Author's Notes: Just a bit of a heads up, but as you probably guessed, the climb back up Tartarus won't be quite as eventful as the descent was, due to all of the bosses being defeated and all the locations being the same as before it’s just going backwards, meaning going through all this stuff will obviously be much faster and not quite as exciting as the first time. So yeah, the most the climb back up will take around three chapters. Just a heads up. Now, on with the story(I promise not to use this forever).
Well, you all probably expect me to say something big or important here, but honestly, I don't have anything to say that I haven't already said. Literally, all we have left to do now is get out of this place and save Graze and hopefully my wings.
Celestia, I feel so naked and useless without my wings. I don't even qualify as an earth pony right now, but enough of my pointless brooding.
After flying over the destroyed bridge earlier, we came up to the blood river by the rocky shore we had washed up on.
"Please tell me we can just fly over the mountains to get back up." Zephyr says in a pleading voice.
"Sorry, Zeph, but there isn't." Glare says.
"I wish there was. The only way back up from here is to fight the current and swim back up ourselves." Vine says.
"But what about Blue and Graze?" Rhino asks worriedly. "There's no way they can swim in the condition they're in."
"I know that. I'm sorry to say, but the best we'll be able to do is keep a tight grip on them as we swim through."
"I don't know..." Drax says.
"Don't you worry about me. I'll be fine." I say.
"Yeah, me too. It'll take more than some river to put me down." Graze says.
"You guys sure?" Rhino asks one more time.
"Did we stutter? Get going!" I demand.
Dark smirks. "You head the stallion! Let's move!" he eagerly dives in, leading the pack like last time.
Vine breaks out the canteen again. "You stay in here, Ciel."
The ooze happily jumps in like last time.
And again like last time, Orion is after him, followed by Zephyr, then Glare, then Ice, then Vine, then Rhino with Graze, and finally, Drax with me. We all make sure to take deep breaths for the long swim up.
As you can probably imagine, blood is thicker than water, so both swimming and seeing in it is quite a bit harder. The swim up also starts getting much harder as we swim up due to the increasing force of the current from the vortex made at the meeting point of the rivers.
Drax and Rhino each hold on to Graze and I tightly, trying as hard as possible not to let us go.
But their attempted is disrupted when Ice, the smallest member of our group, as well as the only earth pony, loses strength and gets thrown around by the current. He slams right into Drax and I, making him let go of me and making me let go of my breath. I start spinning around and around as I start going down, not able to catch myself. Drax catches Ice and gives him to Dark to hold onto. Using his incredible strength, Drax's pushes furiously through the water. He inches near my unmoving form and grabs a leg. He pulls me in before he starts swimming back up, quickly losing breath.
After some rough swimming, we all make it back up to the surface. Everyone takes heavy breaths of air as they break through. Zephyr and Orion help Rhino and Graze up while Dark helps Ice up and Drax helps me up.
Drax sets me on the ground. "Is Blue all right?" Zeph asks worriedly.
"Blue? Blue?! Wake up!" Drax shouts, shaking me.
"Drax, he needs CPR!" Vine tells him.
"Oh, right." he takes hid hooves and presses down on my chest, making me spit out some blood I intook from the river. "He spit up some blood, but it isn't working."
Everyone gives each other awkward looks as they think about who the guinea pig will be.
"I say Vine does it." Zeph says.
"Me? Why me?" Vine asks defensively.
"You're the only girl here."
"Yeah, but I'm not into stallions."
"What about Rhino? He's a doctor." Orion says.
"No way. I'm an animal doctor. I don't do mouth to mouth." he says.
"I'll do it." Ice says.
"Uh, are you sure, Ice?" Dark asks, a bit surprised.
He shrugs. "Sure, doesn't bother me. I'm bi anyways."
"Well, if you're sure." Drax says as he gets up and steps back away from me.
Ice steps over to my body and bends over it. He inhales before opening his mouth wide and slowly leaning in.
As he leans in, I wake up. My eyes widen as I see him. I quickly get up and push him away. "No! No Mouth to mouth! I'm alive! I can breathe! See?!" I quickly say.
Ice just frowns and looks down as the rest of the group has a good laugh.
Even Graze chuckles a bit. "Heh, those portals weren't lying, you guys really are crazy."
"Bro, we fought through all nine floors of Tartarus. There's no way normal ponies could do that." Dark says.
He chuckles again. "I guess that's true."
Rhino examines us and takes out the bandages again. "Your bandages got soaked. I'll have to replace them before we can move on."
"Oh, well, isn't that just great?" I reply sarcastically.
One new set of uncomfortable and restricting bandages later and we're on our way through the mountain path again. Much like the last time we went through it, nothing tries to attack us. There seems to be a lack of anything extremely dangerous in these brief intermission spots between floors.
After the eventful trek, we reach back up to the red desert of the seventh floor once again. Upon arriving, we can hear aggravated rustling coming from the distance.
We look to see it's coming from the crater we put Giro in and walk over to see him struggle to free himself from Vine's vines.
"Having a little trouble there?" Vine asks in a trollish tone.
Giro looks up and gapes as he sees us. "You?!" he starts glaring at us. "Release me from this infernal web you've trapped me in!"
"Hmm, no, I don't think I will." the canteen at her side starts shaking before the cap pops off and Ciel breaks out. "Ciel?"
The ooze, being like Vine and holding a grudge, spits some water at Giro's face, basically getting some payback for shrinking it down a bit.
Giro spits a bit. "Bah! Stupid creature!" he shouts. He notices Glare with us "Glare! You're one of us! You must help me!"
"One of you? Not anymore. I can't stand knowing I was helping you, even if I was hypnotized." Glare says.
Graze slowly gets off from Rhino's back. "Graze?" Rhino asks. "What are you doing?"
Ignoring him, Graze walks into the crater. He gets in Giro's face and glares at him. "I'm the only one who gets to control black flames." he turns around and delivers a hard buck to his face, knocking him unconscious.
After Graze falls down from using so much energy, Rhino grabs him and puts him on his back again. "I recommend we just keep going." he says.
The rest of us nod in agreement.
For any of you who may remember, the part before this whole thing was the Forest of Suicide. And if you remember that, you'll also remember we didn't encounter anything besides a bunch of trees that say ow if you hit or step on them.
So yeah, aside from us avoiding all of the trees in the area, which isn't exactly easy to do in a forest mind you, not much happens during our walk through here.
After our walk through the forest again, we reach the first and yet most dangerous area of the seventh circle: the boiling lake of blood.
We all start thinking the same thing. "Okay, here it is. You guys ready to go again?" Vine asks.
The others nod. I tighten my grip on Drax. "Hold on tight, Blue."
"Can you not feel me already doing that?"
"Good to see losing your wings didn't ruin your sense of humor." he jokes.
"Never. My smart flankitude will last forever."
"That's not a word." Orion says.
"What are you, a dictionary?" Dark says.
"No, just been hanging around Sweetie Belle too much."
"Let's just go already!" Vine orders.
Snapping to attention, everypony starts jumping back across the pillars as they did the first time.
As we all hop from pillar to pillar, I bounce up and down every time. "You doing all right back there, Blue?" Drax asks.
"Ugh, I think I'm gonna be sick." I say with my tongue hanging out.
"Not while you're on me you're not."
"Don't look now, but we've got company!" Zephyr announces.
We all look back to the blood hands shooting up from the lake and coming at us again.
"Ugh, not these things again!" Dark shouts. He stops and turns back around. "I'm gonna end this right now!" he charges up some grenades(do you expect anything different at this point?) and chucks them at the hands, making them all explode in a bloody mess.
We have nothing more than a few close calls after this as hop, skip, and jump our way back over to the other side of the bubbling, gaseous lake.
As we reach the other side, for some reason, the hands that were coming after us just stop and shrink back into the lake.
"Why is that the hands stop at the solid ground anyway?" Orion asks.
"I don't know. Some kinda freaky Tartarus magic I guess." Ice says. "Right, Vine?"
"Erm, something like that. I honestly don't know either."
Looks like she isn't all knowing about this place after all.
"Well, no use sticking around here to question it. I say we just keep moving while we've got the chance." Dark suggests.
And with that, we all agree. We've learned from experience not to stay in one place too long while we’re down here after all.
Even though these past few floors weren't that bad, we've still got a long way to go.
Author's Note: Yeah... you guys are probably wondering why this chapter is so late when I promised earlier chapters. Well, blame Zephyr for making me work on our collab and... I've said too much. Just expect to see that later on.