//------------------------------//
// Chapter 8: Getting Out 
// Story: The Impossible Journey Part 1: The First Encounter 
// by Decimatore123 
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Chapter 8: Getting out


The look on Jacob's face was simply priceless. For the integrity of the story, shall we call it, I had to spend the next few minutes rolling on the floor in fits of laughter at my friend's predicament. 

Jake didn't know how to react to Twilight's familiarity with him. If his discovery at the library was to believed, he would come here sometime in the future, but it still left him stunned. He wondered how she recognized him, as he felt he would change much in the interim between now and that point in the future. 

"How...how do you know my name?"

Twilight smiled warmly and gently at him. "How could I not? I've missed you so much. It's been so long since I've seen you guys-"

"-You guys? There's more?"

"Yes, don't you remember? The last time I saw you and your friends, Richy didn't even say good-bye when he left. We miss him too, and the library isn't as lively without you all." She chuckled a little. "Spike certainly misses your help with the chores."

"When was this?"

Twilight looked confused. "Several years ago."

"What?" Jake simply couldn't take it in; at least not in one moment. Twilight greeted him like he was a long-lost friend, and that was an indicator that he'd have a big role to play in her life. He couldn't determine whether he would impact her life for better or for worse.

Intrigued by the apparent (if at least one-sided) rapport between the two, Cadence joined in. "I had no idea you two knew each other."

As much as Jake would like to say he knew Twilight, he had to tell the truth. "We don't. Or at least I don't." 

Twilight raised her eyebrow, her face expressing a similar level of confusion. "What are you talking about? Of course we do!"

"I'm sorry, Twilight, but I've never spoken to you in my life."

Twilight grew wide-eyed with some realization. "Wow...He wasn't kidding in his letter. You really haven't met me yet. You must be his past..."

"I'm sorry about disappointing you..."

"No, you haven't disappointed me. It's just that I was-"

She didn't finish her sentence, but Jake felt she was going to say she was hoping for someone else.

"Well, someday you'll be that person and that's good enough for me." 

"Someday?"

"Yeeeeaaaaah...I probably shouldn't have said that or, well, a lot of what I said a few seconds ago. I figured it wouldn't change much as you wouldn't have the context for it to make any sense. I suspect your life will unfold exactly the way it should."

With that statement, Twilight might as well have shoved him back down into the darkness of the caves. Jake's mind was now home to angry breeding thoughts, lost in the mire of his cluelessness. What happens in the future? Why does he have these powers? Why was the computer locked down? Why was there a lab buried beneath her library? She wouldn’t tell him anything. No matter how hard he begged her to answer his questions she refused, simply saying, “I have already said too much. If I tell you more, you could endanger yourself and your friends.” After several attempts to reason with her, Jake decided to lay off for a bit. Perhaps the answers would reveal themselves with time.

“I assume the wedding is still going on?”

Twilight looked down at the ground. “Unfortunately yes, and as you have probably guessed the creature that trapped both of you down here sent me here too.”

“Well then, that means we gotta get to the surface ASAP.” Jake was already ready to go but Cadence stepped forward.

“Not until I look at your wrist!” Jake rolled his eyes. Cadence focused on him, speaking like a stern mother to him. “Don’t give me that look! I saw how badly you were bleeding.”  

There was just no getting past this mare, but he realized that before this entire ordeal this would be a dream come true, so he didn't squirm too much when she took his wrist. He removed the bandage from his wrist. His arm was stained red from the blood, yet there didn't seem to be a cut. It was as if someone simply dumped the blood on him to make it look like he had a terrible injury. Cadence stared at his arm, baffled as much as Jake was by what she saw. She was astounded; the injury was over a major artery point. By all accounts Jake should have bled to death by now. He didn’t even bother to share his back injuries or the burns that were on his arms from the fall. Right now he needed to get them moving towards the surface; they didn’t have any more distractions and needed to focus on escaping.

As they walked through the endless maze of caves, Jake suddenly found himself slightly taller than Cadence and Twilight, even though they were both supposed to be taller than him. He looked at his feet and saw they were no longer touching the ground. Twilight and Cadence looked over their shoulders and saw that Jake was floating. To Jake's confusion, they weren't shocked or surprised. Suddenly, Jake found himself encased in his fire armor and he soared upwards. He flew haphazardly through the cavern and it was clear that he lost control of his powers. Twilight yelled after him.

"JAKE, LISTEN! YOUR POWERS ARE CONTROLLED BY YOUR OWN WILL AND FOCUS! DON'T FOCUS ON THE ENVIRONMENT! JUST CONCENTRATE ON WHERE YOU WANT TO GO!"

Jake heard her and tried to focus, but he wasn't fast enough and hit the top of the cavern. When he hit the ceiling, he accidentally released a fire ball directly at the tunnel in front of them, causing the entrance to shudder and collapse in large chunks of rock. Jake closed his eyes and kept on thinking the word "ground" to try and make some semblance of a landing.

Twilight and Cadence both continued to shout after him and try to placate him and get him to land.

“"THAT'S IT," Twilight shouted, "NOW JUST SLOWLY DESCEND..."

Jake finally focused and slowly spun in the air to land on the ground. His armor was still on, and so he became wary of harming them.

Cadence was shocked by the appearance of his armor and stood far away from Jake. Twilight, however, approached him calmly as if she had nothing to fear.

"What are you doing?!" Yelled Jake. "GET AWAY  FROM ME!"

He moved away from Twilight until he found himself against a wall. He needed to run away from the two ponies to keep them safe, but he remembered he barely escaped with help. He didn't want to use his powers as he couldn't control them. He created a sword of fire and drew it toward Twilight as threateningly as he could.

"I don't want to hurt you. Please...back away from me." He implored.

She continued her calm pace towards him. She raised her hoof and tenderly placed it on the blade. Jake was astonished to find that she didn't wince in pain; her hoof showed no scorch marks and she even smiled a little at him to calm Jake. She pushed it down to the floor.

"It doesn't hurt me because you don't want to hurt me," Twilight said.

"How do you know...?" Jake began to ask.

"First, I haven't been incinerated yet. Second, I have encountered this before. I met two humans that look exactly like you and someone like you. I know that sounds crazy, but I did and they told me that I wasn't burned because they didn't want to hurt me. They somehow control the fire through their will and they can shape it into anything." Twilight looked off to her right side and sighed. "Even with such immense power at their side, they fought to protect us and refused to bring us harm. They were heroes. But that was a long time ago, and I miss them so much..." She looked at Jake with sadness bubbling up in her eyes. "At least you're here..."

It was obvious something was bothering Twilight. Jake didn't know why at first, but then he thought back to what she had said earlier, about the letter, and him being his past self. I felt sorry for the both of them; Twilight had a good friend with her, but he didn't know her. She had to wait a long time before she could see him again. I would not understand its significance until much later.

Cadence fell on her flank, staring at the rock that obstructed their path. Jake and Twilight looked at her and felt guilty for their distraction. They needed to focus on finding another way out.

Twilight sighed. "The wedding starts in less than an hour and this, to my knowledge, was the only route out of the mines. I only ever read one book on these mines. I don't know what we are going to do now."

Jake quickly raced in his mind for an answer, but they all required him knowing another way out.

"If only there was a way to keep the wedding from happening, or at least delay it."

"You mean stall for time?"

"Yeah...if only we were that lucky."

Then it hit him. He had the power to break through rocks. He could buy them the time they needed and immediately his mind began to work on a plan.

"Twilight, does this tunnel lead directly to the surface?" Jake asked.

"It should. The book I was reading was rather old, but no one's been down here for quite some time, so I don't think any major changes happened here besides that rock fall."

"I can break through the solid rock. You two go find a way out. I am going to go buy you some time."

Even though he was encased in an armor made completely of fire, Jake was still able to access the various devices he had on him such as his com device as well as the pack. Thankfully, the pack could assemble objects outside the armor so it wouldn't be trapped in the armor, because it was almost airtight save for two holes; one for his mouth and one for his eyes.  He took the one of my many headsets and adjusted it for Twilight's size. He taught her how to use it, but he forgot that he gave her one I was tampering with and didn't test yet. I had switched all of the functions associated with each of the buttons on the headset.

After giving Twilight a very brief but useless tutorial, he immediately headed straight at the rocks.

"JAKE WAIT!" Twilight said.

Jake heard Twilight yell but didn't turn back but he read her mind, "Be safe." 

"Thanks, Twilight." With that he left them behind and sped off towards the surface. He ran faster and faster through the tunnel, and as he continued he found the cave floor began to slant upward. He hoped that the surface wasn’t that far away from his current position.

After running for several minutes he found himself in much larger cavern. His fire armor illuminated most of the cavern around him, but once again to his dismay he found he wasn't alone. Three mares stood in of him: a unicorn and two earth ponies. They moved toward him slowly and deliberately. He sensed all three of them, and they didn't feel like the regular ponies. Their minds were twisted and further inspection showed that their eyes had a green tint. One he recognized to be Lyra, and the way they were dressed allowed him to make the assumption that he had just run into Chrysalis' "bride's maids." He would soon have to figure out how to get past them, but once he did it was a clear shot to the surface. The way he went about it though was...well, let's just say Historians will debate how his incomprehensible response ever left him alive. He backed away for a moment, afraid to get to close to the mares. Upon their continued approach, he formed his fire into a sword and shield and pointed the blade at the mare in the center of the three.

"I am going to give you all three seconds to quit creeping me out."

"Jooooooiiiiin usssssssssss..." The ponies hissed.

What happened next was most peculiar. His fire suddenly went out he lost his source of light and his defenses. 

"Ah, crud." 

He could hear their footsteps in the dark. They echoed all around him and he couldn't tell which direction they were coming from. He instantly went into night sight. It revealed the three mares, but their auras were…tainted, not normal. Another outside force was controlling the ponies. Something was able to overwhelm their wills and was now in charge of their bodies. It didn't matter much - there wasn't much he could do for them. He searched through the pack's vast inventory and selected a gorgeous X-33 pump action shotgun it had two ten shot loading chambers as well as a grenade launcher. While the normal chamber as well as the grenade launcher served as nice modification, the one feature he was after was the tranquilizer function that allowed him to stun his enemies without actually killing them. That is the glory of the second chamber. You can pelt your opponent with several tranquilizers at once, knocking them out for sure and blowing them back in the process. However, this made the gun unwieldy and cumbersome to carry, let alone aim. 

There was no way he was going to shoot any of the mind wiped ponies, so he flipped the switch and changed to tranque ammo. "Last chance quit freaking me out." 

As before they paid no attention to him and continued their advance. He let off a warning shot into the air. It did nothing to deter the ponies. I'm not entirely sure why Jake thought that would work. These ponies don't seem to have grasped the concept of a firearm, so I doubt that they'd be scared by what looks like an unattractive pole that makes a loud sound. So he aimed and he shot, but the tranquilizers ricochet off so kind of shield protecting the mares and they simply planted themselves in the stone walls and floors.

He realized his efforts were useless and decided it was time once more to use his phase ability. He ran straight at them, and phased through them easily bolting through them with little effort. Since his last few attempts though had resulted in his demise he hesitated heavily before using it, in the end there was no other option though he took a deep breath bolted through and hoped for the best.

Before proceeding further into the tunnel, he stopped and looked over his shoulder to see the mares just standing there starring at him, as if they reached a fence that they couldn't cross. Jake couldn't believe his luck they weren't pursuing him he turned his body to face them and yelled out into the tunnel. "My apologies ladies; there just simply isn't time for this. I hope you all will forgive me for trying to shoot you." Jake reached the exit with five seconds of a fast sprint. He saw a staircase with a rotted wooden door at the top with light pouring in through the broken window. He was about ready to jump for joy. Ever wary, he pointed his shotgun at the door before kicking it open and proceeding to the surface.