

After the pain in her mouth subsided, she looked around to see if there were any distinctive humans around, but it seemed that many humans had decided to take a rest amid all the fun surrounding them.

Pinkie Pie decided to do the most logical thing to find the one she was looking for (according to her), took out a megaphone, and got up on her hind legs.

“ATTENTION ALPHONSE: YOU ARE NEEDED! HEY ALPHONSE, OVER HERE! YO PHONZIE, I NEED SOME HELP!

Pinkie’s din continued on for several minutes, driving most of the people in the area to vacate while covering their ears and rubbing their foreheads.

(Moderately) Shortly after most of the people had left, Pinkie Pie stopped her constant shouting and took notice. She looked around and saw a human in a black jumpsuit lounging on one of the benches. She soon made her way over and rose up next to the human’s head. “Hey, mister! Some of my friends are in big, big, big trouble and I was told a human named Alphonse could help me save them from the Underworlders! So I came here to find him even though I don’t know what he looks like, sounds like, what he wears, what he can do, or even what his full name is! So can you help me find Alphonse pretty, pretty please with whipped cream, sprinkles, toasted marshmallows, fruit syrup, chocolate shavings, and a cherry on top?”

The human sat up and looked at her with his dark eyes below his dark hair. “I don’t know who told you, but there is no Alphonse. Nobody like that has ever been here.”

Pinkie Pie’s eyes grew very wide and she went rigid. “What, what, WHAT? But Simone said that he likes to hang out here around this time!”

The human rolled their eyes. “Oh, that… Well, at one point there was a dashing, brave, and good-humored hero named Alphonse, and a few of the streets nearby were named for him, but I don’t think he’s ever laid eyes on this place.”

Pinkie Pie looked around, clearly showing distress. However, a Central Forces officer soon walked up to the duo. “Pardon me, I got word of a disturbance in this area. Would you two happen to know-”

However, he stopped short once he saw the human on the bench. “Oh, it’s you again. Tell me, why do you like making my job unnecessarily harder than it has to be, Alphie?”

The human shifted his position upright and made a mirthless laugh. “It’s Alphie now? Honestly, that’s even worse than Phonzie!”

Pinkie did a few double-takes between the officer and the presumed Alphonse. Then she held her hooves to her cheeks and gasped. “But- What- You- lied to me?”

Alphonse shrugged. “Of course I did! It’s easy, and fun! Especially when you’re doing it for no reason at all to a complete stranger as strange as you.”

Pinkie Pie angrily scowled at Alphonse, and the officer gently placed his hand upon her shoulder. “Don’t get yourself worked up girlie. This lowlife can’t help but interfere in everyone’s business for nothing beyond his own amusement. Why every time a good officer tries to write a ticket, they suddenly remember something they’d rather be doing and forget about it like-”

Suddenly, the officer got a far-off look in his eyes and started swaying on his feet. “Uh… Um… what was I doing again?”

Alphonse smirked and pointed into the distance. “You were about to pick up a couple dozen jelly mossnuts for your buddies down at the station.”

The officer perked up almost immediately, almost too soon. “Yeah! That’s right! Have a nice day you two.” The officer tipped their helmet and marched away.

Pinkie Pie raised her eyebrow at Alphonse. “Did you do something to that guy?”

Alphonse giggled and leaned back to relax. “The fairy element. Charms, glamors, energy projection and constructs. Not too tough, but oh so multi-faceted.”

Pinkie gave Alphonse a scrutinizing look in the eye as she leaned close to his face. “You shouldn’t use magic to manipulate your way out of trouble, it’s no fun for anyone.”

Alphonse just laughed. “Oh I can assure you, the years have taught me that the best kind of fun is at other people’s expense.”

Pinkie Pie made an exaggerated sound of disgust and started cantering away. In response, Alphonse stood up and started calling after her. “Hold it, Ponygirl! Weren’t you hollering just a minute ago about how you needed my help?”

Pinkie Pie turned back to him, her mane flinging wildly. “Forget it! Simone might have recommended you by name, but clearly her good judgment of character had a lapse in regards to you! I’LL SAVE MY FRIENDS MYSELF IF I HAVE TO!”

On that note, Alphonse sat straight up. “Wait, you’re friends with Simone? As in, Simone Webster?”

Pinkie Pie pivoted on her hooves to face him, her eyes rolled away. “Oh, what’s it to you? It’s not like you’d care!”

Alphonse sighed. “Well, all the librarians like to try to shoo me out because I never read anything when I hang out to enjoy the peace and quiet, except her. Her good point is that she never bothers anyone. Her bad point is that she never bothers anyone. But you call her friend?”

Pinkie Pie turned back around. “Nope! I’ve given you way too much of my time anyway! I’ve got to find a way to save everyone!” Before Alphonse could get another word in, she was already galloping away. He stroked his chin for a moment, then got up and started walking in the same direction.

***

Pinkie Pie stopped in front of the theater, which now had a police line with the entrance surrounded by Central Forces officers. Pinkie tried to race up to the entrance, but she got blocked off by barriers of several types that abruptly sprung up in her way the moment she got near the line.

As Pinkie Pie sat dazed on the ground, an officer walked up to her to help her up. “I’m sorry little lady. It’s your party that’s among the ones taken hostage, right? I don’t know how you got away, but I’m afraid now it’s official business.”

Pinkie Pie was getting visibly distressed. “But, but, my friends need me! They’ve cast a spell on Twilight to stop her magic and bound up the rest of my friends! I have to do something!”

The officer straightened up and looked Pinkie in the face. “Look I’m sorry, but-” However, she suddenly got a glazed look in her eyes. “I never… meant to… keep you away from your friends. Please… go… ahead.”

The officer signaled to the barrier mages to let Pinkie through. The mages, though looking confused, complied and made a pony-sized hole with a series of gestures. Pinkie gave the guard a big smile. “Thanks a ton, ma’am!”

With an and away we go posture, Pinkie zoomed back into the theater. Meanwhile, the officer swayed in place for a moment before regaining her posture and shaking her head, then scratching her chin in confusion.

Meanwhile, back in the theater, Pinkie Pie peered at the underworlders guarding the hostages, trying to formulate a plan to rescue them all by herself. Most of the plans involved vast quantities of cake and balloons.

“Okay, now this is bad. No wonder I was asked for by name.” Pinkie Pie squealed in shock and collapsed on the ground. Then she quickly covered her mouth and ducked behind a few more chairs.

She peered out from around the chairs to look at Alphonse leisurely leaning back in a chair.. “WHAT THE WHAT?” She quickly stuffed her hooves in her mouth and quickly slid to hide back behind the seats.

At this, Aplhonse just chuckled and continued eating. “Relax. They can’t see or hear us, I’ve made sure of that.”

Pinkie Pie carefully poked her head out and turned to face Alphonse. “How did you get here?”

Alphonse chuckled and put his feet up on the seat in front of him. “How do you think you got here in the first place? Now, why don’t we take this opportunity to formulate our plan of atta-” However, Pinkie Pie zoomed down the lane right to the underworlders and their hostages. Alphonse nearly fell out of his seat trying to quickly stand back up. “Wait! The spell only works-” However, an underworlder Grunt soon took notice and raised an alarm. “-a short range around me…”

Pinkie Pie quickly retreated back to Alphonse despite his gestures to go back and soon, the both of them had to take cover as they were being assailed by magical projectiles. Pinkie Pie grimaced at Alphonse as she tried to cover her head with her hooves. “I thought you said your spell made it so they couldn’t see or hear us?”

Alphonse rolled his eyes at the pony. “My spells are delicate, remember? When you raced back here, their focus on you popped my spell like a bubble!”

Pinkie Pie tried to look out from behind their cover, but quickly retreated back to safety. “Well, why can’t you just make them all friendly like you seem to love to do to innocent people?”

Alphonse grimaced at Pinkie Pie. “What part of ‘delicate spells’ do you not understand? Unless you’ve got rocks for brains like that officer back at the flower clock, my charms won’t work if the intended target is on guard!”

Pinkie Pie frowned and pointed a hoof at Alphonse. “Hey! I grew up on a rock farm!”

At that, Alphonse gave Pinkie a half-lidded stare. “Of course you did.”

Pinkie Pie sighed and let her hooves droop. “Well, what can your magic do?”

Alphonse gave Pinkie a self-satisfied smirk. “Well, why don’t I show you?”

Alphonse quickly maneuvered into the middle of the lane and raised his hand, creating a wall of solid bright-green light that deflected the onslaught. He then raised his other hand and in his grip appeared a cool green whip in a flash of light. It had a rigid emerald handle with a cup guard and knuckle bow connected to a dark, grassy cord that wound to meet a bright green shape affixed to the other end resembling a flur de lis.

With a mighty swing, he send his whip flying as it harmlessly passed through the other side of the barrier and struck down the frontmost row of underworlder Grunts. He then looked right at Pinkie. “If you’ve got anything you want to use, use it now!”

Pinkie gave a mischievous grin and zipped over behind the shield and in the blink of an eye, set up a broadside’s worth of party cannons. Once their short fuses burned out, they let loose an onslaught of flying piñatas that covered the main force of underworlder Grunts in a pile of bubble gum.

With that, Alphonse took down his shield and Pinkie joined him in running towards the hostages. However, their path was suddenly blocked off by what looked like a pair of lions, except they only had claws, fangs and full-body manes.

Alphonse managed to drive them back with a few lashings from his whip, then he clutched his free hand into a fist before it started glowing intensely. After a few seconds, he pointed his palm at one of the guardians and let fly an intensely glowing blast of magic which sent one of the guardians flying. Then, with a precise swing of his whip, he lashed the thing in two, making it disappear in a pile of sand.

However, on top of his dune, Mummy chuckled as the same guardian emerged from the small mountain of sand, shaking the residue off its poofy body.

Alphonse grunted and erected another shield to block off the guardians. Pinkie Pie galloped up next to him. “They’ve been doing that ever since they first got here! What’s he doing?”

Alphonse turned towards Pinkie as he repeatedly lashed his whip to keep the guardians at bay. “See those glyphs? They’re utilized in an old technique to issue complex commands to both one’s magic and magic in the environment. He must be using it to draw the defeated guardians’ essence into that pile of sand to instantly regenerate. This is going to be a lot of trouble to overcome…”

Pinkie placed her hoof under her chin. “If only we could just trap them before they get the chance to return to the pile…”

Alphonse turned back towards Pinkie and blinked a couple of times. “That just might be the smartest thing you’ve said since I’ve met you! And I know just how to do that, if we can find and free Simone.”

On that note, Pinkie Pie perked up and peered at the group of bound hostages surrounded by the remainder of the Underworlders. “I can totally do that, if you can distract the guardians!”

Alphonse grinned at her and took down his shield with a clutch of his free hand. “Distractions are some of what I do best!” Soon, his hand started emitting green sparks. Then he swung it overhead and released his grip, sending up a firework-like show that drew the attention of all the guardians. “Thankfully, such simple-minded guardians are easier to charm than people!”

Once the guardians started rushing at Alphonse, Pinkie sneakily zoomed down the lanes. Hiding among the chairs, she pushed out a brightly-wrapped birthday present towards some of the frontmost underworlders. A couple of Grunts took notice and bent down to pick at the wrapping. Suddenly, the package erupted into a loud explosion of bright colors that knocked the Grunts out. As the others were distracted, the humans bound by the now unconscious Grunts’ magic were set free and started attacking the Grunts closest to them.

Group by group, more humans were set free and started attacking the now fewer remaining Grunts. Soon, all of the hostages were free and Pinkie zoomed up to Simone. “We need to trap the guardians before they can regenerate in that big sand pile!”

Simone soon regained her composure and stood up, clutching her encyclopedia. “I… I could try to trap them in my encyclopedia’s flyleaf, but they’d all have to be in one place.”

Pinkie Pie looked back towards Alphonse as he repeatedly lashed his whip to keep all the guardians at bay and soon pointed at them. Simone quickly straightened her glasses. “That’ll work!”

Simone raced down the rows and positioned herself behind the small army of bizarre magically-animated creatures and opened her encyclopedia to its first blank page. She thrust it at the guardians as tendrils made up of ethereal sentences emerged from the book and moved to surround and entangle the group of guardians. Soon, it pulled all the creatures backwards and into the flyleaf of the encyclopedia, appearing as illustrations on the blank page.

Mummy screamed from atop his sand pile and slid down. He started rushing towards Simone, brandishing his whirling saw blade. Before he could reach her, Alphonse lashed his whip and wrapped it around Mummy, helplessly binding him. Then, he pulled him back towards himself, wrapping his free hand in a bright green spiked gauntlet of energy, and socked the underworlder Administrator right in the face. Mummy was sent flying until he slammed into the base of the stage and drooped to the floor, unconscious.

Pinkie and her friends moved to meet back up. However, Twilight, Rarity, and even Alphonse were struck by a massive tingling sensation. They quickly scanned the surrounding theater and found a giant wave-like shadow moving from the back of the theater, consuming all light as it covered everything in its path. Everyone was forced to take cover as the whole theater was enshrouded in darkness.

Just as quickly as the shadow had appeared, it vanished as light was returned to the theater. Twilight looked around once more. “What happened? Is everypony okay?”

Rainbow Dash scowled. “Aw, man! The Underworlders got away again!”

Fluttershy smiled at her. “Well… it could have been worse, couldn’t it?”

Rainbow Dash crossed her hooves and rolled her eyes. “I guess so…” She turned towards Pinkie with a more gentle expression. “So, can you introduce us to the human you brought to save us?”

Pinkie Pie started bouncing on her hooves. “He’s amazing! But a little annoying… He’s really strong! But a bit of a trouble-maker…”

Before anypony could enquire about such contrasting statements, she’d already zoomed off right to Alphonse, but couldn't find him anywhere. All she found was a bright green note on the floor with dark green ink.

She picked it up and cleared her throat to read from it as her friends surrounded her. “Dear Pinkie, I really think we could have been friends. But a long time ago I was hurt badly by circumstances and I’m not ready to open my heart to just anyone yet. But thankfully, you’ve been able to do something that almost never happens: You’ve earned my respect, you kind young pony you. Signed, Alphonse Faeno. P.S….”

As she finished the last of the letter, a glob of dark green goop flew from the paper and hit her in the face. While everypony else was stunned in shock, Pinkie Pie started giggling. Pretty soon, she was roaring with laughter and rolling around on the floor. Her friends could only stare and awkwardly laugh along.

Chapter 14: As Below, So Way-Below

“Grand District. End of the line. Or the beginning, depending on how you want to think about it.”

Twilight stepped forward from the trolley, at first with an expression of finality. Then, she turned back to her friends with a warm smile. “Everypony ready?”

Rainbow Dash flew forward and clopped her hooves together. “You know it!”

Applejack straightened her hat. “Always, friend!”

Rarity elegantly flipped her mane. “We’ve come this far, we might as well go all the way, darling.”

Pinkie Pie giggled as she stepped forward. “Absolutely!”

Fluttershy smiled and nodded.

Twilight nodded herself and turned towards the terminal’s exit and trotted outside followed by her friends.

This sector was radically different from the rest. The lights were so plentiful that it was easy to mistake them for real daylight. Marble fineries decorated the land in all directions, between which was covered in a grass-like moss. In the distance, countless mansions dotted the landscape for miles around.

Rarity’s eyes sparkled at the sight of it all. “They weren’t kidding when they named it the Grand District! It’s all so… so… grand!”

Fluttershy, on the other hand, frowned at the sight of it all. “You’d think if they have enough to build all this, they could afford to share some with the less fortunate.”

Suddenly, Applejack’s eyes grew wide as she spotted something coming down the road. “Don’t look now darlins, but I think we’ve got company!”

They all turned to look down the stone-slab way as they spotted eight figures marching towards them in an orderly fashion. As the ponies braced themselves, they got a better look as they came to a halt in front of them. They each wore dark suits with mirrored sunglasses and a gold badge with the image of an obelisk-like tower surrounded by five rings on the ground inscribed onto them. Each of them also carried an arrowgun holstered onto their side and a long dagger strapped across their lower backs.

One of them stepped forward. “Princess Twilight Sparkle, you have been recognized as an official diplomatic agent of the surface world. We agents represent the Central Administration of the city-state of Core Metro. We regret to inform you that at this late hour, all facilities are closed for the night. However, we shall offer you all rooms at our city’s finest hotel to rest for the night and grant you the opportunity to meet with our most noble High Director in the morning.

Applejack looked away as she held her hoof to her chin. “Is it night already? Honestly, it's hard to tell down here.”

Rainbow Dash held her head low, bags below her eyes. “With all the action we’ve seen today, time just flew by.”

Pinkie Pie bounced in place with an excited look. “Well, even after all that, I don’t feel tired at-” However, she immediately stopped in a crouched position and loudly yawned.

Twilight giggled and trotted up to the agents. “That sounds lovely, we accept your accommodations!”

The agent adjusted his glasses and started turning around. “Excellent. Follow us please.”

The ponies followed the lead agent as the rest of them moved to encircle them.

***

“Goodnight Fluttershy, goodnight Rarity, goodnight Pinkie, Goodnight Rainbow Dash, Goodning Applejack.”

The other ponies each sounded off as they entered their rooms. Twilight floated her plastic card up to the door handle, which unlocked with a click. She opened it with her magic and trotted in, laying herself upon the bed and draping the covers over her body. With a tap of the hooves, the lights went out and she closed her eyes.

However, not long after the lights went out, an inky black shadow started flowing from the window. It slithered across the floor moving and warping to surround Twilight’s bed. Soon it started moving up the sides and enveloping her whole body. Her eyes shot open and she soon started struggling to free herself from her entrapments, but she could barely move at all, she could barely even breathe. Soon, everything went black…

…Twilight gasped as she was suddenly freed from whatever force had previously bound her. She looked around and found that all of her friends had seemingly shared her fate.

She rushed up to her disoriented friends. “Girls! Are you all okay?”

Applejack was the first to get her bearings. “That was worse than getting covered in mud trying to give a feverish hog his medicine!”

Fluttershy was clearly panicking. “I thought… I was… going to…”

However, Rainbow Dash and Rarity moved to either side of her to offer comfort. “I don’t know what that was, but a better question is, where are we now?”

Rarity looked around with a look of concern. “One thing’s for sure, we definitely aren’t in the Grand District anymore.”

The buildings surrounding them were run down and crumbling. The lights were scarce and gave an impression of things hiding in the shadows looking at them. However, down the crack and pothole-filled road was slithering a patch of somehow even darker darkness.

Twilight pointed down the way with her hoof. “Follow that shadow!”

The ponies took off, galloping down the shabby path. Along their way, they occasionally passed humans, some lying by the side of the road, some with crying children, and some gathered around a fire, roasting meager victuals. What they all had in common was that they were wearing what Rarity would politely call, “Extremely second-hoof clothes.”

At the end of the road, they came to a very large building with a pair of big doors providing the only entrance. The mass of shadow slithered up to the base of the doors and started swirling in place, causing the party of ponies to stop in place. Soon, a human with tan skin, bright orange eyes, and long silver hair emerged from the swirling shadow. He was clearly dressed in underworlder attire, but unlike the Grunts or even the Administrators, his armor was painted solid black.

He looked at the ponies with an indiscernible expression, then gave them a polite bow. “Welcome, Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rarity. We’ve been expecting you.”

Rainbow Dash flew ahead and pointed her hoof at the human with a harsh expression. “No formalities! Who are you and why did you bring us here?”

The underworlder raised from his bow and gestured to the doors. “My name is Durza and you have been summoned to meet with the Boss of the Underworlders.”

Twilight trotted forward, extended her wings, and lit up her horn. “And if we refuse?”

Durza held up his fingers. “I’m afraid you don't have a say in the matter.” Durza snapped his fingers. Emerging from the shadowy corners surrounding them was the group’s least favorite humans in order: Mort hefting his scythes with an insincere smile, Katrina brandishing her lance and flipping her curly ponytail, Crazy Joe menacingly swinging around his spiked ball from its chain, and Mummy maniacally laughing as he revved his circular saw.

Each of the ponies raised their guards, but all had uneasy looks on their faces. Durza meanwhile, extended his hands and in them appeared a long, dark blue scythe in a flash of blue and black light. “Come along, my little ponies, we’d best not keep the Boss waiting for each of our own sakes.”

Durza turned and opened the doors, walking in. Twilight turned to her friends as he lowered her wings and snuffed the glow from her horn. “Come on girls, it seems the only way out is through.” She turned back around and cantered through the doors with the other ponies anxiously following along surrounded by the Underworlder Administrators.

As they passed through the starly bright halls, they noticed many Underworlder Grunts lining the walls that looked upon them with contempt and suspicion, many of which appeared to be nursing injuries.

Eventually, they made it to a very large room with several large rugs covering the concrete. When they made it to the center, they noticed that at the back, a large figure was lounging with their back to them on a patched and fraying couch listening to music with heavy bass from some speakers as a light on a table emitted multiple colors as it spun.

Suddenly, Durza slowly swung his scythe around and pointed it at the ponies, causing them to slightly rear back. “You lot stay here.”

He walked up to the figure and made his weapon disappear. “Boss, I’ve brought you the ponies, as you’ve requested.”

The figure raised a remote control and turned off the music. Then he rose up from his seat. As he approached them, Twilight a pressure in the air similar to when she first faced formidable foes from the past. He was wearing some of the finest armor even Rarity had ever seen, pure black with an intricate gold trim that fit his form almost unnaturally well. His helmet had no eye holes or visor, but in the center of the forehead emerged two golden horns that curled back and around his head like a ram’s. From his shoulders hung a cape of the darkest black fabric that artistically tattered at the other end.

After an uncomfortably long silence, he raised his hand and made a beckoning gesture. “Well, come on, don’t you have anything to say for yourselves?”

Twilight stepped forward with a determined look and raised her head and wings high. “I am Princess Twilight Sparkle of Equestria, and I swear to you that no matter what you intend to do to us, we will refuse any demands you make! And if you want a fight, we’ll give you one you’ll never forget, one we intend to win at all costs!”

There was another pause, then the Underworlder Boss started laughing, first only slightly, then it progressively grew louder and heartier. Pinkie Pie was an expert on laughter, and what weirded her out was that this kind of laugher was the complete opposite from what she expected from this kind of person. Unlike the cruel, maniacal mirth that came from the countless villains they faced before, this was the hearty, jolly laughter of one who loved life and lived to love. Even Durza and the Administrators looked awkward and somewhat embarrassed at this display.

Once this laughter ceased, he gave out a satisfied sigh and made a gesture with his fingers, causing the group of couches at the end of the room to be covered in an undulating darkness and get dragged to surround the group.

The Underworlder Boss was the first to take a seat. “That’s not what I meant at all! Come on! Sit down and tell me about yourselves! What you do, who you know, and most of all: What life on the surface is like!”

When the ponies were struck dumb by this statement, frozen in place, the Underworlder Boss snapped his fingers. “I’m afraid that wasn’t a request.” The Administrators and Durza brandished their weapons and their magic at the ponies. Several squads worth of Grunts suddenly started flooding the room, doing the same.

The ponies quickly zipped to different seats and sat down. Twilight soon cleared her throat. “Well, we all come from a place called Ponyville…”

Over the next couple of hours, Twilight and the others began sharing their lives’ stories with the Underworlder Boss. Each of her friends chiming in to offer their perspectives and any parts of their history they had the best experience with. The Underworlder Boss only interrupted to either ask a question, or to ask them to describe in heavy detail about natural phenomena absent from the Heart of the World.

“...and then Starswirl showed us the Drum of Mending, and the next morning we used it. That’s how we ended up in this cavern.”

The Underworlder Boss bent forward and placed his chin above his clasped fingers. “And you really have no idea what drove our ancestors so far underground?”

Twilight sighed. “I came down here thinking your people would know. I guess it’s just going to be another one of history’s mysteries.”

There was an awkwardly long pause, then the Underworlder Boss leaned back on his seat. “Well, since you’ve told me so much, I guess you deserve to hear a bit about my little organization and where you are.” The Underworlder boss then sat straight up. “The cavern is a very dangerous place, so we built that wall to keep the danger out. But that made expanding the city problematic. So instead of building outward, we decided to build on top of the older, run-down buildings. This resulted in the creation of this underground Lost District.

“Anyone that this city casts aside tends to wind up here, and about ten years ago, I came down here and claimed this District as my own. After the people started accepting me as their leader, I had little choice but to use the many passageways to the Districts above to forcefully take enough food, water, and other essentials to make sure the poor people living down here could go on another day.

“Soon after that, the few down here capable of fighting began to recognize my strength and started following my example, and eventually an entire organization formed around me. I took the most promising among them and trained them up as strong as I could.” He then pointed at Durza. “But so far, only he’s managed to reach the Top-Class.”

Twilight momentarily showed a look of concern. Then she scowled at the Underworlder Boss. “I can understand why you do what you do, but that doesn’t justify hurting innocents!”

Many of the underworlders around her started aggressively pointing their weapons at her, but the Boss merely chuckled. “I ain’t gonna lie, you’re right about that. It’s a cruel world, but that doesn’t mean my actions can be pardonable. It’s just that most people would rather be alive than be right, the only difference is the lies we tell ourselves.”

Twilight leaned back with a confused look. “Well, I guess that’s good to hear. If that’s all you wanted, then may we please be returned to where we came from?”

After yet another pause, the Underworlder Boss got up from his seat. “I’m afraid not, Princess.”

Twilight looked around as the Underworlders started backing away. “What?”

The Underworlder Boss sighed. “You see, even after everything you’ve told me, I still can’t believe you’d come down here and try to get all of us to follow you back to the surface just for friendship’s sake. But that’s probably on me. Y’see, among humans, we have a legend that warriors are able to exchange their feelings in the truest, purest way by exchanging blows. And when you’re a warrior as battle-hardened as I am, it becomes the only way you can truly understand others.”

With a gesture, Durza’s shadow extended across the floor and encircled the furniture, causing it all to sink into nowhere, forcing the Ponies back on their hooves. Twilight gritted her teeth and extended her head forward. “You really can’t expect us to fight you for no reason!”

The Underworlder Boss extended his hand and in a glimmer of darkness appeared a sheathed sword. He placed the sheath to his hip and drew the blade with his other hand, revealing a solid-black katana. “Well, we’re not going to let you escape, and I’m going to start attacking without hesitation. If you don’t fight back, that’s on you. But to give you a handicap, we’ll do it League-style. First to ten points wins, and I’ll even let you all attack me at once and count even a touch with a hoof as a clean hit.”

Seeing no other options, the Ponies braced themselves for battle as the Underworlder Boss took his sword in both hands, pointing it outward.

Chapter 15: Darkness Matters

The Underworlder Boss made his first move with a leaping downward slash. “Nightmare Slasher!” Following this statement, a solid-black wave of energy erupted from the path his blade cut through the air. The ponies were forced to scatter as the attack gouged out the floor where they used to be standing.

Rainbow Dash took the initiative and flew in at an angle to strike from the side. However, the Underworlder Boss released one of his hands’ grip on his sword as he stood up straight after his jump and pulled it back with an open palm. “Touch of Evil!” On that note, his hand became shrouded in a solid-black undulating aura which extended ten times its size. Rainbow Dash was forced to barrel roll out of the way while he swiped at her.

Applejack and Pinkie Pie tried to rush him from the front from two points, charging in with determined looks. However, the Underworlder Boss raised both his arms horizontally as a curtain of black energy appeared behind him. Thrusting his arms forward, he cried “Dark Impale!” and from the curtain erupted countless rope-like tendrils who’s sharp points undulated through the air towards the two earth ponies. The two of them were forced to break off their charge as Rarity tried to deflect the strikes with a shield of ethereal crystal, only for the tendrils to bury their tips in the wall as the crystal lost its shine and decayed to nothing, dispersing like a cloud of salt.

The ponies regrouped as the Underworlder Boss took a stance before them. As the combatants started each other down, the tension was broken by a hollering from the stands. Katrina stepped forward making a time-out gesture. “Hold it! Hold it! Time-out! Time-out!”

The Ponies dropped their stance as the Underworlder Boss sighed and sheathed his sword. “What is it now, Katrina?”

Katrina closed her eyes as she took a deep breath for a moment. “We all respect you and think you’re cool, boss, but the truth is… nobody’s called out their attacks in over thirty years.”

The Underworlder Boss went rigid. “Really? You mean it’s old-fashioned?”

Katrina held up her hands and shrugged. “Yeah, and despite how awesome your darkness element is, it just makes you look really lame with all that hollering and screaming.”

The Underworlder Boss sighed and gestured to the rest of his Administrators. “Joe, is this true?” Crazy Joe nodded his head and made an affirmative-sounding grunt.

Mort raised his hand. “I think it makes you look cool, boss. Kicking it old school and all that.”

The Underworlder Boss just shook his head at that. “Nobody likes a kiss-up, Mort. When will you learn?” At that, Mort made an awkward laugh and hung his head even lower with a sad look.

Twilight got an awkward look on her face and started gesturing with her hoof. “Are we fighting or what? We’d much rather get going, especially if you’re just going to talk!”

The Underworlder Boss scoffed and drew his sword with both hands once again. “Oh, I intend to finish what I started! Let’s resume the fight, okay?”

The Underworlder Boss then extended his arms to point his weapon directly at the ponies. The tip of his sword flashed with a black and purple light and with a recoiling motion launched a swarm of missiles of darkness that briefly spread out before hurling at the ponies. Twilight extended her wings and put up an extra-large barrier around her friends. However, as the initial missiles made contact with the barrier, they burst on contact and somehow began drawing in and eroding the magic.

Twilight, with a look of alarm, turned back to her friends and shouted “Scatter!” When the barrier came down, the ponies rushed in all directions as they were chased by the missiles of darkness. As Fluttershy tried to escape with a look of panic, the Underworlder Boss came bearing down on her from the front. However, as he drew his sheathed blade to strike at her legs in the one motion, Fluttershy leaped out of the way and kicked the Underworlder boss to the floor as she vaulted off him to ascend into the air.

Almost immediately after he hit the ground, the Underworlder Boss rolled to his feet and made an upward diagonal slash with his weapon, releasing a crescent-shaped flying slash of darkness that cleaved one of Pinkie’s party cannons in two and forcing Pinkie Pie herself to bounce out of the way.

The Underworlder Boss stood straight up and turned towards Twilight, who was concentrating a massive amount of magic above her. Suddenly, the Underworlder Boss released one of his grips from his sword and started making motions with his free hand. From the path of his spinning palm appeared a series of black and purple glyphs which arranged to form a small circle overlapping the bottom half of a larger circle.

Twilight launched her bomb of magic at the Underworlder Boss, but the smaller circle started spinning and as soon as the bomb made contact with the array, all the magic got drawn in. Then, the larger circle of the array started spinning and suddenly released a wave of pure magic, several times more intense than the magic that was drawn in. Twilight had to teleport as the blast blew a hole into the side of the room. However, Applejack, who thought to take advantage of the concentration needed for such a complex spell, bucked him in the back and sent him flying to the ground once his guard was down.

However, once again, the Underworlder Boss immediately rolled back to his feet after colliding with the ground and pointed his darkness-enshrouded hand at Applejack. From his palm, a vortex erupted with a howl. Applejack found herself being drawn towards the Underworlder Boss and was suddenly sent flying toward him. He grabbed her mane in hand with an iron grip and reared back his sword, aiming the tip at her neck. However, both Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy zoomed down from above and kicked him on the back full-force, the shock of which allowed Applejack to get away.

The Ponies moved in formation to surround the Underworlder Boss and braced themselves. However, he just sat there, crouched and hunched on the ground. Then, he started laughing, to the confusion of the ponies. He continued laughing as he stood straight up and sheathed his sword, which disappeared in another glimmer of darkness. “That was a fight for the ages! That’s your win, you little ponies you!”

At first, the ponies were shocked, looking at one another in confusion. Twilight tilted her head. “Wait, you started this fight and declared it over, just like that?”

The Underworlder Boss gave a hearty laugh and shook his head. “I suppose since you were basically fighting for your lives, you didn’t bother to count your score, is that it? First, the pink-maned pegasus’s unwitting counterattack had me on the ground, so that was three points to you. Then, that kick from the earth pony in the hat gave you another three points, totalling to six. And finally, that combo attack from the pegasi interrupted my counterattack, which counted as a two-pointer critical hit for both of them. That’s ten, and by league rules, that’s a win by TKO.”

Twilight raised her head in surprise. She then looked at the underworld grunts surrounding them, who despite their brief looks of disappointment, broke out into a hearty applause, cheering the ponies names. The Administrators just sighed and shrugged at one another, then held their thumbs up at the ponies.

The Ponies grouped back together and started waving at the onlookers (especially Pinkie, who did so with great enthusiasm). Then, the Underworlder Boss approached them, which abruptly silenced the applause. “I’ve come to a conclusion.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow at him. “Oh yeah? What’s that?”

The Underworlder Boss cleared his throat. “Through battle, I have examined your hearts and found them to be overwhelmingly strong and pure. It’s the kind of strength that can only emerge after being honed by facing countless forms of adversity from truly formidable opposition. And yet, your codes of honor are not only intact, but have been further tempered by facing countless perils and the threat of great loss. I believe that you mean the best for the human race and are willing to accept and personally mitigate the consequences of unleashing a tremendous change upon both my people and yours.”

Twilight turned her head and frowned on that last note. “What do you mean, ‘consequences’?”

The Underworlder Boss shook his head and gestured. “To accept humanity into your world means accepting both the best and the worst of it. I’m not exaggerating when I say that there are criminals in Core Metro so vile and dangerous that I would never allow them into my gang of underworlders. If we do go back to the surface, odds are your people and others will never know another day of peace.”

Twilight looked at each of her friends and they all nodded and smiled. She turned back towards the Underworlder Boss with a grin. “We can’t let your people suffer just because we’re afraid of the consequences, we deal with problems all the time, they’re a part of life. Darkness will always exist in the world, but we and our light will always be there to stand against it!” Then, she turned her head and gave an awkward smile. “Um… no offense.”

The Underworlder Boss broke out laughing once again. “None taken! None taken! The darkness element has always had a bad reputation, but without its ability to draw in and erase everything, especially other magic, you’d probably have to deal with the sky falling on your heads every other Tuesday!”

At that, the ponies erupted into laughter, and all the underworlders awkwardly followed along. The Underworlder Boss gestured to Durza who walked to the ponies and held his hands up towards them. “Durza’s shadow magic will put you all back where you belong. But before you go, a little word of warning from a street-smart old man…”

Twilight frowned and leaned her head forward. “What’s that?”

The Underworlder Boss cleared his throat. “Whatever you do, when you meet him, don’t trust the High Director.”

Twilight looked taken aback. “W-w-w-what do you mean, sir?”

The Underworlder Boss shook his head. “We humans have a saying: Those that are most worthy of power are those that don’t seek it. That also means that those that do seek power are the ones least worthy of having it. This is a reflection of how we used to run things.

“You see, long, long ago, thousands of years before we went underground, humans waged countless battles with one another for supremacy. Chaos reigned, then one day, the best and brightest among them started gaining mysterious marks on their bodies. After this, they found that their magic had become inexhaustible, they no longer aged, and that no wound or ailment could claim their lives.

‘These warriors decided that they were given these abilities for a reason, and used them to bring harmony to the chaos. The humans realized that these new kinds of beings were worth obeying and bowed down to them, proclaiming them immortals. Each one worked to maintain a different aspect of human life and the natural order, issuing commands and offering mediation between disagreeing parties when needed. There were still fights, as we are a warrior race, but it was for the sake of honoring both themselves and their opponents.

“It is said that for a human to become an immortal, three conditions must be fulfilled. First, a human must hone their magic and whatever skills they specialize in to perfection. Next, they must take up a resolution in their hearts. Finally, they must perform a great deed worthy of being proclaimed a leader.”

Twilight held her hoof to her chin with an inquisitive look. “Well, if the immortals were so great, why aren’t they in charge of the city? And as far as I know, most of the city considers them a myth by this point, why are you different?”

The Underworlder Boss sighed and clapped his faceplate in his gauntleted hand. “Well, nobody knows exactly why, but when we went underground, they didn’t follow. If you ask me, it’s a sign that we weren’t meant to live like this, so you ponies better hurry up and set things right at the Central Administration, and don’t take no for an answer from anyone! And as for why I believe, let’s just say… I once had undeniable proof right in my hands”

Suddenly, Durza coughed. “Um… sir? I don’t mean to complain, but my arms are getting tired.”

The Underworlder Boss made an awkward laugh. “Alright, send ‘em home, Durza.”

Durza’s shadow extended from under him and encircled the ponies. As they sunk back into darkness, the Underworlder Boss called out. “You won’t be getting any more trouble from us! Oh, and remember: don’t trust the High Director! I can’t deny he has good intentions in his own way, but we humans have another saying about good intentions that’s best left unsaid!”

Chapter 16: The Bright Truth

After a good night’s sleep, the ponies were ready and raring to go as they followed the Central Administration agents to the giant obelisk-like building in the exact center of the city. They stopped in front of a pair of big bronze doors. The agent at the front placed their fire-wrapped hand against one of the doors and with a low humming, they opened outward. The ponies braced themselves as they followed into the building.

The inside was undoubtedly magnificent, but Rarity honestly found it just a bit tacky even by her standards. The floor was made of marble lined with gold-plate lightning bolt patterns. The desks where countless secretaries were inputting data on terminals were all slightly upraised and lined with gold-plating with a pattern of light beams. The hall itself was decorated with gold-inlaid marble columns and inlaid marble pots containing large ornamental mushrooms.

The ponies followed the agents to a gold-plated grated elevator with a liftman dressed in red operating the switch. Once they were all crowded inside, the liftman gripped the switch. “Where to, mac?”

The agent, not looking at the liftman, replied “The very top, laborer.”

The liftman spasmed in shock and gave the agent and the ponies a look of sheer alarm. “Seriously? All the way to… to… him…?”

The head agent turned toward the liftman and lifted his mirrored glasses, revealing pale, strikingly blue eyes. “Need I repeat myself, laborer? We’re getting up there one way or the other, and when we do, he’ll be hearing about you, that’s for sure.”

The liftman flinched back into place and raised the lever to up. “Top floor, High Director’s office, watch your words and count your blessings!” At that sight, the ponies exchanged unhappy looks.

The elevator began to rise at a quick but comfortable rate. Over the next half hour, the lift passed many different types of floors, each dedicated to things like data inputting and handling, intelligence gathering, magical research and development, urban planning, manufacturing methods and other subjects dedicated to the advancement of civilization.

Eventually, they made it to the very top, a round hall with a series of doors at every angle, with the most intricately carved door in the very center with the gilded words Zeo Photum: High Director of Core Metro. The agents stepped out of the elevator followed by the ponies. The head agent walked up to the door and rapped on it three times. From a speaker on the side, a digitally-distorted voice rang out. “What’s your business?”

The head agent, for the first time showing a slight lapse in composure, coughed and pressed the button below the speaker. “I-it’s your agents, sir. The delegates from the surface you’ve ordered us to escort have arrived.”

After the head agent withdrew his finger from the button, there was a brief pause. Then, the voice rang out again. “You may enter.”

The head agent straightened his tie, opened the door, and entered followed by the other agents, who were in turn followed by the ponies. Inside, sitting at the top of an upraised podium with a gold plating engraved with a sun, moon, and stars design, was a man with finely-combed brown hair, blue eyes, and a light, somewhat pale complexion.

The man looked up from the papers he was reading and signing and removed his glasses. “Speak, please.”

The head agent gulped and stepped forward. “Most honorable High Director, it is my privilege to introduce the delegates from the surface world: Miss Applejack, Miss Rainbow Dash, Miss Pinkie Pie, Miss Rarity, Miss Fluttershy, and their leader Princess Twilight Sparkle.”

The High Director gave them all a good look with a discerning expression. “Ah yes, the ponies from the legends. They’re exactly how the stories depicted them, the bright colors, the three different tribes, and the fabled cutie marks. Thank you for your services, agents. You may leave now, I wish to speak to the delegates alone.”

The agents saluted and exited the way they came. The high director descended from his podium, revealing his white coat decorated with jagged golden patterns, and walked to the middle of his room, where Twilight trotted up to meet him. “The reports said that you came down here to help us back onto the surface. But I want to hear it from your mouths, why did you really come down here?”

Twilight inhaled and looked deep in the High Director’s eyes. “Your honor, the civilization we come from holds friendship as our most revered virtue, and we specifically as the Council of Friendship work everyday to spread the values needed to form and maintain friendships to all creatures regardless of species or nationality. This also means we work to resolve friendship problems between such creatures.

“We came down here after discovering that your ancestors and ours came together to brave the harsh wilderness of the primeval world and in the process formed the world’s first friendship, but it wasn’t to last. We don’t know what, but something happened between the ancient humans and ponies that caused such a disagreement that your ancestors couldn’t bear to live in the same world as ours, so they combined their magic to make an entryway to the Heart of the World, where you built this civilization. We came here to finally resolve the ancient problem, but as we’ve traveled through this city, we’ve noticed that although you’ve done very well for yourselves, there are still many people that are often forced to resort to drastic measures to keep themselves and their loved ones alive. So we feel that it would be in your people’s best interest if you’d all follow us and immigrate back to the surface world.”

The High Administrator’s expression didn’t change, but his voice grew a few octaves colder. “Are you saying that you have a problem with how we do things in our city, and with how I’m running things here?”

Twilight leaned back in shock. “N-no sir! It’s just that, um, no matter what you or anyone does, there’s always going to be great scarcity while you live down here, and that scarcity will always cause great suffering!

“You said that you know the legends, well I can tell you that they’re all true! There’s enough food and water to feed your people a thousand-fold! There’s food practically growing on the trees! And there are things like the sun which can provide enough warmth for everyone! And drinkable water falls from the sky regularly!”

The High Director then got an inquisitive look, scratching his chin. “If all the legends are true, and the land above really is a land of plenty, then that makes the idea of picking everything up and moving there quite… tempting.”

The High Director held himself high and folded his arms behind his back. “If it’s not too much trouble, I’d like to make an announcement to the city, and I’d like you lot to accompany me to the balcony.”

Twilight turned back to her friends and they all sounded in affirmative. She then turned back to the High Director. “We’d be glad to!”

The Ponies trotted behind the High Director as he made his way behind the podium to a pair of doors in the back of the office. He opened them and let in a blast of cold air. The ponies flinched once it hit them, but the High Director walked through the doors without trouble. Once outside, the ponies were met with the oppressive darkness of the cavern being broken from the hundreds of miles of the city lights below.

Twilight marveled at the sight below them. “I can see why you wanted to come here to make your announcement!”

The High Director took a deep breath at the edge of the balcony. “From the moment I first became High Director and gazed down at the city from here, I knew that this is what I was meant for. Now, would you kindly line up behind me, three on both sides if it’s not too much trouble.”

Twilight started gesturing at her friends. “No trouble at all, High Director! No trouble at all!

Once the ponies were in place, the High Director raised both his hands and in them appeared two orbs of light, which flew to the opposite corners of the back of the balcony, illuminating the whole place. Then he pointed one of his hands forward and a stream of softly-glowing white glyphs flowed from it and spiraled into a large cone in front of the balcony.

Unbeknownst to the ponies, all the monitors in the city changed their images to show the High Director and the ponies behind him. On every street block and whatever large space was available, a screen of pure light appeared to display the same image.

After clearing his throat, the High Director began to speak. “Citizens of Core Metro, I, Zeo Photum, High Director of our proud city, may have the privilege of delivering the most important announcement in our people’s history.” He gestured to the ponies behind him. “As you may have heard, emissaries from the legendary surface world have come down to the Heart of the World on a mission to restore us back from whence we came. I must admit, I have done my very best to plan and organize so as to provide for all two hundred million of you, but this cavern does not yield its resources easily, and not without great sacrifice. As such, a mass migration to such a resource-rich land seems like the most promising solution.”

The High director then took a deep breath and put his hands together. “However, when the delegates first got down here, they stated that the reason we all live down here today is because of a dispute between our ancestors and theirs, and they themselves did not know the details. So when I first heard, I commissioned our historical and archaeological societies to mount an extensive investigation into the earliest history of our city, and what they found has proven… shocking, to say the least.”

The ponies started looking at one another in a worried fashion. The High Director then snapped his fingers and in several flashes of white light, a series of tablets and tapestries appeared at the back of the balcony. The ponies looked upon these images and gained expressions of great alarm at what they had to show. The High Director continued. “It seems that the truth is much darker than what any of us expected: At first, the bond between man and pony was very strong, but as time went on, the humans began to work harder and harder, carrying greater burdens as the ponies reveled in the fruits of the humans’ labor and adopted hedonistic and carefree lifestyles; leaving the humans themselves to break their backs protecting and maintaining their civilization. The exploitation continued until humans were all but a second-class servant species.

“Eventually, our ancestors had had enough and demanded to be treated as equals, but the ancient ponies found the very thought laughable. Realizing that as long as the ponies and the humans lived together, there would never be justice, our brave ancestors combined all their elemental magics together to carve a path to who knows where. But as long as they got away from the pony menace, it would be preferable.

“We could make the journey to the surface, but afterwards, there’s no reason to believe that history won’t repeat itself. So I propose a new course of action: We shall return to the surface, but not in peace. We shall launch an invasion as a declaration of a quick and merciless war. And at the end, we, the greatest warriors the world has ever seen, shall rule all and take everything the surface has to offer for ourselves and only ourselves.”

On that note, the ponies moved to escape. But with another snap of the fingers, the High Director had, faster than even Rainbow Dash could see, bound them all to the ground in cords of solid light.

“Now I know what many of the wiser among you are thinking: No matter how skilled we are as warriors, a war with an entire world will be long, painful, and costly. Thankfully, the princess of ponies that I have single handedly captured agrees that it would be costly for her people too, so I propose we settle this dispute with a challenge. The princess and her compatriots will face the best we have to offer in combat at our city’s Professional Dueling Arena. If they win, we’ll call off the invasion. But if we win, on behalf of her kingdom, the princess will offer her unconditional surrender. Do you agree with these terms, Princess Twilight?”

With a gesture from the High Director, Twilight was dragged across the balcony floor right next to him. She made an angry grimace at the High Director, then gave the screen a look of solemn determination. “It appears there isn’t much of a choice. I accept your terms, High Director Photum.”

Chapter 17: A Lonely Warrior

Applejack leaned close to Twilight. “Are you sure you can’t get outta here, Twi’?”

Twilight closed her eyes as her horn sparked intensely. The other ponies surrounded her to shield her efforts from the agents at both entrances of the locker room. Twilight appeared to have teleported away, but she immediately popped back into place. Twilight sighed. “I think the humans set up some enchantments around the whole arena so that teleportation is only possible inside the central ring. But even so, I get the feeling that Equestria is too far for me to warp to with a simple teleportation spell.”

Fluttershy sulked more than usual. “So I guess we can’t warn everyone about the invasion. How could this all have gone so wrong?”

Rainbow Dash followed suit. “I guess violence is just in human nature. And some of them were pretty cool too…”

Pinkie tried to perk up amd brighten up the other’s spirits. “Oh, cheer up everypony! Sure, we’re being held against our will and forced to fight for our lives against the best a self-proclaimed warrior race has to offer with the freedom of everyone we love hanging in the balance, but on the bright side… eh… um…”

Rarity elegantly scowled at Pinkie, then tried to give Twilight a gently reassuring look. “I think what Pinkie’s trying to say is that we’re still all together. Nopony or creature has ever been able to keep us down for long when we all work together!”

Suddenly, one of the agents coughed to get the ponies’ attention. “It’s time.” He stepped aside and opened the door to the path to the ring.

Twilight turned back to her friends as she moved to lead the way. “Everypony ready? This is a fight we cannot lose.” All of her friends expressed their determination and she trotted through the door into a dark concrete hall with the only source of light being up ahead, along with the roar of the crowd.

Outside, all the lights were shining down in the ring. From the side walked in the referee, who’s finger glowed in a turquoise light before he pressed it to his throat. His voice boomed throughout the arena. “LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! WE ARE GATHERED HERE FOR WHAT MAY BE THE FIGHT OF THE CENTURY, WHERE THE FATE OF BOTH OURSELVES AND THE WORLD ABOVE HANGS IN THE BALANCE! SUCH A SPECIAL FIGHT DESERVES SPECIAL RULES HANDED DOWN FROM OUR HONORABLE HIGH DIRECTOR HIMSELF! THIS SHALL BE A NO-HOLDS BARRED DEATH MATCH, ALL COMPETITORS SHALL KEEP FIGHTING UNTIL ALL OF THEIR OPPONENTS GO DOWN AND STAY DOWN! NO SPELL IS FORBIDDEN! NO TACTICS ARE ILLEGAL! NO INJURY IS TOO SEVERE! Honestly, it makes me wonder why I’m even here…”

The referee gestured to his left. “IN THIS CORNER, REPRESENTING THE SURFACE KINGDOM OF EQUESTRIA, THE MULTI-COLORED SELF-PROCLAIMED DO-GOODERS, PRINCESS TWILIGHT SPARKLE AND HER COUNCIL OF FRIENDSHIP!” The ponies trotted into the ring, and got a combination of sour and sad looks amid the boos and hisses of the crowd. Someone threw a rotten, slimy mushroom that Rarity barely managed to avoid.

Once the ponies were at the side of the referee, he gestured to his right. “AND IN THIS CORNER, WE HAVE THE PRIDE OF CORE METRO, THE PEERLESS SWORD MASTER, THE CLEAVER OF SPELLS, THE UNDISPUTED GREATEST OF ALL TIME KING UNDER THE MOUNTAIN, KRRIIISSS DUEELLIIISSS!”

Once the human entered the arena, the crowd erupted into a veritable sonic boom. The women screamed and fainted while the men took off their shirts and howled as they swung them over their heads.Once he made it in front of the scowling ponies, the referee started backing off. “AS IS CUSTOMARY, THE COMPETITORS ARE ALLOWED TO SHARE A FEW WORDS BEFORE THE FIGHT BEGINS.”

Twilight trotted right up to Kris and looked him dead in the eye. “I don’t care how strong you are. I will do anything and everything to protect my friends and loved ones!”

Then, for the briefest of moments, the hardness of her opponent’s gaze dropped. And in his eyes Twilight saw a deep, deep sadness, pain, and suffocating loneliness. But this was quickly replaced by the most intense fiery determination. Kris stretched his arm forward, and from his hand erupted an ethereal yet unyieldingly rigid sword of bright amber light. “So will I.”

The referee raised his arm. “READY?” All of the combatants took a stance. Then, he swung it down. “FIGHT!”

Taking the initiative, Kris dashed forward and made a fast slash at Twilight, who used her wings to jettison herself backwards while firing a scattershot of magic beams to counter. However, almost immediately after finishing the motion of the swing, Kris backflipped and avoided the blasts entirely.

Rainbow Dash flew in high from the left while Applejack raced in from the right and swung her lasso down low towards his legs. However, Kris countered with a diagonal spinning slash, and from the tip of his sword erupted a wave-motion beam that severed Applejack’s rope and sent Rainbow Dash reeling back, trailing displaced feathers.

Kris readied his sword in a backhand position and made two rapid, almost simultaneous horizontal swings, which sent out two rotating crescents of light that swung around to fly at the ponies from both sides, forcing them to scatter. Rarity used her magic to erect a shield of ethereal crystal. However, Fluttershy had to knock her out of the way as the oncoming blade cleaved her shield in two.

Pinkie Pie set up a party cannon and lifted up a present with a label saying Caution, Do not open, Danger before stuffing it into the cannon’s barrel. She pulled the attached cord with her teeth and let the present fly at Kris in a blast of confetti. However, Kris flourished his sword and caught the present on the flat of his blade before sending it flying back several times as fast. On impact, the present erupted in a series of loud and colorful explosions, sending Pinkie flying and leaving her dazed on the ground covered in streamers and chocolate syrup.

The ponies regrouped around the fallen Pinkie Pie and urged her back up. They faced Kris with looks of determination while Kris responded in turn and struck a stance. Meanwhile, up above in an enclosed box, a pair of humans marveled at the display. “Stakes aside, Charley, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a match quite like this.”

Charley chuckled. “Well, I can see why, Abner. Here we have a group of six ponies that each seem to utilize fighting styles based around their own special talents, just like the legends said. Even with my experience in the league, I don’t think I’ve ever encountered opponents quite like that, and yet our boy Kris is still powering through.”

“Still though, numbers win battles, old friend. Hardly seems fair that the fate of two species rests on a one versus six battle.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that, old chum. Our boy Kris here is a fire tribesman. As we all know, that means his stamina is inexhaustible.”

“Still though, despite that fine sword spell of his, even he might be in trouble if they all attack him from different angles all at once.”

“Well, for starters, that’s not exactly a spell. As a sword elemental, he can emanate ethereal swords as an innate ability, and I can tell from looking at it that he’s polished his sword skills to the point where he's a true blue top-class warrior with or without a real, physical weapon. And then there’s the fact that the sword element is part of a special variety of elemental powers that can negate magic on contact, essentially able to cleave through both physical and magical matter alike. All that means I’m lucky I never had to face anyone quite like that during my career.”

Back in the arena, the staredown continued. Twilight stood herself up tall and unfurled her wings. “You’re formidable, but the battle has only just begun!”

Kris closed his eyes for a moment and sighed. “I’ve put on enough of a show, so I think it’s time I put this spectacle to an end.” He abruptly dropped his stance, but kept his sword manifested. “We humans hold Ultima as our greatest hero. She was the one that proved to the world that humans were the ultimate warrior race. But she was also massively arrogant, and all of her great deeds were purely for the sake of validating her own ego. As such, she was never able to ascend to the ranks of the immortals.

“However, what few know is that on her travels in her waning days, she found a child, abandoned for seemingly being born with no magic at all. But as the child grew, she discovered that the true nature of his magic was one like that had never appeared before, or had appeared since. This child would eventually go on to use this truly inexplicable power to cast down the wicked sorcerer kings who reigned over the innocent with their cruel whims. For selflessly putting his life on the line for the wellbeing of others, he ascended to become the latest known immortal. After doing so, he gave up his weapon to be passed down among the only ones capable of using it, so that humanity and humanity alone would have agency over their own fate. And his name was Omega.”

Twilight gave him an awkward look. “What are you getting at with all these stories?”

Kris proceeded to raise his free hand high into the air. And in a flash of black light, a second, physical sword appeared in his grip. It was pure black and simple in shape. It had no hand guard, but its double-edged rectangular shape covered his hand and steadily tapered until it came to a diamond-shaped tip. When the crowd saw this weapon, they all gasped and hollered in surprise. Somehow, over the thunderous commotion, someone was able to scream “THE LEGENDS, THEY’RE TRUE!”

Kris proceeded to point this new weapon at the ponies. “Elementals don’t just create their elements, they can command real physical manifestations of it! By controlling the power of the Omega Weapon, not only am I impervious to its otherwise caustic effects, I don’t even need to make contact with magic to negate it!” With that, a wave of black haze-like magic emanated from the blade and hit the ponies faster than they could react to it. They squirmed in agony as their coats and manes darkened, their cutie marks turned solid black, and they each felt their special talents and everything that made them strong being stripped away.

Kris, despite his dissatisfied look, raised both swords to the crowd as they cheered. Then, a chant started up among them. “FINISH THEM! FINISH THEM! FINISH THEM! FINISH THEM!”

The referee pressed his finger to his throat once again. “THE RULES DICTATE THAT THIS IS A DEATH MATCH! THE PONIES ARE STILL STANDING! KRIS DUELIS, IF YOU WANT THE MATCH TO END, STRIKE NOW AND LEAVE THEM ON THE GROUND!”

Kris scrunched up his face and made a deep sigh. Then he walked back across from the ponies and readied a stance, crouching as he crossed his swords, which began glowing in intense auras. Twilight raised her head and scowled at Kris. Kris lowered his head and tensed up his whole body. “Forgive me.”

Right as he took off like a bolt of lightning towards the ponies, five figures dropped down from above and blocked his charge with their own weapons. When Kris got a look at their faces, he reeled back in shock and fell on his behind.

Fluttershy struggled to stand straight up and opened her eyes, which grew very wide at who’s back she was looking at. “Wilda…!”

Each of the ponies followed suit. Rainbow Dash uttered “Trace…!” as she got a look at his distinctive staff.

Applejack uttered “Percival…! At the sight of her human friend’s amorphous battle form.

Rarity could recognize such a quality ensemble from a mile away. “Sloop…!”

Pinkie Pie didn’t even need to open her eyes to feel the sourpuss energy radiated from the figure before her. “Alphonse…!”

Kris made his weapons disappear and got up, dusting himself off. “What are you guys doing here? You have no idea what’ll happen if I don’t finish what was started!”

Trace rolled his eyes and pointed his staff at Kris. “Honestly! You always do this, you jerk!”

Kris raised an eyebrow. “What?”

Wilda stepped forward and stretched his hand to Kris. “He’s talking about your little hero complex! It always has to be you that makes all the sacrifices, and it's always you that’s the first to take the fall!”

Sloop snapped a finger at Kris. “Ever since we were kids, the spotlight’s always been on you! They called you the prodigy! Honestly, I don’t blame you for cutting us side-characters off after that horrible day ten years ago!”

Kris started growing angry. “We all had to go our separate ways after that! Had to find our own ways in the world now that there was no-one to take care of us!”

Alphonse arrogantly scoffed. “Oh, please! Cry me a river, Mr. Tragic Hero! You were the only one that went their separate way! We all kept in contact after the shut-down, and always made time every now and again to meet up! About every month or so, we form a party and go on a little adventure in the caves, risking our lives and bringing back big prizes just like the old days! But we’d always blow all our earnings on a big party anyway!”

Percival transformed into the likeness of Kris, who suddenly got a pained expression. “Oh dear, the shutdown affected him worse than anyone! The guild was his life! His family! He was hurt so badly that he closed his heart off so he’d never be hurt again! But at the same time, he wanted more than anything to maintain the guild’s pride and glory, so he became the best pro duelist in the city’s history!”

Twilight struggled to speak. “You were all part of a guild?”

Suddenly, a familiar and comforting voice rang out. “Yes, the best guild of them all!”

They all turned around. Kris looked like he wanted to scream. “M-M-M-Madam von Wrinkle!”

Maxine confidently strided into the ring, and she wasn’t alone. She was followed by all the friends the ponies made on their journey throughout the cavern. Gustoff and Augustus, Jake the waiter and little Tim, Micheal and Pohl, Carmilla looking nervous but determined followed by a confident-looking Miss June, and Simone struggling to keep her glasses in place.

Maxine squared her shoulders. “Most guilds tended to build themselves around a specialty, but ours was known as the guild of a thousand special talents. We weren’t considered one of the big nine, but they all respected us and came to us whenever the going got tough. Can you tell me what that guild’s name was, young mister Duelis?”

Kris looked down, his face full of sentiment. Then, he looked right at the ponies. “The P… P… Prancing Pony guild…”

Maxine gave a big smile and nodded. “Yes, I myself served as head secretary during the latter years, but I also got no complaints as a quest counter receptionist in my youth!” Maxine pointed high above the stands. “Now, I think it’s time to lay bare the High Director’s true character before we’re all arrested and locked up for the rest of our lives!”

Suddenly, a wall of solid shadow appeared high above, and the colors swirled to form an image of Kris sitting in the other locker room. After he held his head low and sighed, he turned towards the sound of the opposite door opening and stared at the High Director himself and his entourage of agents. “I hope that this is a ritual to psych yourself up, Mr. Duelis.”

Kris stood up and looked the High Director in the eye. “There’s no honor in this, Mr. Photum! And there’s no honor in conquest either, so get with the times! As soon as I get out there, I’m throwing the fight!”

The High Director then smiled a cruel smile. “Just because you’re the biggest star in the city, doesn’t mean you can outshine me as the light of Core Metro! I’d suggest you’d reconsider that strategy, or else those you care about will suffer the consequences.”

Kris crossed his arms and stuck his nose in the air. “Why don’t you read some magazines, my most honorable High Director. I don’t have any loved ones, the fights are the only things I have, and the only things I need!”

The High Director made a low, diabolical laugh. “Oh, I don’t know about that! I happen to know of a few people you used to know that tend to meet on a regular basis. It wouldn't be too difficult to charge and sentence them for intentending to form an illegal guild!”

Kris flinched in shock. “Y-you can’t do that! The jury would see right through those drummed-up charges!”

“The jury? Ha! Everything in this city happens because I make it happen, like the constrictions of supplies, utilities, and aid to all those bums in the lower districts so they can serve the city by either pulling themselves up, or decreasing the surplus population! And to stir up some patriotic confidence in the masses, I’d suggest you use that secret weapon of yours that’s been passed down by the worthy sword elementals through the generations.

Now Kris was utterly stupefied. “How did you-”

“I know everything about everything in my city. So go out there and do your duty, or suffer the consequences!”

On that note, the screen of shadow dispersed. The crowd was left in total despair. Maxine turned towards Kris and looked at the ponies. He summoned back the Omega Weapon and pointed it at the ponies, emitting a black pulse. They quickly got all their colors back and jumped in place as they felt everything they prided themselves return. Then Maxine stretched her own arms out and summoned her dual swords. “I think we should head for the Central Administration. I’d say it’s about time for some big changes for this city!”

Chapter 18: The Final Showdown

After deflecting the knife strikes and arrowgun shots with her swords, Maxine got in close and gave the Central Administration Agent a hard kick to the ground. She looked around and saw the others doing their best to subdue the agents while the ponies and the youngsters of the Prancing Pony guild raced their way to the elevator. She sighed a sigh of relief over the fact that the Central Forces hadn’t arrived. She assumed that since many of them had such strong convictions, they were too conflicted over what was revealed about the High Administrator to properly mobilize, if it all.

Meanwhile, the ponies and their human friends raced towards the elevator. When they got to it, Kris stabbed at it with his ethereal sword, removing the protective enchantments. Then, Wilda covered his arms in an aura shaped like oversized gorilla hands and wrenched the grating open for everyone to enter.

The Liftman shivered in terror, but his hand remained on the lever. “W-w-w-where to, M-M-Mac?”

Alphonse stared right in the Liftman’s eyes as his own glowed with a green, swirly light. “The very top, please.”

The Liftman’s body relaxed as he gently pushed the lever to the up position. “You’ve got it, Mac… The very top…”

The elevator started its rise, but after passing three floors, Trace hacked in displeasure. “This is taking way too long!”

Right as Trace’s glowing white hand touched the wall of the elevator, Kris quickly reached out towards him. “Trace, don’t- !” But Kris and everyone else was forced to the floor as the elevator took off like a rocket. However, the bewitched Liftman remained standing with his hand holding up the lever.

Once they reached their destination, the Liftman flipped the switch to stop and the elevator abruptly halted, sending the occupants crashing into the ceiling. “Top floor… Yadda, yadda, yadda… you know the rest…”

Once they all got back up, Wilda and Alphonse gave Trace a well-deserved clobbering on the head. Once they all exited the elevator, the ponies and their human friends lined up in front of the door.

Kris turned towards Twilight. “I’m sorry about before, I definitely owe you girls for all I put you through, but I have to ask you to let us do the fighting.”

Twilight’s brow raised. “What? Why? We’re friends, let us help you!”

Kris sighed and gestured with his sword. “You’re a princess, a leader, right? This is our problem, not yours. If we can’t overthrow an unworthy leader ourselves, then we’d have no right to call ourselves the greatest warriors in the world.”

Wilda turned towards Fluttershy. “You have to understand, sometimes the kindest thing you can do for someone you care about is let them help themselves.”

Fluttershy nodded. “I understand.”

Trace turned towards Rainbow Dash. “If you have any respect for us, you’ll let us do this, but we’ll do you the honor of letting you be our audience.”

Rainbow Dash rolled her eyes and smiled. “Oh, you better believe we’ll be right behind you!”

Percival, in his battle form, turned towards Applejack. “To be honest, we have a lot of pride, and we wouldn’t be able to hold our heads high if we didn’t do this. But know that we would have never got this far without you guys.”

Applejack tipped her hat. “That means a lot, friend.”

Sloop turned towards Rarity. “The point of looking your best is to show that you’re a better person than you were yesterday. But when this is over, if you can show me… the sea… I’ll be most grateful.

Rarity fluttered her eyelashes. “Consider it a date!”

Alphonse turned towards Pinkie Pie. “If anything happens, I want you to know: you’re a total goober. But you’re the kind of goober the world needs more of.”

Pinkie Pie giggled and rolled her eyes. “Thanks, I think!”

The humans stepped forward with determined looks. Kris raised his sword and, with a pair of imperceptibly swift slashes, cut the door down while neutralizing any protective spells there may be on it. The humans charged in followed a close distance behind by their pony friends.

Inside the High Director’s personal office, they found the High Director himself with his back turned to them and his head held low. Kris charged ahead and pointed his sword at him. “It’s over High Dir- no… Zeo Photum! The people know how you really run things in this city, and they’re definitely not too keen on keeping you in power!”

Zeo Photum sighed and shook his head. “Peace and freedom. That’s all the people ask for in its most simple form. This tumultuous period will only make the citizens of this… fine city realize that they truly desire the peace only I can give them. If you threaten that peace…” He quickly turned around and gave them a look of pure fury. “Then I will not hesitate to destroy you all!”

Taking the initiative, Kris tensed his body, covered his sword in an intense, fire-like aura, and made a powerful upward swing that sent a wave-like blade of pure magic racing towards Zeo. However, in a flash of white light, a barrier enveloped him and the wave dispersed against it. Leaving behind Zeo extending his arms as he was surrounded by a barrier of blue light which gently rippled in place.

Zeo made a sinister laugh. “Fire devours the air, air grinds away the earth, earth dams the water, water smothers the fire, and ether denies ether. Every child is taught that at one point or the other. Every elemental gets one element, but with the power of my prismatic barrier, my light element can change its wavelengths to emanate the properties of the other four of the primary elements to counteract the power of any other elemental before me!”

Wilda stepped forward and clashed his cestus together. “Well, we still have our weapons.”

Zeo sneered and extended hands, and from his palms erupted two saber-like beams of intense light. Then, in a flash of light he rushed Wilda with a barrage of strikes, only to be met by a shield-like aura in the shape of a rhinoceros’s body. “Wilda Urson, a fine adventurer. You’ve done a lot of service to this city with all the great bounty you’ve brought to our gates. I don’t suppose I could convince you to serve this city once more and join me?”

Wilda roared and with a lunge, extended the aura’s horn at ramming speed at Zeo, but his barrier simply turned green and spiraled in several places, protecting him from direct harm but sending him flying back. “I did that on the assumption that all that food and goods would go to those that truly needed them, not to make the city’s fatcats even fatter!”

At a breakneck speed, Trace raced towards Zeo and hit him with a dancing barrage of strikes from his staff, but each one was deflected with a spin by Zeo, and anytime Trace tried to strike him with a glowing hand, the barrier flashed red and gave off emanations like tongues of flame. Zeo soon jumped back and crouched while crossing his sabers. “Trace Paragon. Always able to outrun my law! Tell me, thief, do you think you can run faster than light?”

Zeo dashed forward at an imperceptible speed, leaving behind a sparkling trail. However, Trace was ready and held one of the ends of his staff down low in his path a fraction of a second before his charge, sending Zeo flying to the ground. “I don’t have to be faster than light, Mr. High Director. Just faster than you.”

Zeo quickly rolled to his feet and came up as he was surrounded in a jagged yellow barrier that deflected Sloop’s arrowgun shots. Then he glided in a curve around Sloop, leaving behind horizontal rods in his path pointing towards him. “Sloop Masters. Your ancestor was the only one of the city’s elites that never claimed his place in the great reconstruction. I bet you curse him every day for having to work so hard for people always looking for a hand out!”

Sloop merely made one of his arrowguns disappear and held out a hand as the rods flew towards him like laser blasts, redirecting all of them upward as they made contact with the circle with an arrow pointing up. “My great, great, granduncle, Scrooge McMasters earned his fortune square from nothing. That gave him the wisdom to know that the mixing of great wealth and politics leads only to great sadness. I’m proud to know that I used what was left of it to start my business to help people with profit as a mere consequence!”

Zeo leapt back, but found that he was boxed in by Percival’s sharp focuses on all sides. However, as they closed in, Zeo turned into an orb of light and slipped out from between the blades. When he turned back he raised his arms and was suddenly surrounded by beams of light erupting from the ground. “Percival Sonoma. Another poor soul excluded from society by the Embodiment. In a few more years, we could have developed a cure for your affliction!” With a thrust, he sent these beams spinning towards Percival.

With a swing of both arms, Percival sent out an expanding wave of yellow ether that turned the beams to faint smoke that dissipated on contact with him. “I stopped viewing it as something to be cured a long time ago. And to be honest, it helped that I one day found myself surrounded by people who accepted me and saw all the great things I was capable of!”

Zeo slowly turned around as he faced the onslaught of green discs of solid energy being blocked by his barrier, which now took on a shape of hexagons of solid light. He slowly strided over to Alphonse who desperately flung them one-by-one from his free hand. “You’re the worst of them all, Alphonse Faeno! After I shut down your abominable guild, you never did anything for anybody! In fact, you seemed to love nothing more than making life as hard as possible for city officials!”

However, Alphonse gave a mischievous grin as, with a swing of the handle, the whip that slowly curled around Zeo when taught and entangled him. Then, he opened his free hand and a small knife-like construct appeared extending from his palm. “Ever since I was a kid, all I ever wanted was to just stay out of everyone’s way. But my parents sent me to the guild to train me into something useful, and I found myself being constantly pestered by people who refused to leave me alone. When they put all of their trust in me, I would have regretted it for the rest of my life if I didn’t live up to that! And today, I plan on doing so!”

He stabbed the construct into Zeo’s body, which extended to impale him all the way through. However, the illusion disappeared in a flash of light, and in another, the real Zeo appeared from behind and struck at Alphonse's back, only for his body to disappear in a puff of green smoke and reappear a distance aways, pulling down his eyelid and sticking his tongue out.

They all regrouped behind Kris and each took a stance to match Zeo’s. Trace gently nudged Kris with his staff. “So… what’s your take on this guy?”

Kris took a deep breath. “Well, he’s amassed a tremendous quantity of magic, has a diverse array of powerful spells, and trained his innate abilities to their limit. But the way he moves, it’s too… mechanical. And the ways he defends himself is just a little too slow, like his instincts have nothing to do with it.”

Sloop squinted at their opponent. “You make it sound like he’s…”

Kris nodded. “...a mid-classer. He’s probably gotten as close to top class as someone on his level can get, but there’s no denying that somewhere down the line, he hit a wall he just couldn’t break through.”

On that note, Zeo’s eyes grew wide, then his whole body shook as he looked even more furious than before. “NONE OF YOU HAVE BEEN ABLE TO TOUCH ME!”

Wilda made a loud laugh. “Oh, do you think we were fighting with everything we had? Can I show him first, Kris?”

Kris nodded. “All right, let’s do it everyone!” Suddenly, Kris’s body was enveloped in an amber light. Then, all of the team was enveloped in auras of their own colors that began to mix and surround them in a rainbow of colors.

Zeo merely scoffed. “Even I can put on a lightshow! I thought you were supposed to show me what you’re really made of!” In response, Wilda leaped towards him, extending an oversized claw. Zeo’s barrier deployed its air configuration, but somehow, Wilda cleaved through and Zeo was sent flying back. He shakily got up and extended his sabers once again. “Did you just hit me with a fire attack?”

Kris scoffed. “It was about a month before the guild shut down. You see, after years of working together, we found that when we were all in one place, we could use a completely unique kind of magic that seemed to defy the normal rules of human magic and follow its own. In this case, it enables each of us to use any of the five primary attributes we want!”

Zeo flinched in horror. “But… but… that’s Ultimate Magic! Nobody’s been able to use that in decades!”

Shimmering, Alphonse stuck out his hip in a mocking gesture. “Says a lot about how you run things, doesn’t it?”

The human warriors proceeded to unleash a barrage of attacks. Kris raised his sword and swung it down as it extended an aura that took on a granular texture. Trace thrust out his staff, sending out a shell of magic that bubbled and rippled. Sloop used all of his ammunition to send out a massive bullet that spiraled like a tornado. And Percival and Alphonse brought their hands together and thrust them forward to send out a bomb of pure ethereal energy. When all these attacks got close, Zeo’s barrier flickered across different attributes and began to destabilize and warp. Once they hit him he screamed as he was bathed in their force and fell to the ground, breathing, but incapacitated.

Before they could celebrate, they were suddenly met by a slow clapping followed by a satisfied laughter. The humans and ponies alike turned around and were startled to find the Underworlder Boss striding in. “Excellent! Most excellent! I knew you ponies were the harbingers of great change in human history, but I never expected it to go all the way to the top!” Before the ponies could say anything, the humans raced between them and the Underworlder Boss, their weapons at ready. At this sight, the Underworlder Boss gave off an even heartier laugh. “I’m glad to see your years outside of the guild have done nothing to affect your form!”

They all got confused looks. Kris shook his sword at him. “What are you talking about? Who are you anyway?”

At that, the Underworlder Boss made a cheerful laugh and took his katana from his hip, holding it perpendicular to the humans. Then, in a shimmer of darkness, it changed into a two-handed ax with a long, curving handle. At this, the humans looked utterly stupified as they lowered their weapons. Alphonse was the first to regain his senses enough to speak. “No way… Head Trainer Noxus?”

With a final mirth-filled scoff, the Underworlder Boss touched the front of his helmet and the whole thing disappeared in a shimmer of darkness, revealing a dark-skinned head with greasy, unkempt hair, a strong jaw and brow, dark eyes, and five-o-clock shadow. Lacking the hollow echo of the helmet, he spoke. “Please boys, by this point, you can just call me Boros.”

Twilight trotted to the humans. “What is going on here? Who is he to you?”

Kris was the next to regain his composure. “This is… the old Head Trainer of the Prancing Pony guild. Right before it was shut down, he was the forerunner candidate for Guildmaster, ahead of even Madam von Wrinkle!”

Boros scoffed at that. “Oh, Please! That would have been way too much paperwork for my taste! I’m lucky the Underworlders didn’t require so much bureaucracy! Speaking of which…” He tapped the side of his thigh armor and a hidden compartment appeared out of nowhere, where he retrieved one of the communication artifacts other humans use before raising it to his mouth. “Durza, it’s go time!”

He waved his free hand and a few chains of glyphs swirled around in a cone shape before him. Unknown to the others, screens of pure shadow appeared in the same place as Zeo’s screens of light appeared. Boros stepped ahead and cleared his throat. “People of Core Metro, I Boros Noxus, boss of the Underworlders, have an announcement to make. Yesterday, when our pony brethren from above came down here, I saw the opportunity of a lifetime. By orchestrating a series of… incidents, I was able to obtain an archived form from an undisclosed location and create a big enough distraction at the Party District for the Director to absentmindedly sign and notarize after I filled it out. Despite what our former High Director says, establishing a guild is not illegal. So I was able to get the Underworlders recognized as an official Core Metro guild! After some associates of mine cast down our unworthy former High Director, the city’s bylaws went into effect. Article seven-hundred eighty-five subsection C-eleven states that in the absence of a qualified head of Central Administration, the guilds shall assume full administrative authority over the City’s government. What that means is that I, as Guildmaster of the Underworlder Guild, am now your new High Director!

“Now calm down, calm down, I’m being honest when I say that I didn’t do this for myself! It’s my personal belief that the reason the Immortals of old, whom thanks to our champion, Kris Duelis was able to prove the existence of without any reasonable doubt, didn’t follow us down to the cavern simply because we weren’t meant to live this way. So, my first act as High Director before resigning and dissolving the Central Administration, is to announce the mass migration of the citizens of Core Metro back to the surface world! Gather up anything worth bringing, because after a brief period of preparation, our new pony friends shall lead the way to the land of plenty above, where we shall begin our lives anew! Is this agreeable to you, Princess?”

Twilight, at first caught by surprise, trotted forward with a smile. “Most agreeable Mr. Noxus, and this time, I really mean it!” The mixed group of humans and ponies behind them expressed their approval.

Epilogue

Sloop scoffed. “Golly, it sure is dark in here! And this hard rocky ground is murder on my designer boots!”

Rarity gave a giggle. “Now you know how we felt coming down here. Once I get home, I’m definitely getting a new hooficure!”

Trace made an arrogant laugh. “Meh, It’s all for the best, after all, Boros told us to train like we’ve never trained before, so we’re going to have to expect a little wear and tear!”

Rainbow Dash gave a satisfied snort. “Oh, yeah? Why’s that?”

Percival took on the shape of Kris as he stepped to the head of the group. “Well, he said that becoming a top-class warrior isn’t the end, but the beginning of an even greater journey. Eventually, we should gain new abilities, like to change the form of our weapons and gain our own form-fitting armors!”

Applejack gave a nervous laugh. “Well that makes it sounds like he was holding back during our tussle!”

Wilda made a loud laugh. “Well, let’s just say if he wasn’t holding back, you all would have ended up as minced horse meat!”

On that note, Fluttershy started cowering and made a gentle squeal. But Alphonse stepped up and tried to soothe her. “Well, he’s always been a nicer guy than he comes off as. He’s the one that taught us the basics of combat. But then again, he’s also the one that gave Kris his first scar when he challenged him as a kid, the vertical one across his eye.”

Pinkie Pie excitedly bounced forward. “Wowee! You have got to tell us the story!”

Kris just sighed as he lit the way with his sword’s light. “Well, there isn’t much to tell. I was young and arrogant and thought if I could beat the best fighter in the guild, I would take his place as the best. But he must have seen something in me, because he personally taught me the basics of swordsmanship and eventually gave me the Omega Weapon which he received from his teacher even though he couldn’t use it himself.

“Though he seemed surprised when I immediately recognized it from the legends I read. In fact, if you want a real story, I could tell you one of the many I’ve memorized. I even memorized the ten thousand tales of Ultima! Speaking of which, It’s definitely going to be a pain getting all my books to the surface.”

Twilight, who was also lighting the way with her horn, turned towards him with a big smile. “You like books too? We have got to get together to swap some sometime!”

Kris, for the first time, smiled in response. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Soon, they managed to make it to the end of the tunnel. However, a spark came off Kris’s blade that mixed with a spark from Twilight's horn and hit the dead end, which somehow opened up an exit, letting in fresh air. When they all stepped outside, all they saw was the night sky over a vast field. Alphonse made an annoyed grunt. “Well, this doesn’t seem like much of an improvement from the cavern!”

Twilight’s horn sparked and a round watch appeared before her. “Like they say: It’s always darkest before the dawn. Princess Celestia should be raising the sun in three, two, one…”

The sun suddenly rose up before Canterlot Castle. The humans at first shielded their eyes from the glare, but as they adjusted, their eyes and mouths opened wide as they beheld the sights surrounding them. The endless sky, the vast clouds, the glimmering lakes, the tremendous mountains, the seas of forest, every single blade of grass swinging in the wind, each sight filled them with a thousand primal memories and reawakened a thousand thousand instincts. Twilight and the ponies took great satisfaction in their looks. “We had a feeling you’d like it! Now if we hurry towards Canterlot, we should be able to present you as representatives of the humans before Celestia’s morning duties and Luna turns in for the morning.” Twilight waited a moment for a response, but grew concerned when she didn’t receive one. “Um… fellows?”

Kris kept his gaze on the view, but angled his head towards Twilight. “No offense, Princess… but can all that wait a day or two?”

Twilight twitched in surprise. “What? But… but… over the course of the next week, millions of humans at a time will come up from the cavern! We haven’t even told anypony about you all!”

But the humans could no longer contain themselves and took off to the wilderness running. Twilight flinched and started flapping her wings, but Applejack grabbed her by the tail and brought her back down to earth with a wrench of her neck. Twilight turned towards her friend, who got a sentimental look and shook her head. Twilight stared for a moment before realization dawned on her face. Then, she joined her old friends as she waved at her new friends as they raced off to experience everything the world they belonged in had to offer.

Prologue

Equestria: A land where the light of friendship glows, and it’s magic always grows. However, the ultimate truth is that light cannot exist without darkness, but the actions of those that carry friendship in their hearts have proven time and time again that the light will never yield to the darkness. No matter how strong the darkness of lies, anger, cruelty, betrayal, and greed grows, the magic of honesty, laughter, kindness, loyalty, and generosity will always rise to meet it.

But that begs the question: is the opposite also true? When the light shines brighter and stronger, do the shadows grow darker and deeper in response? When the things essential for friendship grow stronger as they are shared between creatures, do the people that lack these things and many other essentials grow only more desperate, desperate enough to do evil? Or maybe within even the deepest most suffocating darkness, there is a light that never truly dies, just waiting for the opportunity to shine through?

Maybe there is a species with violence and destruction in their nature, but underneath are friendships freely shared and waiting to be made.

...or mended.

A Note From the Author

When I started this little project at the beginning of the year, it was after I'd heard that it could help improve my writing. But to be honest, it was also a way to help me develop/express a few story concepts I'd been working on for a long time, and you know what, it was a whole lot of fun, and by this point, my writing has improved to the point where I can get what used to take me months to get done in mere days! Now, since this is my first fiction on this site, I won't expect a lot of viewers and acclaim at the moment, but if I ever do get to that point... well... I'll be grateful.

And now, the moment you've been waiting for. I am pleased to announce that after a short break, I shall start on a new series of fictions taking place after the humans have immigrated to the surface world, and that means new adventures, new conflicts, new dangers, and new friendships! After that, who knows? I really hope I do get successful enough to do things like voiced stories, short animations, comics, and art!