The Dark Ones

"Art thou sure this is the best course of action for thy student, sister?" Luna asked with a hint of concern. "Granted, it would be a learning experience, yet I am fearful for what they may face..."

Celestia cast her gaze from the open book in front of her to her sister. She could see the worry in her eyes. "Was it not you who said they should experience all the perspectives of an existence? Those six ponies have faced more than a normal pony ever would in their lifetime and, despite all odds, they prevailed, sister. You know that as well as I do.

“And even though this is a complete change of pace from what they are used to, they won’t be alone in their quest." She gave Luna a warming smile and walked over to cover her with a wing. “There is one I have chosen, a champion of his kind and a good hearted soul. You can trust him to keep them safe.”

They embraced each other for a small moment, and Luna relaxed under the white feathers on her back.

"Come now, Luna, the sun is waiting on us."

"Yes, sister, let us go... and thank you."

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"So ah jus' have ta stand here, right?"

Applejack was starting to get a little worried about the safety of Twilight's experiments. They had begun the test run the day after the slightly larger pony revealed to them what she was so intently working with, but so far, every test recounted in the tomes had failed, and it caused a considerable drop in morale. Even Pinkie had begun to feel downtrodden.

"Well, at least we didn't get blasted out the window again," Rainbow Dash commented, rubbing a scorch mark stretching along the fur on her leg.

Twilight turned over another page of her personal research notebook. "Okay, girls, this last one is from my own thesis. Put these on." She tossed them each their respective Element necklace.

"Uh... Twilight, darling? Are you sure about this?” Rarity asked, her voice laced with uncertainty. “I mean, we all are a bit curious to unravel this mystery, but I’m not sure about using the Elements for this endeavor myself…"

"No... It'll be fine. I promise."

The rather hasty answer did not give Rarity the comfort she sought. "Well, as long as you promise…"

“I do, don’t worry. Now, if the conclusions I drew are correct, the problem with the previous attempts was a lack of power. Let’s see…” With that, Twilight began murmuring the words needed for the spell, just like she had done many times before. Reluctantly, the other Elements closed their eyes and waited.

There was a bright flash of light, and the pleasant fragrance of the library’s fresh wood and old paper was replaced by a smell of earth, rust and decay. When their vision returned, they saw the only illumination of the dark and moist tunnel they were now in came from clusters of fluorescent mushrooms, growing next to the skeleton of an unknown animal on a pile of dirt.

“Well… at least you got the spell right, Ms. Royalty,” Dash deadpanned. “Now where are we?”

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"To Artyom!"

After we were safely inside Riga, we wasted no time and went to the nearest bar. While vodka certainly has answers to some of life’s questions, I began to doubt my sanity.

"Another! To Artyom!"

Boris and Eugine repeatedly toasted in my name, heralding me as some type of hero. I tipped my glass and flinched slightly as it warmed my throat. Boris laughed. "Hah, that’s Riga’s famous ‘shroom vodka for you, Artyom! Really knocks you on your ass, doesn’t it?"

After a few rounds, we left on our own ways. Boris and Eugine would leave back to Exhibition as soon as the main Alekseevskaya tunnel, our original route, was cleared of a cave-in, while I left for a walk to try and figure out a way to Polis. They were so drunk they didn’t have the curiosity to read the apology note for my father that I had left with Eugine.

Eventually, I found the checkpoint, but to my dismay, the exit was blocked by the guards, trying to keep the populace from 'leaving in foolishness', as they eloquently stated. On the walk back, I was approached by a boy. "Are you Artyom?”

I nodded.

“A man on the Black Bar wants to talk to you. I can take you there for one bullet."

As I handed the child his payment, I wondered what he meant. He led me through unfamiliar alleyways and under pipes. As we approached the establishment, the smell of decay lingered around me. Excrement and rotten wood, how quaint...

A man kicked back in a chair immediately noticed my entrance. "Are you Artyom? Take a seat, boy." I nodded to him with some hesitation and did as he asked. He reeked of alcohol and sweat. "Bourbon here has a proposal that should benefit the two of us. I need to get to Dry station, but with this craphole on lockdown, there’s only one way out. That’s where you come in: I heard that the shit in the tunnels doesn’t affect you, and the locals say the passage is ‘cursed’ or something…"

As I entered the abandoned tunnels with Bourbon, I wondered if I'd been wrong to trust him. But the station gates were still sealed and there was no telling when I'd have another chance to leave Riga.

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Rarity's eyes darted through the surroundings, examining everything, from the rails on the ground to the rusted pipes running along the circular side of the tunnel and the mangled bones. “Twilight, dear, did you really have to choose such a dreary environment as our destination? It’s so cold here,” she shivered, “and the humidity and dust won’t do my hair any favors.”

The alicorn barely heard the remark as she shook the remaining stars off her brain. After they were gone and she could think with clarity again, she took in the sights, both of the tunnel and the four ponies looking expectantly up at her.

‘Wait… four ponies?’ She did a quick headcount: Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Pinkie Pie… “Girls, where’s Fluttershy?”

“Oh, she’s right…” Pinkie went silent as soon as she looked behind her. “She was right here. Did she disappear? Oh no, maybe a magical top hat mistook her for a bunny and got her pulled through!”

The party pony’s rant would have gone on and on, regarding several seemingly unrelated issues and a logic none of her friends would be able to comprehend, if not for two things. One was a vicious roar followed by a semi-quiet, terrified screech. The other was Fluttershy sprinting down one end of the tunnel, chased by a small pack of furless quadrupeds. They were fast, but the pegasus was faster, and she ran past her friends.

Now deprived of their previous prey, the beasts began to circle around the other ponies.

Their visage remained imprinted in Twilight’s mind as one of the most horrific things she had ever seen. They were about three quarters her own size, and just as she had assumed at first sight, their pink skin lacked all fur. Their rounded heads held a strange set of bony, toothless jaws of a kind she had never seen, right outside their actual mouths, which reminded her of a feline’s. It was hard to tell. Their long, spindly claws looked almost like fingers, and their thin tails swished from side to side. The worst of all, however, was how none of these features fit together.

‘Animal’ wasn’t a word to correctly classify what the beast in front of her was; it was unnatural, like an escaped transmutation experiment that had been starved to the point of emaciation.

“Whoa nelly!” Applejack exclaimed, rearing back and away from a claw swipe that almost hit her muzzle. Just as she did so, the hiss of a pneumatic blast flooded her ears and the thing fell in a heap mid-swipe with a metal rod sticking out of its head. The ponies spun around and saw another creature, this one clad in a dark leather outfit exchanging one metallic instrument it held for a longer one on its back.

Seeing the threat to their meal, the pack of predators charged at the biped. It showed no reaction. Out of instinct, their hooves flew to cover their delicate ears, and all eyes closed involuntarily. However, instead of the roaring of triumphant predators tearing into a helpless victim, what really filled the air was a cascade of small explosions very similar to a roll of firecrackers going off. But any thoughts on it being a simple sound-emitting deterrent were dashed brutally by the sound that interspersed the staccato: a multitude of squeals laden with intense, agonizing pain. The macabre cacophony hurt their ears and flooded their guts with solid ice.

When the chaotic noise stopped and the only real sound was the rapid breathing of her friends, Twilight risked a tremulous peek. The minotaur-like newcomer now stood further back than before, exchanging a curved part of his object for another similar one. The predators from before, once filled with hunger and aggressiveness, lay sprawled on heaps that traced a haphazard line towards its feet.

Seemingly satisfied, it pulled on a lever, making a very intimidating metallic *clack*. It turned its attention to Twilight and her friends. *Are you injured?*

The princess gasped. The creature – a male, were she to judge by his voice – who had mercilessly slaughtered an entire pack of fiercely determined predators… had just spoken to them.

In perfect Avian.