Descending Darkness

by Mr Tinkertrain

Escape and betrayal

Rainbow could only catch a glimpse of Dust as he left the town. For a moment she did really think that she could trust him, but it ended up otherwise. He just left her with the guards, who escorted her through a door and down a long staircase. The air became more and more unventilated as they led her deeper underground. The only sources of light were some torches that were attached to the walls. The guards led her into a long hallway, which sent a cold shiver down her back as she saw the wooden doors at the sides. Another pony approached them. “What do we have here …?” He asked with a look on Rainbow.

“Just another one of them. Lock it up, warden.” The guards then turned around and Rainbow could hear their hooves hitting the stairs as they went up again. The warden looked at the pegasus, and Rainbow thought she could see disgust sparking up for a second, but it was gone too fast as that she could be sure of it. “A pretty good looking exemplar, are we? Well, nothing that some weeks in those cell couldn’t change.” The warden then pushed her into one of the cells and closed the door behind her. She could her how the key turned in the lock. She looked around in the small cell, but there wasn’t much more than a small, uncomfortable looking bed.

There wasn’t any source of light in the small cell, and it smelled like something died and was rotting in there. Without much hope, she just went over to the bed and tried to suppress her tears, as she was lying alone in the dark. Occasionally the warden showed up with a torch, she could see it through a small window in the door. She sighed as she only could wait for something to happen, hopefully something to get her out of this mess.

While Rainbow was lying in the dark cell, Twilight, Pinkie and Dust stood in the dark at the wall of the town, in front of a sewer canal which led into the regions below the town – and into the prison. Dust hammered his hind hoof once against the lock of the canal and it swung open. The smell of the pipe was simply disgusting, but nopony of them complained as they entered the sewers. Luckily the pipe was large enough for them to stand upright, only Dust had to lower his head since he would have hit the ceiling. The torch they brought down there spent enough light to see where they stepped. Twilight tried to keep out of the small water flow on the bottom of the pipe. The stink got stronger the deeper they went into the sewers of the town, but they had to go through it.

They soon came to a large hall. The ground was covered with disgusting waste water, which exuded a disgusting stink. Dust ignored it, while it gave Twilight and Pinkie nausea. The stallion walked over to a door and looked at the large and rusty padlock on it. He kicked against it and it turned into dust. “They should look after their locks a bit more often …” He muttered as the door swung open. Behind of it was nothing than a long hallway. “Be careful, there are old traps down here which still could work.” He warned the others, as he went on.

Nothing was heard than how their hooves hit on the ground and the distant running of water. Sometimes they could hear some rats nearby, but they were gone as fast as they appeared. Dust sometimes made pauses to reassure himself that he led them the right way. And soon, the stink of the sewer became endurable. He turned around to the two mares following him. “Silence now, we’re close to the part below the prison.” He walked to the next corner and carefully looked around it to be sure that there wasn’t a guard. There was just an old, wooden door with another padlock on it, but this time it was a rather new one.

But the wood the door itself was made of was rotten since a long time. He kicked against the wood, which broke under the slightest pressure. This prison was sure in a bad state. He just realized how bad as the door didn’t just break under his kick, but fell out of its angles and fell on the ground where it splintered up into a thousand pieces, but the impact echoed from the walls. There was no way they would remain undetected for very long, which meant they had to hurry.

He ignored it and ran down the hallway behind the door he kicked open to a desk in front of it. He knew that this was the only cells they had here, and that they kept the keys to the doors on the desk. He just needed to find them before they came to look what happened. He could already hear hooves on the ground, as he finally found the key ring, and luckily the keys were numbered according to the door they belonged to. He took some of the keys from it and threw them over to Twilight and Pinkie. “Look into those cells, I’ll take the rest.”

He managed to get the key into the keyhole and turned it until he could hear a quiet clicking noise and opened the cell. It was empty. The steps he heard from before came closer. They wouldn’t have time to check all of those cells in time; they just had to hope to find the pegasus before the guards arrived. He prayed to everything that was holy for anypony on earth that the next key would be the one they were looking for.

Rainbow was lying in the darkness and thinking about what was going to happen now. What would those ponies do to her, now that she was here, all alone? She didn’t like to think about it, but there was nothing else that she could do right now. That was, until a loud, crashing noise sounded just outside of the cells. She stood up and tried to look out of the small window in the door, but she couldn’t see much, just a brown shadow charging through the hallway. Then she heard Dusts voice speaking, but she couldn’t understand what he said at all.

She felt anxious of what would happen as the key turned around in the keyhole and the clicking as the lock opened and the door swung open. She couldn’t see at first as the light of the torch blinded her eyes, but as she could only feel a great relief as she recognized Dust. “I found her, now let’s get outta here!” He yelled over his shoulder, and just a moment later Rainbow could see her friends looking into the cell. She just stood up, she wasn’t in the cell long enough to suffer from any damage the imprisonment could have done.

Dust didn’t wait as he ran back to the door, but stopped immediately as one of the creatures from their first encounter came lurking through the door. “I thought you were smarter than that, servant.” He turned around only to see a pony with a fur and mane in the color of the night sky, dressed in a black robe. “I thought you would understand the wink we gave you and the others as we sent you far away.” Dust lowered his eyes to the ground as he could feel tears in them. “I gave you the present to spare yourself from this, but what did you do? You just came back.” Dust pulled himself together. “I had my orders to fulfill, and I won’t fail, Chancellor.”

The other stallion just laughed. “Chancellor … Yes, once I was a chancellor … but now I am the King I deserve to be! I’ve ruled this kingdom behind the king’s back and now I’ll take what belongs to me anyway!” Some guards with spears appeared behind the Chancellor. “You served me so well … But your conscientiousness was and is still a problem, now that you’ve returned.” He pointed to the creature behind them, which was now lurking over the crushed door. “I’m sure you’ve met my servants already. They’re just like dogs, they do everything I tell them to do. And now …” He turned away from the group and walked away. “Get rid of them.” Those were his last words, and then he disappeared through the door on the other side of the room.

The creature behind them didn’t waste any time, as it instantly charged towards them as soon as the door fell closed behind the Chancellor. It tried to hit Dust with its razor-sharp claws, but it couldn’t strike out with its full power in the hallway; it didn’t have enough space. But also Dust didn’t have that much space to avoid the strike and it hit his flank with one of the claws, leaving a light flesh wound behind. It hurt; but he didn’t let it stop him. He was furious about the betrayal of the chancellor and he would stop him from whatever plans he had with the kingdom.

He kicked with all of his remaining strength, aiming for the torso of the creature in front of him, but it avoided his attempt to bring it down and instead grabbed his leg and threw him on the splintered remains of the door. He could feel how some of the splinters piercing into his skin, but he was on his hooves again in no time. While he tried to bring the creature down, the two guards pointed their spears on Pinkie and Twilight; they seemingly thought that none of them was a serious threat. It was a mistake they would soon regret, as Twilight lifted some splinters from the door with her magic and threw them at the guards.

At least in this point, Dust was right: They didn’t know much about unicorns, they drew back, even if the splinters weren’t even dangerous for them. But they fulfilled the task Twilight had in mind: They filled the minds of the guards with fear of what the unicorn was capable of. It was a threat they weren’t trained to handle. While the guards drew back to the door, Pinkie somehow managed to get some cupcakes out of her saddlebags. “Pinkie, this is not the time to eat cupcakes!” Twilight said to her friend. “Oh, I’m not eating cupcakes.” The pink pony smiled at her friend as she threw one of the cupcakes at the creature and hit it in the face.

“Well, this isn’t very effective.” Twilight said, but was convinced otherwise as the creature needed some moments to wipe the cupcake’s icing off its eyes and was blind for a few moments - few moments enough for Dust to land an aimed kick on its torso, which brought it to fall down. “Now!” He screamed, dashing over the creature on the ground, followed by Pinkie and Twilight. Rainbow almost made it, but the creature could see again already and reached out for her hind leg as she was jumping over it. It tried to pull her back, but the athletic pegasus spread her wings and started to flap to gain more force, while she kicked the creature with her free leg in its face, causing it to howl in pain and to release the grip around her leg.

Rainbow, who suddenly got no force to pull her back, dashed off through the door into the hallway behind the door and almost crashed down immediately. This corridor simply wasn’t made for pegasi to fly. But she was on her hooves just a second after, following her friends as she ran down the corridor, away from the creature who was on its feet again, now furiously growling. She didn’t care about the creature as she fell into a gallop, but she still heard the slight click and could feel some air drafts around her.

She heard the creature howling up in pain once again, before the howl abruptly fell silent. She orientated herself at the sound of hooves of her friends hitting on the ground and could soon see a light in the distance. She ignored the stink of the wastewater in the sewers and dashed into the fresh air, where her friends already waited for her. She let herself fall into the next spot of grass she could find and found herself under her two friends who were hugging her as soon as she touched the ground.

Only Dust didn’t seem to be happy about their successful operation. He looked like he had something else in his mind. “Hey Dust … What’s the matter? Is it this guy who showed up down there?” The stallion just nodded. “The Chancellor was the one who sent me into the west … to Canterlot. I thought I was on an important mission, and then it turned out that he just wanted to pull off a coup to become king …” Even Pinkies laughter faded. “Well”, Rainbow said, “You got me out of that prison, so we’re gonna help you with your Chancellor!”

The stallion down on the pegasus, who was still lying on her back in the grass. “Sure we will. Isn’t it so, Twi? Pinkie?” she said as she sat up into the grass, looking at her friends, who both nodded. “Sure, we will, silly!” Pinkie was euphoric like usual. “Of course, you helped us to get Rainbow out there, so we will help you to rescue your kingdom!” Dust couldn’t feel anything else than feeling warmth deep in his heart. He didn’t really know those mares for a very long time, but they already agreed to help him stopping the traitorous Chancellor of a kingdom they don’t even know. “Well then …” he looked up the walls of the town. “Let us stop the Chancellor then.”

He was still looking up the walls, as a loud bang shocked him. He looked up into the sky – it was evening again already, almost night – on which a single firework filled the sky with sparkles. A second one followed, and then a third one. It was the New Year’s Eve, and the ponies here celebrated it with a huge firework. They sat down on the grass and looked up to the sky, in a moment of unity, before they would make their plan to bring the Chancellor down.

Comments

[Mr Tinkertrain]

I think I fucked this up really bad ... Oh well, I'll still finish it.