Banished Shadows

by Intercollision

The Climb

Chapter Five: The Climb

Wake up, it’s time. Slowly, the lurker’s eyes opened, the voice ringing inside its head urging it to wakefulness. It was slumped awkwardly on the stone steps in the tunnel where it had fallen asleep, exhausted from its climb and loss of blood. The distant spot of light that had stymied it before was gone, it was time to move on.

Groggily, it resumed the upward journey, gaining momentum as the promise of revenge was renewed. At last, the lurker stood just below a stone archway, broken vines with diamond leaves dangling before its face, the other side was filled with an unfamiliar darkness. It wasn’t the complete and comforting blackness of its home in the tunnels, but a gentler kind that was at odds with the savage creature. Still, spurred on by the voice, the lurker ventured out through the archway.

It crunched its way over a floor littered with detritus, a comfortingly familiar feeling. Suddenly, the creature found itself in the open, no walls surrounded it and no ceiling above. It shrank away from the expansive void littered with pinpricks of light which glittered menacingly at it. There were other pools of light pouring from scattered buildings, too much, the lurker turned to retreat back to the safety of the tunnels.

The voice chided the lurker for its cowardice: Would it run from a bit of light and give up the opportunity to avenge itself on those that had wronged it? Would it slink back in defeat to lick its wounds in fear? With a snarl, the lurker turned and sprang down the dirt path, the fear driven from its simple brain by mindless rage. Slinking from shadow to shadow, wary of the unfamiliar sounds of crickets and night birds, the lurker moved hesitantly along a dirt path. The buildings had started to thin when the lurker passed a small, wooden structure squatting in a wire pen. The creature pulled up short, a soft clucking drifted from the pen, and the scent of flesh filled its nostrils. Overcome with bloodlust and hunger, the lurker leapt over the short, wire fence and tore into the wooden structure.

A cacophony of screeches shattered the still night, and were quickly silenced. It was over in minutes, and the now satiated lurker, covered with feathers and dripping with gore, continued on the path, the buildings and their lights disappearing behind it. The tugging on the lurker’s mind grew stronger as it ventured off the dirt path, through sparse trees, and finally onto soft, sandy plains. It was pulled onward, past the scrub to where the ground grew hard and rocky. Great, shattered boulders cast long shadows in the moonlight to which the lurker clung, distrustful of the glowing orb in the sky that seemed to be following it.

The boulders grew more numerous and their shadows deeper; the lurker relaxed a little, letting itself be guided by the strange force that had seized it. The creature stopped abruptly as the ground before it ended. It looked up and found that it stood on the edge of an enormous crater stretching out into darkness, ringed with jagged rocks jutting up into the sky. It appeared as if a massive hand had reached down and scooped the earth from this spot, leaving the crater’s surface smooth and iridescent in the moonlight.

The lurker paced around the edge of the crater carefully, for the walls were steep and a fall would surely prove fatal. About halfway around the circumference a strange, primitive arch appeared on the rim. Two crude, stone plinths supported a third that spanned them, and when the lurker passed under the arch it found a staircase winding down the face of the crater, the steps smooth and dark as obsidian.

The staircase was narrow, clearly intended for a creature more nimble and less bulky, and the lurker slipped and nearly fell, sending pebbles skittering down towards the shadows at the bottom of the crater. Before the creature had time to fully recover, it felt the tugging it its mind again, pulling it impatiently forward. It set off again, panting and limping down the stairs until they broadened into a small shelf jutting out from the wall of the crater, still only halfway to the bottom.

The voice crowed praises at the creature, it had done well, and the difficult journey was nearly over. The lurker looked, and there in the side of the crater was a small cave opening. This was it, the lurker knew, this was where the voice was coming from, where it would go to fulfill the promise of revenge. The only thing that could be seen inside the cave was the comforting blackness the lurker was used to calling home. Eagerly, it rushed for the welcoming darkness, leaving behind the strange world of light and sound, the voice cooing pleasantly in its simple mind.

* * *

The large metal door slammed shut, and Twilight stood uneasily in the triangular space before Perimeter Defense while Major Tyrrsan exchanged a few words with the guards. Twilight wasn’t completely comfortable with the thought of leaving her friends here, epically when the Major had first brought it up.

She had been standing with the others in the medical room, telling them what she’d learned from the major, when he walked into the room.

“Hello again ladies, how are you doing?”

“It’s awfully cramped down here,” Rarity said, “and poor Rainbow Dash still hasn’t woken up.”

“Is that so?”

Applejack nodded. “We’re all gettin’ a mite worried too.”

“I wish I could help,” Major Tyrrsan said sympathetically, “but I’m afraid the med-techs tend to be very cautious with a head injury. They’ll only try to force her awake when they have no other options.”

“But major,” Twilight said, “you know we can’t stay here, our friends in Ponyville will worry.”

The major bent his head in thought. “Hmmm.... Well, what if you and I went to Ponyville to tell your friends what happened while the others wait here with Rainbow Dash? I’m sure by the time we get back Rainbow Dash will have recovered.”

Twilight nodded slowly, “I suppose that’s okay. What do you think, Applejack? Rarity?”

“Well,” Applejack said, “it’s alright by me.”

Rarity nodded emphatically. “Don’t be silly, we couldn’t possibly leave Rainbow Dash here, and we simply must let the others know we’re alright. You just go and we’ll probably catch up with you before you’ve even had the chance to leave Ponyville again.”

“Alright then.” Twilight turned to the major. “When do we leave?”

Tyrrsan smiled. “Right away, if you’re ready.”

Twilight was a bit nervous about going back through the tunnels, and now that she was once again standing amongst the trash and flickering lights, she was growing more nervous by the second. She still didn’t fully trust Tyrrsan, while he was certainly acting much nicer than when they had first met, there was something about him that niggled at her, something that felt just a little off. Finally, Tyrrsan walked up beside her, he was back in the full-body jumpsuit, his eyes covered with dark glasses and bulky saddlebags slung across his back. “So, how do we get to your Ponyville?”

“I...well, I don’t really know, but if you can get us back to that large room where we first met, the staircase is right there.”

Tyrrsan gave a quick nod. “Right, this way then.” He strode off down the narrowing tunnel, Twilight scurrying to keep up.

“Major, wait!”

Tyrrsan paused and looked back over his shoulder.

“Is it.... Will it be safe? What if that thing—that lurker, is still there?”

Although Twilight couldn’t tell for sure with the dark glasses, she suspected Tyrrsan was smirking at her. “We should be safe enough,” he said. “Lurkers don’t tend to hang around in one place too long, and while sector L-7 is at the edge of our controlled territory, it’s still closer than lurkers will usually venture.”

Twilight nodded, swallowed hard, and followed Tyrrsan back into the tunnels. They trudged on in silence, the major trying to look everywhere at once, Twilight trying to ignore the squalor that soon infested the tunnels around them.

“So, uh...” Twilight said quietly, breaking the silence when she could stand it no longer, “these tunnels aren’t nearly as nice as the ones back at Perimeter Defense.”

The major grunted in reply, and Twilight waited nervously for a more. There was still a gulf between them, and she had hoped to spend this trip through the tunnels bridging that gulf before they reached Ponyville. After all, she was tasked with learning about friendship, and there was certainly a lot to be learned here. Just when Twilight was getting worried that she had offended him again, Tyrrsan spoke. “These tunnels used to be inhabited. Many years ago, long before I was born, ponies lived in this whole sector. It wasn’t easy, life never is in the tunnels, it was crowded and there were not nearly so many amenities as in the inner sectors, but they were clean and there was life. Then the lurkers came.

“They were always out there, and while there was the occasional altercation, for the most part we avoided them and vice versa, but in the last two hundred years they’ve been growing more and more aggressive. It started small, light raids in the outskirts, no major casualties, but they kept coming, more of them every time. Ponies started dying, which led to panic, many families fled, seeking refuge in the inner sectors. As the casualties rose, we were forced to evacuate most of the outlying sectors, establishing the Perimeter Defense Stations. Some families refused to leave their homes, a few weeks later a group of them showed up at the Perimeter Defense Stations, bloody and mutilated, missing limbs. Some of them survived. There was no sign of the others who had remained behind, they were all almost certainly killed.

“We had hoped the Perimeter Defense would stop the lurkers, and we try to keep these bordering sectors as clear as possible for extra security, but every now and then one manages to break through, and it’s no secret that lately it’s been getting worse.” The major shook his head, as if he were trying to shake off some bad memory that clung to him. “Anyway, we don’t actively maintain these condemned sectors, just the occasional patrol. Sometimes foolish foals will sneak out past Perimeter Defense on a dare or some such nonsense. Mostly though, these tunnels have been left alone for the better part of a hundred-fifty years, whatever was left behind when we evacuated was left in heaps to rot.”

Twilight said nothing as Tyrrsan fell silent, not sure if he was finished. When he simply walked on in silence she said, “That sounds dreadful, I.... Just dreadful,” she finished lamely, not sure what else she could say; this was something vastly beyond her experience.

“Yes well,” the major said gruffly, “that’s all in the past, and we’re getting close to sector L-7, so we should keep quiet to be safe.” Whatever strange mood had gripped him, causing him to speak so freely, was clearly broken, and he was stiff and formal again.

Twilight was secretly relieved that the major had asked for quiet; she had no idea what to say to a story like that. Imagining all those ponies, whole families being killed and forced from their homes, made her feel queasy. Now Twilight was all too eager to be out of these dark tunnels and back in the sunshine of Equestria, and fervently hoped her friends wouldn’t be far behind her.

After a few more minutes of silent walking the tunnel walls suddenly fell away into the vast darkness that Twilight well remembered as the large chamber which was her first introduction to this dark, metal world. The major paused just inside the room, the small lamp on his head was barely powerful enough to illuminate the floor a few meters before his hooves. Tyrrsan looked back at Twilight, “Where do we go from here?”

Twilight looked around blankly. “I’m not entirely sure, I know the entrance to the stairway is in one of the walls, but I haven’t a clue which wall it might be.”

“Great,” the major sighed. “We really could use more light, it might take hours to search the walls, not to mention what might be hiding out there.”

“I can fix that,” Twilight said stepping forward, happy to finally be able to do something useful. The major eyed her doubtfully, but stepped out of her way. Twilight planted her hooves steadily on the ground and reached within herself, focusing her will and recalling the spell she had previously used to light the room. The glow around her horn grew brighter, the light flowing to the tip of her horn and coalescing into a sphere which shot of into the sky. When the globe was once again hovering a few meters short of the ceiling, providing its nearly sufficient amount of light, Twilight turned back to the major.

Tyrrsan tore his gaze from the hovering light to look at Twilight. “That’s a pretty neat trick, I should see if the boys back at base can upgrade my horn with something like that.”

Twilight sighed, “It’s not a trick, it’s a spell, and I could teach it—actually I’m not sure if I could teach it to you. I’ve never met someone who’s become a unicorn rather than being born one.”

The major shrugged, “Trick, spell, whatever you call it, it does make things a lot easier for us. Do you think you can remember where that stairway was now?”

Twilight looked back across the expanse of the room, which seemed improbably large after being in the cramped tunnels for so long. Soon, she recognized the row of dilapidated ruins where the lurker had been hiding. She eyed them nervously, their interiors were still lost in shadow. “Yes, I think it’s this way,” Twilight said, walking slowly off across the room.

She heard the major following her, but she didn’t turn, she was too busy watching the ruins for the slightest sign of movement. Fortunately, nothing leapt out at her, and it was with a relieved sigh that Twilight stepped into the brief section of tunnel that led to the stone stairway.

“Here we are,” she chirped happily, she could already feel the sunlight on her back and taste the fresh air.

Tyrrsan joined her. “Well done, you go on ahead for a moment, I need to make sure we’re not followed.”

Twilight nodded, barely listening in her desire to out from underground, and started up the stairs.

As soon as Twilight was a few meters up the stairway, Tyrrsan turned around, rummaged in his saddlebags and pulled out the field radio. Flicking it on, he spoke quietly into the transmitter, “This is Major Tyrrsan checking in, we have reached sector L-7 without incident. The pony known as Twilight Sparkle was telling the truth about there being a stairway. Its entrance is in the south-east wall from where we entered, I’m marking the position on my location tracker. As there are currently no signs of hostilities, I’m proceeding with the mission and will follow her up the stairs and, hopefully, into whatever this ‘Ponyville’ is. Tyrrsan out.”

The major clicked off the radio and tucked it back into his bags. He cast a look back at the familiar steel that was his home—the strange light illuminating the chamber was already fading so that only the barest silhouette of the ruins could be seen—before starting up the stairs. The substance that comprised the stairs was strange and new to Tyrrsan, his hooves ringing gravely as he took his first steps out of the tunnels.

Comments

[Intercollision]

2482983

Thanks you very much for your wonderful feedback, reading it made me blush ! I sincerely hope you enjoy the other chapters as much as the first. If you think the view count is too low, feel free to encourage others to read it, haha .

I would be delighted to review your story, and will do so in the next few days, and thanks again so much for your support!

[InsertCoolUsernameHere]

2483723

That's weird... I never got a notification saying you responded Oh well. Message received.

I'm kinda busy with work, school—especially considering it's finals week—and writing my own story, so I won't be able to read the rest of the chapters all in one sitting. Regardless, I look forward to it, as well as your review of my story. Let's just pray it won't make you cry tears of blood

I kid. I'm (fairly) confident in my writing skills, at least when it comes to grammar, so I'm just hoping the concept is appealing.

[Intercollision]

2483963 I also didn't receive a notification of your response, guess I'll have to keep checking the hard way . I totally understand, time management is tricky, I find myself in much the same situation. Still, I hope to have my review ready for you tonight sometime. Looking forward to reading it!

[Zong The Nefarious]

*Read later button applied*