Jacob had never gone to the Gatecrashers before. He knew the way only in the sense he remembered the way Jackie and Harley always went, when they had a mission to go on.
Getting there without being noticed involved a great deal of planning—separating their group into several smaller factions, each of which would carry some of their gear, crossing Imperium at different times until they eventually joined up just outside the building.
The Gatecrasher building was one of the bulkiest, ugliest structures in Imperium, very clearly designed for function over form. Five foot cubed blocks of stone were mortared together with dark gray, making a single chamber about a hundred feet in any direction. There was only one doorway, and it was there they gathered.
Harley had checked out (or stolen, Jacob didn’t ask) the gear they needed without much difficulty, and so the near-nudity was abandoned in the favor of something more practical.
Passing for human was the name of the game, and it was possible for nearly all of them. Jacob and Katie both dressed as children, with shoes carefully designed to attach to hooves and imitate feet. Only his horn resisted concealment entirely, though at least it wasn’t Alicorn sized.
The rest of them were either more human, or Danni and Elise, who were complete ponies.
“Are you all sure about this?” Harley stopped them just outside the Gatecrasher building, folding her arms. She wore black, tactical clothing, and carried a dark satchel over one shoulder. “If we’re wrong, and it isn’t Twilight, we’ll have nowhere to go but into a safe house, and who knows how many of them are safe anymore.”
Jacob folded his arms, searchings his friends’ expressions. Jackie, Katie, and Danni were all resolved—only Eric seemed upset. Stalwart alone wasn't there-- as much because he thought resisting Sunset was insane as because he wanted someone to stay behind and explain what they were doing when word inevitably got out that Imperium's greatest heroes (and its greatest villain) had all ran away.
“I don’t want to go,” Eric admitted. “But if there are more puzzles waiting for you, you all don’t stand a chance without Elise or me.”
“How flattering,” Harley said. “Any other doubters? It isn’t gonna be pretty up there.”
Katie smiled ruefully. “Assuming you can get us up at all. Four ponies who have never gone on missions to the surface before. Won’t that be a little suspicious?”
She nodded. “Ponies always mistrust me. That might sound bad, but here it’s an advantage. So long as I can direct their skepticism at something other than our mission, they’ll think they’ve outwitted me even though they’re doing exactly what I want them to.”
“How very changeling of you.” Jacob shifted in the uncomfortable child’s clothes. The bright colors and tight fabric suited someone about six or seven, which matched their height well. It would work, so long as no one looked too close.
“Couldn’t be any other way.” She shouldered her satchel a little higher, leading the way into the building. There was no more time to rehearse, no more time to plan.
Through a pair of massive wooden doors, so large it took three of them pushing at once to get them to swing, was a room almost lightless. The artificial sun left glowing blue afterimages in his eyes, and he very nearly fell over.
Walking with his tail wrapped up and his hooves tied to stupid shoes did not improve Jacob’s dexterity. He supposed he would just have to get used to it. At least it won’t happen again. If I’m ever human again, the illusion won’t fall off in little pieces. He had nearly seen an illusion fail on his very first day introduced to this mess, and Twilight hadn’t started to transform.
“Hold still,” Harley whispered back. “Wait until your eyes adjust. You don’t want to trip and fall into a rift.”
“What’s a rift?” Jacob kept his voice at the same low whisper, squinting to try and see around him. He couldn’t yet, though he could feel something. His clothes seemed lighter than they should, as though they were hanging loose from his body. How could that be?”
“Asks the unicorn.” Harley sounded almost amused. “Haven’t they been teaching you about teleportation? I’ve seen you pop onto roofs and cliffs a few times now. It’s… think of what you do, only permanent.”
He gasped. Jacob didn’t understand the magic completely, but he knew a little. He knew that every time he teleported, it worked by wedging a little magic into the world and using the crack. The flash of light and blast of air that came with a teleport was the crack re-sealing behind him.
“The wider the rift, the further ordinary unicorn ponies can send you. Since we’re underground in the middle of an ocean, we need a huge one not to exhaust any of the Gatecrashers.”
“What are you doing here, Harley?” A voice came from nearby, a vague blob forming into the outline of a pony. The voice was male, and the pony was mostly covered in a loose white robe. The whole thing seemed to billow about him, drawn towards the center of the room. Jacob now knew why.
“Getting this humanitarian crew to the surface,” she said, imitating their gruffness with equal measures of frustration and boredom. “You got today’s mission reports, didn’t you?”
“Yes.” The pony stepped closer. Jacob could dimly make out blue fur from within the robe, mane shorn almost flat. The eyes were unusually large, even for a pony. “Nopony is to leave. The chaos on the surface is too great—” Would he recognize Elise? She'd done nothing to disguise her appearance, since doing so would be an obvious tell they had something to hide.
“Dammit.” Harley stamped at the ground. “First Sunset gives one of her best mares a shit escort job, next they lose my paperwork on the way in. It’s three kilometers back to Capital… and by the time we get back, there won’t be any damn Gatecrashers on duty… Dammit!” She advanced on the pony, practically glowing with anger.
“It isn’t our fault,” the pony answered, retreating a little. His voice echoed strangely in the dark space, as none of their voices did. “We only follow the orders the princess gives.”
“I know!” Harley took a few, exaggerated steps past him. She seemed to be intentionally raising her voice a little louder with each word. “It’s not your damn fault, Slipstream. Just like it won’t be your damn fault when Sunset comes bellowing at me that we left a VIP to be captured and executed by the Light Tenders.
The pony hesitated. “If it’s… that important, I could send you right back to Capital. You could find the princess, then fly back with the release. I’d tell the others to wait for you before we went off-shift.”
Damn. A sensible compromise. Jacob froze, his heart seizing up. This was where he wouldn’t have known what to say. He occupied himself by looking away, trying to take in the rest of the chamber. The floor wasn’t flat, not the way he had first assumed. It seemed to be sloping gently down, vaguely rounded and curving once it left the corners. It was almost as though the room were a cloth, with a lead weight resting in the center and drawing the whole room down. He felt like he was being dragged down, though the pressure was so light that it wasn’t frightening. Even with awkward stumps he could escape, if he needed to.
There were little red lights set into the floor, forming little circles and rings that wouldn’t disrupt night-vision but still measured out… whatever it was the ponies here were measuring. In the corners of the huge room, like the one they had entered, were diverse and smaller rooms, one in each corner into which he could not see.
He might not have a clue what he was doing, but Harley didn’t skip a beat. “Thanks for the offer, Slipstream, but I don’t think it will be fast enough. I’m not sure if you noticed—” she gestured over her shoulder at the rest of them. “These are some of the biggest damn heroes in Imperium I’ve got with me. They’re needed upstairs, desperately needed. Even this conversation could have ponies dead.”
The pony, Slipstream, looked between each of them, his eyes getting a little wider as he did. It seemed he did recognize them. Except Elise, who he barely even glanced at. “I guess you could… get me your release when you get back.” He sounded uncertain. “Where are you going anyway?”
This was the tricky part. The closer to civilization they went, the more likely their request would be approved. Sending them to the interior of an island nation where ponies had no presence was a hopeless endeavor. Hence the destination. “Colorado Springs,” Harley said. “The closer you can get us to the university, the better.”
“Return trip?”
“Six hours at two kilometers north of wherever our ingress point ends up.” A lie, of course. A lie that might very well buy them six hours before anypony came looking.
“Follow me.” Slipstream turned, cloak billowing about him as he did so, drawn strangely down towards the bottom of the room. They walked around the outside wall, towards one of the other walled sections. “You sure this VIP is worth it, Harley? Before we lost contact with the surface…”
Jacob had to bite his tongue to resist asking them about it. The internet had gone down just a few hours after the attacks had supposedly started. Jacob, like the rest of his group, believed Sunset had done so to prevent ponies from discovering the horrors she had caused. After all, the majority of ponies in Imperium had been human once.
Harley just nodded. “We’re ready. We have our token victim if the authorities find us, and the rest are wrapped up tight enough that they aren’t obviously deformed.”
Slipstream still moved stiffly, only his tail emerging from the back of the robe. “You’re the ones at risk. But I guess this group isn’t new to risks. Is that you back there, Jackie?”
“Last time I checked,” Jackie called. She had become subdued since her last mission. She didn’t really joke anymore, and her eyes remained haunted. “Someone has to keep these ponies alive.”
“I don’t doubt your ability.” The pony slowed a little as they reached the doorway into the little walled-off area. As they left the sloping floor onto flat ground, the gentle pull at Jacob’s clothes faded again, until it was only a memory and he couldn’t be completely positive he had experienced it at all. “Just your wisdom. It’s a fool time for a vacation.”
The little room ahead appeared to contain several more unicorns, along with nothing but candles for light. Each wore robes, and had the same strange, echoing voices that Slipstream had. Their guide conversed with his fellows in hushed voices, and finally they started filing past them into the center of the room. Each one was carrying something, be it rolled maps, lit candles, or bits of glowing crystal. There were seven in all, and though the age of ponies was difficult to guess, each of these seemed old and mature in a way that wasn’t physical.
“Will ten seconds be enough?” Slipstream led them down at the back of the group, along ground that sloped more and more dramatically the closer they got. “A public place at evening, will be difficult to explain.”
“Leave that to us,” Harley said. “We’ll make ten seconds work.” The ground sloped further and further with each ring of LEDs they crossed over.
Eventually it was difficult for him to hold steady, not without Jackie to hold his arm. Katie was stable on her own, though she had months more of practice. Even so, he glared. She glared back, sticking her tongue out at him.
Slipstream nodded, then gestured for them to wait. A flat platform waited near the innermost circle, raised on stilts above the strange crater. The unicorn waited until each of them was on it securely, then hurried off to join his fellows. The other ponies circled around the very center of the room, their huddled forms wrapped in white and nearly invisible there.
Harley spoke in a hurried whisper. “The portal will appear right in front of us. When it does, we have ten seconds to jump through. Jackie and Eric will go first, followed by Danni, Elise and Katie, then Jacob and me. If you’ve transported with a princess before… it won’t be like that.”
The unicorns started chanting. They sat near the edge of a precipice, their horns glowing. Jacob felt weighed down, tugged and pulled towards something in the center of the crater. The rift, he assumed, though he could see nothing there. Seven unicorns in the dark, their horns glowing seven different colors. It almost made a rainbow, if he squinted hard enough.
“Exhale, close your eyes, and don’t think of anything.”
“Huh?” Eric shifted in his shoes, leaning down over the edge, then looking back. “Why would that matter?”
“Because it hurts less that way,” Jackie answered.
Something flashed in the air in front of them. For a fraction of a second, Jacob imagined he could see the rift itself, a swirling emptiness set on devouring all light and energy and matter that got close. Then the light of unicorn magic grew stronger, forming a glowing, rotating barrier around the edge of something just below them.
Like a pool of black tar, swirling counterclockwise without smell. Air rushed suddenly around them, and the tug of gravity grew much more intense. Demanding. Hungry.
They ran. There was no time left for thought. Jackie dragged Eric by the collar. Danielle and Katie both seemed nervous, but they followed right behind. Harley didn’t even have to drag him. One shove, right into the small of his back, and Jacob went tumbling, screaming as he fell.