Continuing the Dream

by Blue Breeze


Reaching the End

Author's Note: Here it is, you guys! The final chapter with Tartarus! Woot! We finally made it through! It's been a long journey, but I think it's also been quite fun. Okay, now on with finishing this up once and for all.

...I honestly don't know what you expect me to say here at this point. I mean, you all know what's going on. Right now we're resting on the fourth circle while we climb all the way back up out of Tartarus. That's really it. It's boring in all honesty. And this place is supposed to be the ultimate evil.

Some ultimate evil. Most evil, gruesome, and horrific place in Equestria my flank. *sigh* Whatever. I'm just glad we're almost up and out of here.

Anyway, after everypony shared their plans for the future(hehe, see what I did there?), we had all decided to take some naps. It wasn't easy to get to sleep With Alloy's constant yelling, but he eventually shut up for us to fall asleep.

After a few hours of napping, we all started to wake up. You know how we're close friends? Because we all always seem to get done doing our stuff at the same time. Isn't that convenient?

Zeph is the first to get up as he starts stretching. "Luna, sleeping on this hard ground is uncomfortable."

"Ugh, tell me about it." Drax says. There's a sudden pop from him. He grabs his back. "Oh! I think my bad back is acting up."

"I feel ya, bro." Dark agrees. "Stupid Stallord bucker throwing me against a wall like that."

"Ugh, I'd rather have back pain than this migraine I got." Rhino says, rubbing his temples with his hooves. "Feels like its right below my horn.”

"That's nothing. Try going through what I did inside my head. Ten straight days of being stabbed and cut over and over again. It was torture!" Ice says as he grabs at his head.

"That's what it was? It only took you three seconds to fall over." Vine says. "I got off pretty easy then."

"Me too." Orion says. "I may have been blind, but I wasn't hurt, and that was only temporary."

I get up and try stretching. As I stretch, I can't feel something. "Hey, where are my-" I look back to see my wings are no longer there, as they shouldn't after what happened. "Oh... right." my expression falls from the realization.

"Don't worry, Blue. I know you won't be stuck like that forever. We just need to get out of here like you said." Graze says reassuringly

"Yeah, in fact, maybe Princess Celestia could do you a favor and use her magic to give you new wings. It's definitely possible." Glare says.

(You ever have to write so many characters? Not that easy to balance 'em out while making what that say relevant and not seem just shoved in. Eh, I manage.)

"I really hope so. I can't live like this. I know I said I'd adjust, but I REALLY wanna be able to fly again."

"Well, we'll need to get out of here first before we can find out."

"Right, let's get doing. Drax?"

"What?" he asks.

I put my hooves out like a child. "Carry me."

He facehoofs before sighing. He trots over, picks me up, and puts me on his back as Rhino does the same with Graze.

Alloy sighs in relief. "I'm glad they're finally leaving me in peace."

"Love you too, Alloy. Be good now." I taunt as we leave. He growls again before yelling out in random and indescribable curses that sound like gibberish.

Bro be mad.

Since we came down here by falling down a huge cliff, we begin flying upwards, Ice using his slide and Rhino using his Res.

Rhino looks like he's not having as much fun as last time. He breathes a bit heavily as he runs up the wall. "I think the way down was a lot more enjoyable. I'm having trouble just keeping up."

"Agreed. This sucks." Ice says, also having a bit of trouble.

"Just suck it up, you two. We'll be there soon enough." I say.

"Easy for you to say. You're being carried up."

I smirk. "I know, isn't it awesome?"

They both just glare at me as we continue to fly back up. We fly up for a few minutes more before we reach back to the grossest of all the circles: Gluttony.

As we land and reach over the side, Ice goes down to the ground and kisses it. "Oh, sweet solid ground. How I've missed you." he realizes what he did and starts spitting. "Bleck!"

We all laugh a bit. "Well, ground, I was thinking about hugging you, but I see you and Ice are already in a relationship." Rhino says.

Ice wipes his mouth off with a foreleg. "Shut up."

Our little situation is interrupted as we hear muffled struggling coming from the distance. We look over to see Alala still with a vine tied around her muzzle and trapped under a fallen kraken tentacle.

"Don't bother struggling; your big mouth alone won't be able to break that vine." Vine teases.

Alala glares at her with her faded eyes. She struggles, but is pinned down with no chance of freeing herself. She tries opening her mouth to do another eardrum popping scream, but is unable to.

"What was that? I can't hear you, your mouth is shut."

"That's enough, Vine. We should really get going." I say.

"Why are you always the one to call the shots?"

"Because I'm the main character."

"Because what?"

"I said because you guys have always just let me call the shots. Now get moving! Graze is dying!"

"This isn't over, but you are right on that. We should get moving."

We ignore Alala as we walk through the mushy grounds of the circle. This place in and of itself looks a bit like the inside of a stomach. We travel up and out as we reach back to the circle of Lust a while later.

This place makes me really uneasy. Mares with giant tentacles coming out of their vaginas are now one of my new greatest fears.

Speaking of which, we walk inside the building to find Desire still tied up from Vine's vines(this sounds a bit weird to say).

"Well, glad to see our horny little captive is still here." Vine says.

"Yeah... About that, you think you guys could give me ten minutes alone with her?" Zeph says

"What?!" everypony shouts.

"Oh, that sounds good to me. I've been wanting your little friend ever since I first laid my eyes on him." Desire says.

Zeph looks slyly at Desire. "Speaking of getting laid..."

That's it. I'm not gonna take this. I lower myself off from Drax's back and get right in Zephyr's face. I give him a hard smack before shaking him by the shoulders. "What the buck is wrong with you?! You are engaged! Snap the buck out of it!"

He looks at me in a bit of fear. "Okay okay. I promise, no more."

I breathe a heavy sigh. "Good." I get back on Drax's back, trying to get back in my comfortable position. "Okay, carry on."

"Is that supposed to be another pun?" he asks, a little annoyed.

"...Maybe..."

Ignoring both Desire and my terrible puns, we walk out of the building and back into the stormy bridge area that leads into this place. We walk up the winded, suspended trail leading back up to the first and our last circle to travel: Limbo.

Glare looks at the barren area that once resembled a forest. "Wow. You guys really did a number on this place."

"Thank you. I try being thorough." I say with pride.

"Gah! It's all of you!" we hear a voice scream. We look to see it's none other than our first pain in the flank: Shadow Blade. "I cannot believe you all lived! It's not possible!" he notices a certain yellow pegasus in our group. "And Glare! I never did like you anyway!"

Glare looks at him with a scowl. He walks up to him. "I see." he rises up a simple hoof and makes light shine off of it. Shadow starts twisting in pain as the light burns him.

"GAH! YOU MOTHERBUCKER!"

"Glare, let him go. He's not worth it." Zephyr says to his old acquaintance.

Glare turns off his hoof before turning around and joining us again. We leave Shadow to just sit there as we walk through the once dense plain of land.

After a bit of walking, we came up to the original river we found upon coming in and follow it back. We follow along it for a bit before reaching back to the docks where Charon still lays motionless. Something I didn't notice before, his once glowing eye holes are now pitch black.

"Wow. He's still knocked out?" Dark says as he examines the, hopefully, living boat. "I didn't think my grenades were that deadly to a guy his size."

"Um, Dark, I think he might be dead." Rhino says.

Dark's eyes widen for a second. "Oh... oops."

"Well, now future souls that come down here are screwed." I say.

Dark waves a hoof. "Eh, that's the Grave Ponies problem. Come on, let's go"

We shrug it off as we continue on. Now the only direction to go is up. We take to the air, Glare taking Ice and Zephyr and Orion giving Rhino and Graze a little help due to the lack of walls to use to climb to where we need to go.

After some uneventful flying, well, uneventful aside from dodging some falling embers, we come up to the platform right at the gate out of this place.

We all exchange glances again. With us too weak to really help, the others set Graze and I aside as they begin pushing on the gate.

Outside of Tartarus

A patrol of royal guards are set up a good hundred yards away from the Gate of Tartarus, on the lookout for when we return.

"You know, I'm really getting sick of this waiting, Frank." One guard says to the other.

"What do you mean, Ralph?" Frank says.

"I mean, we've been stuck waiting out here for these ponies for four days. How do we know they're even still alive?"

"Don't go talking like that. The princess said she has full confidence in their abilities. Besides, you know as well as the rest of Equestria what these ponies have done."

"Yeah, I know but that doesn't mean they can do this. The Everfree Forest and a fight club are way different from Tartarus"

Just then, a noise comes from the gate as it is slowly pushed open from inside. Ralph and Frank look over at it.

Frank smirks "You were saying?"

"Oh, shut up."

From inside the gate, everypony furiously pushes to move the massive doors. The doors slowly start inching from all the force of the pushing and the momentum makes the doors easier to open as they go along.

"See? I told yeah they'd make it."

"Um, Frank, does it look like Cerberus is moving to you?" Ralph says with a twinge of fear in his voice.

Frank looks over at the giant dog and sees the heads yawn as it gets up. "Oh no."

The gates are eventually fully opened and the others go to grab us back. We take our first steps outside and take a deep breath.

"Ah, fresh air." Rhino says.

"And nice, green grass and plants." Vine says, looking around a bit.

"Move out of the way, quick!" some voices shout at us from across the way. We look to see a bunch of waving guards.

"Um, what's their deal?" Orion says in confusion.

He is answered by a loud boom from a paw hitting the ground. We look over and our eyes widen to see an angry and hungry looking Cerberus.

Well... buck my life. How did I forget about that?

Author's Note: Ah, it's another cliff-hanger. But hey, we are technically out of Tartarus now *troll face*.