//------------------------------//
// Chapter 27: That Which was Lost - Part 2 
// Story: Metro: Retribution 
// by RF and AG 
//------------------------------//


Unnatural. That is how I would describe everything around us. It is unlike anything I have seen in the Metro, and perhaps even Khan would be worried. That alone … is unnerving enough.




That Which Was Lost (Part 2)





Perspective: Artyom





“What the fuck is this place?” I whispered, though loud enough for Shining to hear me easily enough. Everything up to that point had been rather easy to pass off as some sort of magic bullshit that was trying to protect the ruins or something along those lines. Yet the disappearing act that the words had pulled was on a different level of messed up.

“Artyom, what’s wrong? What did you see?” Shining asked, more than a little worried it seemed. Perhaps he felt the magic of the place shift or something like that. I looked down to him, and I swear I could see what little exposed fur he had standing on end. This place was unnatural to its very core.

“Words, disappearing words … they said my name,” I said, the disbelief of it all still holding true in my voice. I turned my head slowly to look down the corridor we still had to progress through, not sure if I wanted to continue on. 

Of course there is always that nagging part in the back of my head, the part that told me to just turn around and let others deal with the problems of the Metro. That voice only spoke louder since arriving in this new world. To this very day I had never listened to the voice, for its advice always advocated apathy and I am not apathetic. 

I let go of a heavy breath that I was holding, steeling my resolve to push further into the ruins and find what I came here to find. I gazed down at Shining for a moment before looking back down the hall. “We must continue.”

I started forward, my boots hardly making a noise as they came in contact with small dunes of sand that had built up in what I thought was a sealed building. Behind me I could hear Scowly mutter something about ‘hay’ but nothing more, my attention was too focused on listening for upcoming obstacles. They were more important than what the unicorn had to say in response to my statement to continue.

Keeping my Saiga trained forward, we moved silently through the hallway, the walls refusing to do anything out of the ordinary, much to my slight annoyance. When one is expecting something to happen, the worst possible outcome is for nothing to happen. It frays the nerves and causes jumpiness. 

Minutes and many meters passed of twisting singular hallway, one that seemed oddly long, before something changed in the hallway. Doors started to appear on the left and right in a staggered formation of sorts, as if intentionally adding a spice of life to the hallway. I was more than tempted to kick in a few, hoping to justify my suspicions of this place but I knew better. To do so would be risking the same wrath as the spirits that almost pulled me back in time and to my death.

 A few more minutes of endless hallway passed before the least strangest thing happened; we hit a dead end.

“Buck me, all that walking for nothing,” Shining muttered, the ruins apparently getting to him with how fast he was to swear. He started to turn around before he noticed after a few paces that I was still standing where I was. I might have been looking back at him but my mind wasn’t focused on his exact activities. “Hello, Equestria to Artyom, you coming? We have to find a new route.”

I milled that statement over once before coming to my decision. “No.”

“No, what do you mean, no? It’s a dead end!” Shining exclaimed as he pointed to the stone slab wall that halted our progress. 

“It is not,” I said as I turned to face the wall before stepping a paces backward, ensuring I was at least three meters from the wall.

“What, are you gonna run into it and it’ll just magically open up fo-” Shining said but was cut off quickly.

Two loud mini explosions rang out in the hallway as I pulled the trigger of my Saiga twice, the twelve gauge rounds flying from the barrel and exploding against the wall ahead of us.

Yet nothing changed, except for Scowly’s annoyance as he had his hooves over his ears. At least he did till he started yelling at me. “What in the name of mother bucking Celestia was that for?! What was the point of shooting at a tartarus-forsaken wall?!”

As if to answer his question, the wall flickered and waved a few times, making it as clear as day that said wall was anything but. I had a feeling that the building was messing with us, the whole feeling of the place was off and now that I had experienced the magic of the place first hand, it was impossible to not notice the familiar feel of magic.

Shining was staring at the wall shocked but his head snapped around as did mine, both of our gazes tracking the walls and ceiling of the hallway as they too began to flicker and wave. For a few moments it was brief and alternating, but as the seconds ticked by the entirety of the hallway began to blink in and out as what seemed like the very fabric of the reality was giving out.

Then it stopped.

As if the whole place just reset itself, the flickering and wavering stopped completely. Yet it left us with a very different scene than we had started with. Instead of the seemingly endless hallway capped off with a dead end, we were back at square one of the building. Behind us was the open cavern that we had just exited; yet, when both of us looked back to the hallway that we had thought we travelled, we were left with a different sight.

Stairs.

I groaned out in mock pain at having been fooled for so long, and at having to face that which this world oh so loved. It was as if the building itself was playing on my fears and hatred. Or perhaps this was just pure luck as it had intended to trick us with an endless hallway instead of stairs.

“I swear if this is endless too,” I muttered.

With a begrudging sigh I started my trek up the stairs in front of me, but was thankful that I could actually see the second level that they ascended to. So it was but a few seconds worth of climbing before I found myself on a level that was different from the entirety of the previous building. 

For on the second floor there was remnants of ancient furniture and decorations. Tapestries of random designs, that had almost completely lost their luster, hung from the walls, somehow lacking the dust that the rest of the building was coated in. Chairs and tables somehow managed to scratch by with only a thin film of dust; not a single one of the wooden pieces had so much as chip out of place.

I shuddered slightly as I remembered more than a few moments from my adventures to the surface, to the dead city. Despite the empty and ruined buildings, I would often find rooms that had all of their furniture still intact. So my mind slowly connected the dots and brought the whole picture of this place’s fate into view. Whatever happened to this city, it was done in a flash, in only a handful of moments. There was a chance that whenever this city fell, it was done by this world’s version of a nuclear war.

Though there wasn’t enough evidence to suggest such a thing to anyone but myself. For all I know this could have been some sort of freak accident, or an act of nature. It was impossible to tell but from the looks of this place, there was a small chance that amongst the dust here, there were also ashes.

I tapped my hand against my head as if to remind myself to get on track. To think such an idea was possible would be ludicrous, but I was not here to find the cause for Alfasia sinking into the ground and somehow being covered over by magic. I was here to find how the hell this linked to me being dragged to this damnable place, and how it would bring me back home. 

“Right, I’m officially creeped the buck out,” Shining spoke up from behind me as we moved down the hallway slowly, keeping away from any side doors. “First the unnatural magic of that room and the skylight. Then the endless hallway … now we have furniture from nearly a thousand years ago, untouched when it should have rotted away. This place is wrong.”

“Да,” I simply replied before looking around the hallway’s corner. Nothing. I slowly moved around it, Shining still a few steps behind me. “Not the worst place yet.”

“Not the worst place? Not?! How could this not be the worst place you’ve been to?” He asked incredulously. I swore he was there when I told them the basics about my home. Though I didn’t explain as much to the large group as I did to the purple mare. So I could forgive him for not remembering.

“Back home, the city above us is ruins,” I said as I slowly flipped sides so to give a door on my previous side a wide enough berth. “The bombs that turned it to ruins happened fast. Faster than many could move. When the fires were gone, everything was left silent and dead. I have seen the ruins … the souls of dead still stay there.”

I looked back at Shining briefly whose ears were laying flat on top of his head. I can only assume that he was a little disturbed by hearing that the very souls of others were trapped. I can only guess that was the cause for the ear thing though. I turned my head back, looking down the hallway which took another turn up ahead. We were getting no answers by following the given path; there had to be something in one of these rooms that would shine some light on anything.

I used my Saiga to point to the next door that we were approaching. Thankfully Shining was military and knew how to stack up on a door before breaching it. He moved beside it, on the left side of the door. I gently tugged the handle, seeing if it would move. Unfortunately the answer was no as the hinges seemed to be stuck, but by being able to move it inwards I could tell we weren’t going to open up a room full of dust or dirt.

I looked to Shining who nodded his head back at me before I kicked at the door. Unfortunately it would not budge, the solid stone having moved only a small bit but hardly enough to open it.

“Let me do it,” Shining said as he moved in front of it and I switched to where he was previously standing. The unicorn turned around, much to my confusion, before his horn lit up and he reared forward. Without so much as pause, he proceeded to slam his back hooves into the door with what could have been the force of multiple grenades.

Without as much as whine, the hinges and the door shattered inward, the stone itself crumbling much to Shining’s amusement and my shock. I looked at him one last time before moving into the room; I was glad I didn’t have to be on the other side of that kick or I’m sure my body would have turned to mush.

I moved into the room with my Saiga drawn, my head turning this way and that to try and shine as much light as possible before Shining moved in behind me and lit up the room with a spell of his. Despite the cheating capacity of a unicorn, they were invaluable.

The light revealed very little in fact as the room itself was nothing more than an extremely dusty bedroom. A rather simple wooden bed across the room was perpendicular to the door, a small table and a single chair to my right, then finally two small dressers and a bookshelf on the right side of the room. Whoever lived in this place needed very little and lived sparsely. Still more than I had when I was growing up in the Metro.

Shining moved around to look at the sparse arrangements while I moved to the bookshelf. It was a simplistic one in design; wooden, about two and a half meters tall with seven slots for books and whatever other items the occupant would have put on it. Would have, since there was only a single shelf of books and even then it was hardly even a third full.

I brushed off the dust on the spines of the books as I counted them. Eight books in total, with not a single one looking like anything out of the ordinary, just simple books of an age long forgotten. I moved my hand to grasp the top one but hesitated as I held the spine.

A part of me wanted to say that once I opened it I would find nothing of usefulness because it was going to be in a language I couldn’t even understand. Yet another part of me said that the moment I opened it I would be sucked into another one of those dreams where I couldn’t move or do shit. Lastly, there a small part that said the words would acknowledge me actually reading it.

Oh the burden of being the target of beings or magic that was unknown.

Still, I relented and pulled the book from the shelf and into my hands, slowly brushing the dust off the cover to reveal what the first part of me thought. A language I couldn’t understand for all it looked like was a bunch of chicken scratch; at least it proved that this place had some semblance of normal at some point.

Yet my curiosity got the better of me and I opened the book to see if my minor fears would come true and I would be able to read the words. Yet the first few pages I flipped through just seemed to look like a continuation of the chicken scratch, so I closed the book and put it back onto the shelf.

I turned around to find Shining inspecting the bed, his horn alight with something other than the light spell. I could tell because the bed itself was encased in the same aura as his magic. Perhaps he found something or perhaps his nerves were getting to him and he was being paranoid. Neither was a bad thing, as one could lead us forward and the other could potentially save our lives.

“Find something?” I asked as I moved towards him, the aura around the bed slowly dissipating before he turned around to me. 

“No, it seems like it was just a simple bedroom,” Shining said before glancing at the bookshelf. “Anything over there?”

“Do not know. Couldn’t read writing,” I said with a shrug but that didn’t stop the armoured unicorn as he marched to the bookshelf and pulled down the first book, the same one I dusted off. I simply rolled my eyes before grabbing the sole chair and pulling it out enough for me to sit upon.

I sat down to relaxed as Shining looked at his book which should have taken only a little time, but I figured he saw something of importance and was just caught up in trying to understand. So I decided that I should probably just do a once over of my gear and take stock of my ammo.

Following a quick count I was full up on ammo, with eight VSV magazines, three full drums of Saiga with one partially used, and sixty rounds of revolver rounds. I was sitting pretty decent but I knew I still had to ration my rounds or else I would be running out sooner rather than later. 

It was after my little inventory check that I noticed that Shining was still looking down at the book, not having done anything except keep it floating in his aura. I scrambled out of my chair, my mind jumping to the conclusion that something horrible was happening to him, and threw him away from the book he was reading, the thing dropping to the ground.

Then my fear was confirmed as the book suddenly lit on fire without any reason before becoming nothing more than ash. I swung my head over to look at Shining who had somehow been upended to the point where his head was on the floor, his back flat against the wall and his back hooves dangling over the top of him.

His eyes were contracting and dilating, in what looked like an attempt to try and see what the hell had happened. I sighed as I walked over to him before grabbing him around his chest and hauling him to his hooves, which wobbled slightly as he struggled to keep his legs from completely giving out from underneath him.

“You alright?” I asked as I knelt in front of him.

“Y-yeah,” he mumbled before shaking his head a few times, probably in hope of clearing his vision. “That book … it pulled me back in time! I saw this place when it was above ground! There were so many species here; from dragons to ponies. And something else, but I can’t place what …”

“Like what I saw,” I replied which earned a confused look. “Back in your castle. I saw many things of the past. They lead me to here.”

Shining sat down on his haunches as he seemed to think about that for a few moments, most likely trying to find a way to understand what he saw and how it tied to everything here. After a few moments of contemplating in that typical position of hoof under the chin, he finally stood back up. “I saw a massive building amongst the town, one that all manners of species flocked to each day. It was in a courtyard … I think … I think that’s where we need to head.”

I peered at the pile of ashes that used to be the book before looking back out the door we had entered through, then finally to Shining. I sighed before nodding my head in agreement. I had no clue as to where we were supposed to go, so at the very least we now had some sort of direction. What I didn’t like was being left out of such a revelation as what he was shown.

Call it jealousy but whatever he had been shown could have very well held important information for me to use in order to get home. Now I would never know and there was a high chance that Shining would never divulge the information. I could only wonder as to why the book had given him the info yet when I had searched through it there was nothing.

Shining trotted towards the door, his horn alight with his typical light spell, his Kalash floating beside him in a nice show of multi-tasking. I would have spoken up about leading the little expedition but I decided that with his new insight, Shining knew better as to where we were going. So I just tailed behind him, Saiga still at the ready, all the while contemplating what the fuck was going on in these ruins. Everything that we’d seen had looked to be set up.

First the room that almost pulled me back in time; no doubt in the flurry of everything there was some important information that had been lost on me. Then came the insight about the cavern itself being sealed through some odd magic, a cavern that just happened to be right in the direction we were going. Of course, then there were the creepy words and hallway which once again happened to be in our path. Finally, there was the book in the only room we opened.

There was something else at work in these ruins, I just knew it, yet there was nothing that I could definitively prove.

I focused on the armoured unicorn in front of me, his steps more careful and cautious than before. He was starting to learn the very basics to walking these old ruins, such as how you never knew when something would come jumping forward. Perhaps I had been a little too hard on probably my only friend in this world.

Of course, then I remembered the whole little ‘knock unconscious so they could transport me onto the ship’ part and reasoned that I still had full rights to be ticked off at him. Not to mention he was still probably keeping track of our movements for those bitches back in their pretty little castle. Not the pink one though … she was decent enough.

Shining came to a stop in front of a four way intersection, looking this way and that as to determine which way we should proceed. He was guiding this operation now, so I kept quiet while he stared at each direction as if expecting a magical arrow to appear out of nowhere and tell him that this one direction was the way he wanted to go. 

He sighed for a second before sitting his ass back on the ground, his horn glowing a little brighter before a soft pulse went off, the magic disappearing down each of the dark corridors. I wanted to rub the bridge of my nose but my helmet got in the way; he had a fucking direction spell?

Before I could voice my annoyance at him just using that now, the magic rushed back to him, seemingly disappearing inside of him. He raised his head before looking at the directions once again. “Celestia dammit … the spell didn’t work.”

“So we are lost?” I asked as I leaned against the wall of the hallway we had come from. He looked at the three choices again before relenting with a sigh and nodding. I pushed myself from the wall before moving to where Shining was standing. His spell might have faltered but I had a decent way of knowing which way to go.

I pulled off my mask and stood in the center of the intersection. Many years of surviving in the Metro taught you a few things, one of them was that air always trickled into places no matter what. You’d think a place was secure but in reality it was being fed air from another area but in small doses. Finding that source of air teaches you which way not to go, especially if you don’t have a mask on you.

Now in a world where the air that is touched by plant life can kill you, you go the direction that is most likely going to cause you complications.

So I chose a direction at random, the one to our left, and decided that we’d start there. “Stay here, and keep your horn going. I will be back quickly.”

He was puzzled but I walked off before he could respond immediately. Though, I did hear him shouting stuff; I didn’t really care since I was more focused on feeling the changes in the air. After about thirty meters and one turn, the air stayed the same and was breathable. I sighed before turning back around, quickly making my way to the intersection where Shining was pacing around.

He must not have seen me come back down the hallway, because only as I was making my way down the next path did he say something. Once again, I tuned him out,  directing my focus on the air itself. Though again, it was a dead end and I returned. 

I put my helmet back on and pointed down the final path. “This is the way.”

“How could you even know that?” Shining asked, the look on his face telling me that he was having a hard time accepting that his magic wasn’t as good as my instincts. 

“Your air hurts me. Those ways didn’t. Simple,” I said with a smug grin before gesturing for him to lead us down the hallway since he wanted to take point. He looked at me for a few seconds before relenting and heading down the path. 

With only a dozen or so meters walked, I felt the tightness in my chest from this world’s regular air, and quickly put in a fresh filter, tossing the old one into my little satchel for old filters. I would get my chance to rub the fact that I found the way in Shining’s face later, I didn’t need to bring it up right then and there.

I’ll be the first to admit that I completely got lucky with my selection because there was a good chance that all three hallways would have some sort of airflow that would give me false positives. If that had happened, then we could have truly been lost and most likely at the whims of the blasted ruins.

Still, I wouldn’t turn away to the luck I had been getting. As much as I despised it at times, especially in the Metro, over here it had been more of a boon than a burden. Who knows how long I would have lasted if things didn’t go the right way, but isn’t that how it always was? At the time it seems like lady luck hates you, then when looking back, it was a blessing in disguise.

After walking carefully down the hallway that took a left turn before a sudden right, we found ourselves in what looked like an entrance room. It was much akin to the first room we had been in; the same style of pillars on the sides of the room, holding up a tall roof while straight across was a door. Though in this case, said door was a double set and much larger than any other one we had seen up to this point. Almost like one of those massive gates in D6, but this time I was on the outside.

I was hesitant to walk through this room, and I could easily blame that on the ruins. Yet I wasn’t getting the typical feeling of looming doom that normally makes itself known. Only now was I starting to realise I could almost feel when something bad was going to happen, and yet this was not one of those moments; but I still didn’t want to chance it.

“Don’t know if we should open the door,” I said to Shining as we slowly walked to it, his Kalash floating beside him while I had my Saiga lowered to my side. I reached out to touch the dusty wall, shifting a little bit of said dust away with a simple brush of my hand. This place was far dirtier than the Metro, but it probably had centuries compared to my home.

“Same, but I can feel that is where we have to go,” Shining replied as he looked up to me, our gazes meeting for a moment. “I can feel it tugging at the back of my mind, trying to make me go forward through it.”

“Spooky,” was all I replied before hauling my Saiga up and removing the drum magazine for a brief inspection. I ejected the loaded shell before popping it back into the drum and slamming the magazine back into place. One pulled bolt later and I was ready to face whatever was on the other side of the doors.

I let my Saiga fall and dangle via its leather strap before pushing my weight into the massive door, Shining doing the exact same right beside me though with his shoulder. Why he didn’t use his magic was beyond me but I didn’t care too much. With enough pushing, we eventually set the doors in motion, the hinges somehow working well enough to use our meager force to swing the doors open. I stopped my pushing quickly and drew my Saiga back up.

The moment the doors opened up, they revealed another open cave, but this one … this one was far greater than any of the previous ones I had ever seen in my life. And trust me when I say that many of the places I had seen back home were vast expanses for what they were.

This cavern had to extend for at least a kilometer or two ahead of me, while maybe one kilometer across just from the briefest looks and guessing. It felt like you could fit the whole town of Usaaly into the place easy enough, and then some. Now despite the size, it wasn’t the most shocking part.

I had thought that I would find a few ruined houses at best amongst this place, but what I was seeing now was proving to be the opposite. I was looking at an entire city standing before me, the structures of houses and other buildings standing tall in this massive place. Of course, I was once again getting the feeling that this place was unnatural in every way possible; though what I was seeing all but confirmed just that.

There was no possible way that the cavern had somehow naturally formed over most of the city, thus leaving it intact and unharmed for the most part by the ages. Whatever had done this to the place really wanted to keep it alive for a specific purpose. Yet that thought just brought on more questions and not enough answers, which was what I really needed.

One of my top priority questions was how the hell was there enough light in this cavern for me to be able to see the entirety of it when this time there was no sunroof?

“This is incredible! An entire underground city, hardly touched by time! Oh, Twily would have a field day in here!” Shining said with awe as he stepped out of the doorframe and onto the stone steps, his hooves still making no noise. Whatever he had done to them was still in effect.

“So would Khan,” I muttered as I too moved from the door. 

I wanted to gaze around and see the entire town for it was a marvel in itself but my attention was immediately drawn towards a sole building that stood above the rest. I had seen a building like it back in Moscow. A single steeple church-type building, but this one took that design and turned it up to ten as the steeple was much larger in design and reached all the way to the top of the cavern, just barely avoiding scraping the ceiling.

That had to be it; that had to be the building Shining had seen. If it wasn’t, then this whole place could fucking burn to the ground for all I cared.

I had lived underground my entire life and here I was wanting to get as far away, from such an area, as possible before finding a way to blow it all to pieces. I missed the deadly tunnels of the Metro compared to these massive caverns, at least in those your enemies could only get you from a couple of directions, not every single one. 

“That’s the building,” Shining said as he pointed a hoof at the church. I was not only thankful that it was the correct one from his vision, but also that it was relatively straight ahead of us, despite a few buildings being in the way.

“I saw,” I replied before stepping forward, down the rather large set of steps that led up to the door we had just come from. I was smirking behind my mask for once again I was going in the prefered direction when using stairs. The easier direction.

I took a glance down at the landing and noticed the oddest thing about this place. Yes, even odder than an entire intact town beneath ground. The entire road was cobblestone, and yet completely flat. In the back of my mind, I was screaming at myself that this was the first sign that I should get the fuck out of there even faster than I planned. For some odd reason the ground itself was the last straw that broke the nosalis’ back in terms of how messed up this place was.

Yet I didn’t listen to my instincts, knowing full well that if I gave in, I was stuck. On the flip side, the moment my foot hit the cobblestone ground we were fucked.

A massive shriek tore through the town, reverberating off the walls of the cavern as well as the buildings themselves. It was like nothing I had ever heard before, even worse that that of a Nosalis. My left leg gave out from under me, dropping me to a knee. Somehow the shrieking was not just going after my head, but my very body. 

The noise just grew as it continued, my ears feeling as though they were being split in two. No respite could be had from my hands trying to cover up what was already shielded by my helmet, but I tried my best.

Then as if someone had flicked a switch, it was over. The shriek disappeared without a trace.

I shook my head roughly to try and regain some of my lost hearing but it wasn’t helping. I stood back up, my body swaying slightly as the disorientating effects began to wear off. I looked over to Shining as he too came up from a crouch. Whatever that was, it was not a good sign.

And I hate being right in these situations.

I looked back up to the church, my eyes drawn once more to the steeple. Then I saw it … or rather them. Falling from the ceiling behind the church was a black mass that I could only tell was individual beings by the minor separations.

As one the mass descended down from the roof, flowing smoothly over the contours of the church and the surrounding buildings as if it was water running over rocks. Unhindered were they by the few things that stood in their path, which was leading right towards us. 

“Shining! Shield!” I yelled over the ringing in my ears, hoping that Shining would be able to hear or at the very least was already realising the situation.

It only took the black swarm a couple of seconds to reach us but thankfully they slammed straight into a pink barrier that had been erected around us. Well, not exactly slammed, more like flowed around us as whatever they were realised that the barrier was not letting them through.

I brought my weapon up but slowly lowered it shortly after as I watched the swarm move. Whatever they were, they were fucking faster than I could trace and they were determined as hell to get to us as all we could see in front of us and behind us was the black swarm. They were enclosing us … making it impossible for us to see where we were going; they were intelligent.

If I had money to bet, I would say that they were gonna keep this up until Shining’s shield dropped from exhaustion. Once down they most likely would either suffocate us or shred us down to bones. I didn’t really like either options, honestly.

“How long can you hold shield?” I asked Shining while trying to examine the black swarm closer but their movement was still too fast for me to get a good glimpse of their appearance. 

“A long time,” he grunted out. I didn’t believe him one bit with the way he was talking but I had to trust that he wouldn’t be an idiot enough to doom us to save his pride.

“Can you do it while moving forward?” To that Shining looked at me with the type of expression that told me I’d asked a stupid question. Good, at least he wasn’t overexerting himself too much. 

I motioned to him to lead the way forward since it was his shield that was keeping us alive, but he simply just pointed back at our way forward. I looked ahead, saw complete black and then looked back to him and nodded once more. He gave me a dull look in response all the while continuing to hold his hoof up to point.

As much as I like silent conversations, I had to give him his point. If we couldn’t see where we were going, we couldn’t make it. It wasn’t a straight shot to the church after all. So my mind was torn on how to proceed. Either we walk blind forward or I could waste ammo in an attempt to thin the swarm if that was even possible. Finally the third option was that we could mix both of them, hope for them to thin briefly enough to allow us sight on where to go.

“Can you cast other spells?” I asked Shining who looked to be straining a little. I didn’t want to chance it but I was hoping that he could thin the swarm better than I could.

“Yeah … I should be able to cast something, why?” he asked, the strain a little more evident in his voice. Most likely it was the lack of rest that was starting to wear on him.

“We move forward as best as possible, then try to punch hole in these things. Find our direction then move again,” I said in a whisper that I was sure Shining could hear. I was hoping that these things couldn’t understand us but I didn’t want to take that chance one bit. “Only use when I tell.”

He nodded slowly before looking ahead of us, probably preparing to move forward. It was easier for me since I didn’t actually have to move the barrier with us. I just had to walk around, the only good thing to not having such magic I guess.

Then a thought hit me. “Can I fire through shield?”

Once more he gave me that look that said I was asking a stupid question. Well at least I had clarification before I decided to shoot. So I raised my Saiga up to my shoulder, not needing to aim down the sights to clear a brief path hopefully. With two quick pulls, the Saiga bucked backwards into my shoulder, releasing its deadly spread of pellets into the black swarm.

For maybe a second I could see our path forward. We had maybe a hundred meters of forward movement before an intersection. Yet that second passed all too quickly as the black swarm swallowed the open area once more. I signalled to Shining to move forward, to which he only nodded in response and began to trudge forward, the shield following us. For a moment I was hoping that as we moved I would get to see the dead body of whatever these things were, but there was nothing on the ground as we continued forward.

Now I was starting to get worried as to what the hell we were dealing with, but it seemed that it was easily enough to deal with.

Each meter we moved forward felt like we were wading through water but at the very least we were safe. Unfortunately we were also coming up to the intersection, which meant that we had to hope and guess that whichever way we moved forward was the proper way. If we went the wrong way, I could only imagine how long it would be till we were overrun. 

As we neared the building that was creating the intersection I noticed something that showed luck was on our side. The black swarm was staying away from the building, most likely since it couldn’t keep moving around us when there was a wall in the way. Shining saw this as well and moved the shield so that the building itself was acting as a portion of it. 

I glanced over to the white unicorn and could visibly see the strain being lessened. Things were starting to swing our way, but I refused to believe that we were even close to being in the clear.

At first I was gonna suggest that we both fire out shots in order to gauge which way to go, but with this building helping us, the best method was to just follow the contour of it one way then take the shot. I still had a fair amount of Saiga rounds left so I would spare Shining some of his magic and do my part. 

“Hug the wall, around corner I’ll shoot,” I told him, the plan not able to get any simpler.

“Right, let’s hope that the first way is the right way,” he replied in a mutter. And thus we continued our slow trek.

The things somehow managed to keep up their pattern around the corner and despite us using the building as half of the shield. When we rounded the corner, I drew up my Saiga once more and fired two more shots forward into the black swarm, opening up the way again for the briefest of moments. From the look I got, this was the right direction as it went forward and took a left turn.

“This way,” I said to Shining as we once again proceeded forward, still hugging the building for as long as possible.

The only obstacle we faced as we made our way along the sides of the buildings was the minor gap between them. Shining had to focus hard on extending his shield back towards the ground as they slowly creeped from the building’s wall. Yet he got his reprieve once more as we approached the next building that we could hug. 

Meanwhile, the black swarm did nothing more than continuously harass our vision. As we got more used to everything, we started to pick up the pace from a slow walk to a surprisingly brisk one which sped up our timeframe for arriving at the church-like building.

Despite rounding the left hand turn, I didn’t take a shot immediately. I had a feeling that we had just entered a small square of sorts and that the church was on the other side. Call it instinct from having to deal with such places before, but I could almost feel the change from a street to an open area. So instead we walked forward a little more before I asked for him to stop.

“Can you cast another spell and keep the shield?” I asked, looking at him with a glare, hoping to force him to be completely honest. He looked up with a strained grin.

“I’m not an ordinary unicorn. My wellspring is larger than most of Equestria, so trust me when I tell you that I can make it look easy,” he replied, the look on his face pretty genuine. I still wasn’t so sure of what he was telling me but I had to trust him a little bit. We wouldn’t last long if I didn’t.

“Good, cast big fire spell in that direction,” I said while sweeping my hand out in what I was hoping was the direction of the church. These creatures wouldn’t take my sense of direction so easily. He nodded in response before closing his eyes for a brief moment. When they opened again, his horn glowed all that much brighter before it launched a sweeping fire spell.

I didn’t really see much more than the glowing horn as I focused on the direction of where his spell would be but I could feel the area get brighter. As for the fire spell itself, it provided a much needed larger gap from the swarm before they closed it up again. But I didn’t need much more than that to see that we were indeed an entire square away from being at the steps of the church.

“One last push, then we are there,” I said to Shining.

“How will we get inside without those things following us?” Shining thought for a moment before his eyes lit up. It seemed he found the solution to his own question. “At the door, I will pour as much magic as I can into the shield, pushing it outwards. Then we’ll duck inside quickly, before sealing the doors.”

I nodded in response.

With our plan set, the rest of the trek was relatively easy, at least until we were probably halfway across the square. Without warning, the black swarm started to actually slam into the shield itself. Before they had been content to try and wait us out but it seemed like they realised that they were not going to succeed that way. 

I glanced over to Shining as the shield took multiple impacts. The strain was starting to show ever more as sweat seemed to drip from down his face and his eyes were almost fully closed in concentration. So I did the next best thing to ease the strain, aside from him stopping entirely. 

I picked him up in my arms, lifting the pony, who was more than a little heavy. I had all but carried Anna that one time, and this unicorn weighed a little more than her. Still, he didn’t resist as I moved forward with him in my arms. Each impact on the shield causing him to flinch.

The stairs to the church proved the hardest as I nearly stumbled a half a dozen times, but I continued moving upwards and forwards. Until finally my feet landed back on flat ground, the foot of the door becoming visible at the bottom of the shield. 

Just as we reached the door, the hellish shriek that we had heard before resounded amongst the cavern, my head feeling like it was splitting open from the sound. I had to set Shining down as my entire body felt like it was lit on fire. The swarm increasing their pounding on the shield just as the shriek gained volume.

I struggled to the door, barely managing to push it open and falling inside. I looked back to Shining who  was barely standing, just managing to limp his way to the door as well, his shield starting to crack from the pressure. With a final cry of defiance, his horn glowing brighter than ever, the shield exploded outward, flinging the swarm backwards. I put all of my strength into my body to haul the unicorn in by his armour before slamming the door shut behind us.

I fell backwards onto the floor in exhaustion and pain, the shriek somehow doing more damage than almost anything since I’d been here. I turned my head to look at Shining who was lying still with his eyes closed. My first instinct was that he was badly injured, but I noticed the rising and falling of his chest and breathed a sigh of relief. He must have passed out from sheer exhaustion. Hell, I was damn close to that point as well, but there was no time to rest for me. 

I stood slowly and looked around at my new surroundings. I had seen pictures of the massive churches of the Old World and now I was standing in such a church. Everything was the same, minus the missing benches.

With one more glance down to Shining, I sighed and hoped that this was the final place we had to go to. With everything that had been in our way to get here, this place had to reveal something groundbreaking in my search to go home. I wouldn’t accept anything less.