Flame of Disparity

by Cinders of War

Chapter 20: Cataclysm Hollows - Part I

“Uh, is this a joke?” Sunset Shimmer looked over the edge of the staircase they had come from.

The stairs abruptly ended over a far drop, one that was at least five hundred meters down. Below them, Sunset could see a broken off trunk of a huge tree, and in the tree, she could faintly make out puddles of water and even ruined structures. She supposed the steps were supposed to lead them all the way down, but with times, things fell apart.

“How are we supposed to get down now?” Sunset looked around for more of the staircase, but this was it. The rest of it had likely already crumbled away with age.

“Anyone bring a rope?” Applejack mused. “We could tie it ‘round one of these pillars…”

Sunset shrugged. She had not brought a rope, and she doubted Rarity had either.

“Do you think we’ll survive the drop?” Sunset asked nobody in particular. Perhaps they could weather whatever injuries the drop would give them and heal with estus later. It wasn’t a perfect plan, and it wasted a lot of estus, but she could not think of any other way.

Applejack snorted. “Doubt it.”

“Only one way to find out.” At that, Rarity put her foot against Applejack’s back and shoved her over the edge.

“What the hay-”

Applejack danced in the air for a second before plunging down into the hollow trunk, her shout of surprise descending with her, growing softer as she grew smaller and smaller.

“Rarity, what did you do?!” Sunset grabbed her shoulders and shook her. “What have you done?!”

“Relax.” The mage simply waved a hand. “I’ve fallen from heights higher than this. You see down there? By that one collapsed wall and the puddle of water?”

She pointed down and Sunset followed her finger. Nothing looked out of the ordinary.

“See that mark?”

Now that her friend had mentioned it, there was a strange dark red marking on the ground beside the wall. It looked to be some kind of rune.

“That’s a fall safety ward, right there,” Rarity explained. “I guess that’s how people have been getting to this place, with the staircase ruined and all.”

Truth be told, as Applejack landed at the bottom, she fell onto all fours, but she hadn’t gone splat.

“Wow...” Was all Sunset could say. That was one way to travel. “But how is she supposed to get back up?”

Rarity pursed her lips. “Now of that, I am unsure.”

“I guess it’ll be a one way trip here…” Sunset adjusted her armor straps, then swallowed hard. “Well, let’s get on with it.”

She took a step off the end of the stairs and began to fall. The ground instantly rushed up to Sunset as she got to the bottom, landing on the fall sigil below, her impact creating a pulse of dust around her, creating a cloud of it in her immediate area.

Coughing, Sunset rose to her feet and got out of the way just in time as Rarity landed where she had, bringing up another cloud of dust with her landing.

“Dagnabbit! This place hasn’t been used in years!” Applejack coughed and fanned a hand in the air, trying to blow the dust away. “If only Ah had my hat…”

Sunset coughed away some dust and looked around. From high up, it hadn’t looked this desolate, but now that she was down here, it looked even sadder and more derelict than before. There were pools of stagnant water everywhere, and the crumbled remains of what might at one point have been a settlement.

Sunset shivered. Then she realized, the heat of the Underisle of Fire had been replaced by a cold, clammy chill.

“That’s weird…” Sunset muttered. She turned and looked at her companions, who seemed to be having an argument.

“Well next time don’t push me off a cliff without no warnin’!” Applejack was shouting.

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Rarity sniffed. “It was perfectly safe.”

“Ah didn’t know that! How ‘bout some kinda warning next time?”

“I knew you were going to make it, so I didn’t think you needed one.”

“Hay, I didn’t know I was goin’ to make it!”

“Girls, keep it down, will you?” Sunset hissed at them, finally managing to silence them. “We don’t know what’s down here, so please, stop yelling.”

“Ah’m guessin’ there’ll be hollows about.” Applejack cleared her throat and removed Dragonslayer from her side.

“She’s right.” Rarity gave her robes a pat down. “Even if it looks decrepit, I’m sure we’ll be finding some resistance here. The hollows here were driven mad by the Abyss long ago. If there are any left, well, don’t expect a warm welcome and a cup of tea.”

“When has that ever been the case?” Sunset muttered. She held out her left hand with the pyromancy flame in it, using it as a lantern to light the way. The only other lights in the area were strange floating orbs of greenish light that winked out of existence the moment they got close. “Hey, I think I see an exit this way.”

In the wall, near one of the corners was a doorway, or at least, what was left of one. The wall it was in was barely still a wall, with basically only the door frame still standing. Through it was a long cavernous tunnel, leading, Sunset guessed it, further underground.

The trio set off down the tunnel, with Sunset in the lead, lighting the way with her pyromancy flame and Flame of Life.

The darkness was oppressive and overbearing, and Sunset found herself longing for the more open areas. Her entire experience in this world was going to leave her with a fear of underground spaces.

“Is it just me, or are things gettin’ colder?” Applejack asked, pointing to the ground. There were little pools of water there, but some of the smaller ones were covered in a thin coat of frost.

“I’m noticing too,” Rarity said, clouds of fog coming out of her mouth. “It’s very strange; it was unbearably hot in the last two areas, but this locale is icy.”

“And don’t forget Sisha set this whole place on fire,” Applejack added with a chatter of her teeth. “At least, the stories claim she did. By the looks of it, the stories may have been wrong.”

"Flames of Death are cold," Rarity reminded. "Makes sense."

“I don’t feel that cold,” Sunset remarked. And it was true. Fog was still coming out of her mouth, but she wasn’t shivering like the other two.

“That’s ‘cause your flame is keeping you warm. The rest of us… ain’t so lucky.”

The trio soldiered on, staying as close to each other for warmth. They had been walking for about ten minutes when something moved on the path ahead.

It appeared to be a hollow, but it was covered in a rimey coating of ice. Its body was frozen in patches, and as they watched, it seemed to notice them. Taking a bow from behind its back, the ice hollow aimed an arrow at Sunset and her companions, who quickly leapt aside as the arrow struck the ground where Rarity’s feet would have been.

However, as the projectile hit the ground, it exploded into a ball of icy wind, sending tiny slivers of frost swirling through the air, in a wide enough radius to catch Sunset’s foot in.

“Ack!” Sunset exclaimed as the ice gripped her foot. Her entire lower leg was encased in ice, rendering her immobile. Meanwhile the hollow nocked another arrow and prepared to fire again.

“Yah!” Applejack leapt forward, and with tremendous skill, intercepted the arrow mid flight with her axe. The projectile burst into a miniature blizzard, but Applejack threw herself flat into an icy puddle to avoid being frozen.

Rarity peeked out from behind a broken wall and sent a soul spear at the hollow. The magic struck the hollow and it spasmed, then exploded into shards of frozen flesh and bone.

“Land sakes,” Applejack said, trying to wring water from her front. “That was closer than Ah’d’ve liked. You okay, Sunset?”

Sunset tugged at her leg. “Just trying to get out of this.” She held her pyromancy flame close, melting the ice slowly. She hoped it would all melt before she got frostbite or something equally unpleasant. Gradually the ice turned to water and Sunset was able to wriggle free.

“It’s a good thing you have that pyromancy flame, darling, or we would have had to chip you out,” Rarity said as she took out a pair of binoculars and spied the land ahead. “It looks like there are more of those things further onwards. Should we stop and maybe formulate a plan of attack?”

“What’s there to formulate.” Applejack swung Dragonslayer in the air a few times. “It’s a straight tunnel down. We go forward and we kill whatever’s in the way.”

“Well, it doesn’t hurt to have a plan,” Rarity said reproachfully.

Sunset shook the last few drops of water off her leg and stretched it. It didn’t seem to be damaged from the ice, but it never hurt to be sure.

“Rarity, how many enemies are up ahead?” Sunset asked.

Rarity raised her binoculars to her face once more. “At least five of those archer hollows, and some kind of bigger thing that looks like it’s made of ice. A golem perhaps.”

“Meh, that first one was easy peasy.” Applejack scoffed at the enemy force. “Ah’m sure we can take ‘em no problem.”

“We’ll have to see about getting closer.” Sunset looked at her star sword. “I can do that. Get you two a distraction so that they don’t fire at you while you approach.”

“Okay, but don’t get frozen, ya hear?” Applejack readied her stance.

“I’ll do what I can from a distance. My magic seemed to work well on these icy hollows.” Rarity’s staff pulsed a light blue.

“Gotcha. Let’s see what we can do here…”

With a running start, Sunset’s greaves on the rocky tunnel path quickly got the attention of all the enemies in the cavern. Throwing her weapon, she waited until it spun down behind the first three hollows, then teleported to it in a flash. This caught the enemies in surprise and Sunset was able to sever a hollow’s top half from its bottom before they could ready themselves to fire arrows at her.

The first arrow hit the ground beside her, exploding in a flash of ice as Sunset teleported away. She threw her sword into the next hollow archer, then leapt away as frost spewed from its wound, before it exploded into shards. Her left shoulder had caught some of the frost and it actually burnt quite bad, but Sunset ignored it and fought on, zipping around the room dodging all she could.

Suddenly, a bolt of magic hit one of the archers and it exploded, before a flash of lightning sped past her, with Applejack aiming her axe right for the large ice golem.

The golem raised both arms and slammed them down into the ground where Applejack had been. The cowgirl was already in the air, her electrified axe cutting right across its head. Half the golem’s face fell off as it stumbled back a step, but it returned with a punch, almost catching Applejack off guard. She lifted her axe to block its attack, but still got knocked back into the cavern wall, where she slid down into a heap, not getting back up.

“Applejack!” Sunset teleported past one of the archers as Rarity finished it off with a magic bolt.

The golem raised its arms to finish her friend off, but Sunset was having none of that. Throwing her sword, she reappeared beside Applejack just in time to grab her and teleport back out of the way, watching a spray of debris launch up into the air. She shuddered to think what might’ve happened if she had gotten there a second later.

Sunset ignited a fireball in her left hand and flung it at the golem. The flames splashed all over the thing’s front and there was a spray of steam as the water melted off and evaporated. The golem creaked and groaned as it turned to face Sunset. Slivers of ice popped off at the joints and showered the ground at its feet.

It can’t possibly take much more of this… Sunset channeled another combustion around her hand and pressed it up to the golem’s surface. Flames roared into life and licked all over the golem. It swung its arm at Sunset, but stumbled and fell apart, burying Sunset under huge chunks of ice and sleet.

“Gah!” Sunset gasped, pushing away a piece of the ice golem’s leg. “We… we did it.”

Rarity tiptoed over and helped pull Sunset out of the wreckage. “Indeed we did. Good thinking, Sunset.”

“Yeah,” Applejack said, tottering over. “Ah’d’ve been smushed if it weren’t for you. So… thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Sunset panted. She found her sword and put it back in its sheath. “Shall we… keep going?”

Rarity drained the last of the blue liquid from her ashen estus flask. “My magic is all ready.”

Applejack likewise drank from an orange flask. “Ah’m all set.”

“Okay. Let’s go.”

---

Traversing the next half an hour proved to be tricky. The path became more and more riddled with pitfalls and drop offs, and more than once Sunset thought that she saw something moving down below, but it was too dark to see properly all the way down.

They only ran into one hollow in the entire time, and Applejack, perhaps in a bid to make up for her earlier mistake, ended up cleaving the thing in two with one blow.

“Whee-yew! If these are the best this place has to throw at us, Ah think we’re all set.”

They pressed on, going in single file now that the path was narrowing. Eventually they came to another drop, this one leading down into more nothingness.

“Rarity, are there any fall safety runes down there?” Sunset asked, peering over the edge of the precipice.

“There’s one way to find out,” the mage replied.

Applejack was quick to turn towards her and back away from the edge. “No, no no no no! Ya ain’t gonna use me to find out! Nuh uh!”

“Well, we can’t see the bottom.” The mage folded her arms. “Someone’s gotta go find out.”

“It ain’t gonna be me!” Applejack pointed a finger at her. “Why don’t ya go find out. You first.”

The two began pushing each other, trying to get one of them off the edge first. Sunset watched them and sighed. This was wasting time.

“Stop. I’ll go.” And with that, she hopped off the cliff and sailed down. After all, she had the Flame of Life. If she died, she’d just wake up at the last bonfire she visited.

The air rushed against her face as she descended like a comet, the darkness swallowing her for a few seconds. And then there was light below her, and soon, the dark tunnel that she had been falling through disappeared behind her, now looking like a tube from the outside. All around her was a blue atmosphere, complete with clouds and random dancing green orbs. There was still cavern walls around the place, but this place somehow had something like sky, and below her was a city, or at least, what was left of one.

Buildings stood old and abandoned, some even on their sides and some falling off into a deeper chasm below, one where even the blue atmosphere did not reach. Moss and vines had grown, taking over most of the city, showing Sunset just how long any of this had been a proper civilization.

And then she landed in a mound of dust, looking at the city distracting her from her nearing the bottom. Coughing and trying to spit out the bits of dust that got in her mouth, Sunset climbed out of the mound and looked back up, a new problem presenting itself. How was she going to let her friends know it was safe to jump?

“Applejack! Rarity! Can you hear me?” she yelled at the top of her voice, hoping that at least they would be able to make out her voice from up there. “It’s okay! You can jump!”

The tube she had come from was pretty high up and she didn’t know if she could find a way to get closer to it so they could hear her. She just had to hope they could hear her yelling her lungs out.

After the fifth scream, to her relief, she spotted two shapes falling out of the rocky tube, coming towards her position like ballistae fired from a crossbow.

It took her a second to register it, but she quickly got out of the way as her two friends impacted into the dust mound; Sunset made sure to cover her mouth as more dust was sent up into the air, her hair and armor coated with dust.

“Ack! Bah!” Applejack climbed out of the mound, wiping at her tongue with a hand, which didn’t help at all. “Ah hate this place, I do! Dust everywhere. Ah think Ah preferred it when it was lava.”

“Yes, I have to agree with her…” Rarity lifted the skirt of her robes to inspect it. “My attire is all dirty! Oh, how long this would take to clean out! The dread, the despair!”

“Quit your complainin’, it ain’t that bad.” Applejack glared at her as she walked out of the dust mound.

“You were just saying you hate the place and now you’re telling me to stop complaining?” Rarity glared back. “Such hypocrisy, Applejack.”

“Right, uh, can we get on with this?” Sunset rubbed at her shoulders. It was still cold and she didn’t want to stand around doing nothing.

“Right, um…” Rarity looked around. Behind them was a drop, leading deeper down into the unknown. And then there was a pathway just north of the mound, leading down a flight of steps into the city. “Looks like the only way to go.”

“Come on. Let’s go have a look.” Sunset removed her star sword from its sheath. “I do hope we’ll have less trouble down here, though, who the hay am I kidding?”

The pathway led down a street of sorts, overgrown with vines which went in through the windows and even the walls. It was still rather cold down here and it made Sunset wonder if the stories she heard about Sisha were true. Applejack and Rarity had said Sisha had burned the place to the ground and created all the lava above them in the Underisle of Fire. If that were true, then why was it so cold down here? And where was all the fire?

And then Sunset remembered the blue Flames of Death. Sisha was a wielder of one. From facing Drawgren and Doland, Sunset knew the flames were as cold as death’s grip. They weren’t your regular fire, born out of the Abyss instead of the Throne. Perhaps it had been this flame that made this place as cold as it was. Still, Sunset wanted to be done with the underground, cold or not. She’d had enough of being stuck under the earth for five eternities now.

Down the next street led the girls to a staircase, which led down to a giant defunct fountain in the middle of a courtyard, where Sunset spotted a familiar sword sticking out of a pile of stones.

“Hoooo-eee!” Applejack saw it too. “Come on, we could really use a bonfire!”

The girls practically sprinted to the comfort of the bonfire, with Sunset lighting it, before they all sat down beside it, stretching their arms out and feeling rejuvenated from their long trek down.

“So this is it, huh?” Sunset looked on at the ruined city. “Not what I was expecting, but this is the Cataclysm Hollows, huh?”

“That’s a-right.” Applejack stretched her arms forward and cracked her knuckles. “Never been here myself, o’ course, but Ah was expectin’ it to be a little… warmer.”

“This cold should be expected,” Rarity said, keeping her hands close to the bonfire’s flame. “Flames of Death are cold, just like death itself. It would only make sense Sisha’s origin would be just like her.”

“Mhm.” Sunset nodded and let her eyes linger on the flame between them. “Say, how far do you think it’ll be to get to her. It looks like a big city.”

“With any luck, there won’t be much hollows left,” Applejack answered and shrugged. “Ah mean, with the few we’ve encountered so far, Ah’m guessin’ there’ll be more here than out there. We’d best be prepared for a bunch’a fights.”

“Great… Just great.” Sunset grumbled to herself. Of course it wasn’t going to be a straight shot through. She should’ve known that by now. “Well, we’d better get going then. The faster we do this, the better.”

“Ah’d like to stay here longer, but Sunset’s right.” Applejack rubbed her hands together, then grabbed her axe and stood up. “Ain’t no point hangin’ around here too long.”

“What, sitting by a nice, comfortable and safe fire is pointless?” Rarity looked at her.

Applejack wasn’t amused. “Just get your bum off that floor and let’s get on with it.”

Rarity only moved when she turned to Sunset to see that she was ready too. Sunset loved the warmth of the bonfires and how safe they made her feel, but Applejack was right. If she wanted to get home, she needed to press on.

The fiery haired girl led the way down the next street, hoping that at least there could be less enemies in this area. The road ahead was eventually blocked by a large vine, which emerged from the building on the left and snaked up to the building on the right’s second floor. With no alternative, Sunset decided to throw her sword up to the second floor, appearing beside it in an instant. Unfortunately, there was a hollow there, its sword stabbing her in the gut as soon as she stood up.

Sunset staggered back and released a combustion on the hollow. It was knocked backward by the blast and plummeted down, landing with a nasty crunch. Again, the ring on Sunset’s finger glowed, and she felt a little better, though she still had to down an estus flask to close up the wound.

“Woah nelly.” Applejack arrived at the top, just appearing above the ledge. “That thing almost hit me. Ya alright?”

“Better now.” Sunset placed the empty flask back in her satchel. “Caught me by surprise, but I managed.”

Just then, another two hollows entered the room from a doorway, their icicle bodies clacking against the wooden floor. The first one shambled towards them, with Sunset teleporting past it to its friend behind, stabbing it through the heart and rolling away just as it burst into a shower of ice. Applejack dealt with the other one, dodging its slash and then kicking it out of the hole in the wall they had come from. There was a shriek from below, before a harrowed looking Rarity emerged up onto the floor, dusting her sleeves and looking down.

“That one nearly took me with it.” She pointed down.

“Welcome to the club.” Applejack put Dragonslayer back on her belt.

Continuing on, the trio encountered no more hollows, but soon came to a place where the ground was cracked and split in various places, like an earthquake had happened.

“Better watch our step here…” Sunset muttered as she carefully navigated between two larger fissures.

Progress was slower than before, but Sunset and her friends managed to get through without too much trouble. Until the path dropped off right in front of them. A three meter wide gap separated the path that the trio was on, and the way ahead.

Sunset took out her star sword and weighed in in her hand.

“Let’s see if this works…” She flung the weapon, easily reaching the other side. Then she teleported over to it. “Hey! I have an idea!” Sunset called over to her friends on the opposite side of the rupture. “I’ll throw my sword over-”

Then Sunset felt a shiver go through her. Almost like a sixth sense.

“Wait. Something’s not right…” Sunset said to herself. Then she saw a ring of red light begin to form behind Applejack and Rarity, and a tall, well-built figure rise from it. “Girls! Watch out for that red phantom!”

“Huh?” Applejack turned around, but Rarity had been peering down the crack, not quite paying attention.

With a sudden bellow, the red phantom raised its greatsword and charged at Applejack and Rarity. Both of them dodged out of the way, but the impact of the phantom’s weapon on the already unstable ground made it slide a few inches down, with bits of the edge falling down into the ravine.

“Woah!’ Applejack exclaimed, drawing her axe just as the red phantom swung a heavy downwards stroke at her with its greatsword. The flaxen-haired girl just managed to get her axe in between herself and the sword. The red phantom growled, pressing downward on Dragonslayer.

Rarity came to the rescue, blasting the red phantom with a soul arrow. The invader growled inside his helmet and turned to Rarity, swinging his sword horizontally in an attempt to cleave her in two.

He would have succeeded had Applejack not kicked the invader in the back, sending him sprawling. His helmet came off, falling down into the crack in the slab. He turned his head to look at Applejack and snarled.

The farm girl gasped, holding her axe before her and backing away. “No… it can't be…Big Mac?”

Sunset watched as the invader got up, knowing his face all too well. It was indeed Applejack's older brother, his face contorted into one of insanity and anger.

Applejack swallowed and lowered her axe slightly. “Mac, it’s me, Applejack. Your sister?”

Rarity watched warily, keeping her staff up in front of her and aimed at the red phantom.

Big Mac gave a bellow and charged at Applejack, his weapon raised high above his head. Sunset watched on in horror as the Apple siblings clashed blades. Strong as Applejack might be, Big Mac was stronger. The farm girl was slowly being pushed to the edge of the breach.

“Rarity!” Sunset shouted across the gap. “Do something!”

“I-I’m trying, Sunset, but I can’t get a clear shot!”

Finally, Applejack got in a kick that knocked Big Mac back a step. Rarity shot at him with a bolt of blue, but Big Mac raised his sword and blocked it. Then he raised the massive blade high above his head and slammed it into the ground.

A shockwave blasted out from the ground, knocking Applejack and Rarity prone. Then, with an awful grinding noise, the ground beneath them began to crumble into the rift.

“Woah!” Rarity, not weighed down by a heavy weapon, scrambled to her feet, but the platform was slipping, and she couldn’t make the jump to Sunset’s platform. And the way back was through the red phantom.

“Sunset!” Applejack shouted as their path sank lower. “Help!”

Sunset Shimmer wound her arm back, ready to throw her sword and teleport over, but suddenly Big Mac let out a bellow and bull rushed Applejack and Rarity, clearly intending to strike them both with one swipe. But the ground fell away beneath the red phantom’s feet and he stumbled, crashing headlong into the two girls and sending all three of them off the edge and into the dark below.

“No! Girls!” Sunset leaned down over the edge, trying to catch a glimpse of her friends, but it was too dark to see further down.

She waited for anything, for something to happen, but there wasn’t even the slightest sound coming from below, not even a thump of their bodies on solid rock.

Sunset willed her friends to be safe down below, but she didn’t know how well her hope could hold out here. She’d already lost Rainbow Dash. She couldn’t bear to lose two more of her greatest friends in the world. She just couldn’t.

A part of her wanted to jump down there to go find them, but the rest of her managed to reason that it was a terrible plan. She didn’t even know if it was ground below. The Underisle of Fire had lava everywhere. If this place too had lava below, then jumping down there would certainly end on a painful note.

“But that would also mean Applejack and Rarity…”

Sunset didn’t want to think more on it. She fell to her knees, her star sword falling from her grip as her mind tried to comprehend what had just happened. Her friends were gone, dead or alive, she was now alone again.

Having been with them for so long, Sunset had gotten used to having someone around and she was a little reluctant to carry on by herself. She didn’t know if she’d be able to do it alone again.

“I need to press on…” she breathed, her eyes still on the darkness below. “They would want me to. Rainbow too. I need to do this…”

Author's Note:

And so the third Flame of Death's zone has been reached. I hope what I have so far still continues to entertain you all. If there are any questions you might have on the story, feel free to comment or PM me!

Cheers!