By the feel of it, this had to be the longest portal gem jump ever. Sumac, his mind ablaze with a dose of zap apple tincture, began to sort through relevant data even as he felt as though he might puke at any second. He now knew how a piece of fruit in a milkshake sucked through a straw felt. Clawed hands grabbed him, which made him panic at first, but they were gentle and there to help.
Sumac looked up and saw a large, pudgy dragon looking down at him. The dragon was maybe two yardsticks tall, but Sumac, in his disoriented and panicked state, thought it looked much, much larger. There was all too much to take in; Twinkleshine’s enormous silver axe, the long distance jump with its ill effects, and a dragon. Sumac went limp and almost tossed his cookies.
“We’ve kept the site secure, Princess Twilight,” A gravel-filled, raspy voice said.
“And we’ve checked, it’s safe and secure from end to end,” another voice added. “We’ve removed any dangerous automatons. It’s amazing that they’re still functioning after all these years. Just watch out for the steam generators, those are still functioning and there are some leaks.”
“You’ve been very helpful.” Twilight somehow managed to pull herself together even as her companions were still recovering. Twilight, who hadn’t slept in a while, who was in dire need of rest, Twilight somehow managed to keep going, and going.
“Dragon Lady Ember sends her regards.”
Pebble, also held by a very helpful dragon, shook her head and tried to pull herself together. She gagged a bit, coughed, wiggled all four of her legs around, and then said, “This date has started off a bit rough.”
“Date?” Twinkleshine asked.
“Sumac and I have been on several,” Pebble replied.
“We have?” Sumac had another log added to the fire and now his brain was in danger of overheating. “I-I-I don’t recall going on a date.”
“Boys,” Pebble breathed as she pulled herself together. “This is clearly a date and Twilight and Twinkleshine are our chaperones.”
“I—” Sumac’s mouth closed and his teeth clicked together. At this point, it was better to remain silent. He couldn’t think of anything in recent memory that might be considered a date, nothing at all, but he was almost certain that Pebble would bring up their first date at some point, and without knowing what it was, Sumac knew that he was doomed.
Life just wasn’t fair sometimes.
With a somewhat rough but affectionate pat on the back, Sumac was put down on the ground once more and given a nudge to keep him upright. Twinkleshine’s glittering axe hovered in the air nearby and Twilight was looking at a cave entrance in the side of a mountain. They were all standing on a ledge, which Sumac discovered was several hundred feet up from the ground below. Terrified of heights, he backed into Twinkleshine and clung to her leg, seeking reassurance. All of a sudden, he liked Twinkleshine a whole lot, she was a fantastic pony, and her leg was really soft.
“Want an escort to the vault?” one of the dragons asked, a female by the sound of her voice.
“If you wouldn’t mind,” Twilight replied.
“Groovy. My name is Char-Lotta. You can call me Char. I am one of Dragon Lady Ember’s assistants.” Char smiled, revealing black, jagged teeth, and the aquamarine dragoness folded her wings behind her back in preparation for going underground. “Ember is thinking of sending me to Canterlot to be a diplomat because I’m pony-curious. Know any nice stallions I might be able to get a date with?”
“I’m sorry, no.” Twilight shook her head while looking bewildered, and even in her disoriented state, she acted like a polite, soft-spoken princess. “I’m sure you’ll be able to find somepony who is dragon-curious though.”
“Far out.” Char gestured at the cave entrance. “Like, let’s go spelunking. There’s some neat stuff in here that I think you’ll really dig seeing.”
The cave opened up into a passage that had been smashed into and the rubble was still strewn about. The little colt was careful to step over the rocks and he paused when he saw the pile of scrap metal on the floor. That had to be an automaton, he had read about them in a book and his enhanced intelligence put two and two together right away. The remains had been slashed and smashed into junk. He gulped as he looked at it.
Lights flickered, strange lights that burned in globes along the walls. The passage went in two directions, and the group went to the left. As he began to follow, Sumac wondered what was off to the right. On the walls, on the ceiling, conduits crackled and some leaked steam, which he was mindful of, as he did not wish to be scalded.
“The automated factory down in the bottom of this place is still running thousands of years later,” Char said as she lead the way. “The supplies ran out, it just needs some kind of liquid metal in the reservoirs, but the automated machinery is still trying to stamp out mass produced helmets, armor plates, and spearheads. It’s pretty amazing. Ember plans to study it so we can industrialise and make stuff of our own.”
“What is this place?” Twinkleshine asked.
“A place to wait out the end of the world, from what we’ve been able to gather,” Char replied as she dropped down to all fours to avoid hitting her head. “Some of the old machinery is starting to break down, there is an automated potion making machine of some sort and the steam valve broke. I think we’ll be able to fix it. There are research labs here and down in the depths there is an old orrery and planetarium that shows a big black star.”
Twilight choked and began coughing as she stumbled down the hallway.
There were more automatons on the floor and Sumac was worried that one of their shiny metal hands might try to grab his legs as he stepped over them. He stayed close to Pebble and Twinkleshine, fearful, not trusting the junk on the floor to stay still. A severed metal head with green crystal eyes stared up at him as he passed, and the little colt shivered.
“Like, Princess Twilight, there is an automaton making factory down below, it’s still running, but it like, ran out of supplies like metal, gemstones, and stuff. You might want to have a look at it sometime. Dragon Lady Ember says it still has magic to power up automatons. We fought with hundreds of those things down below and we had to slag them. They don’t taste good if you eat them.”
The group came to a halt in a four way intersection and Char went to the right. This hallway showed signs of terrible violence, the walls were blackened, there was metal junk all over the floor, and most of the lights had been shattered, which made Sumac sad. His brain was smart enough to tell him that some of these lights had burned for thousands of years, they were made to last, and recent violence had made them go dark forever. He doubted that this sort of technology existed anymore, and once it was gone, it was gone.
“My father really hates automatons,” Pebble remarked as they made their way down the hall. “I’ve heard him talking about them. He’s killed a lot of them and I know that one of them tried to choke Octavia to death once. Nopony will talk to me or tell me stories about what happened though. I’m stuck eavesdropping.”
“Pebble, your father bravely went into a very dark place, and with your mother, Octavia, and Vinyl, they put an end to a great evil. Maybe when you’re older they’ll tell you more.” Twilight had to step around a pile of bodies stacked up like cordwood and the darkened gemstone eyes held no light in them.
The hallway opened up a bit into an artificial gallery, a kind of nexus were several hallways came together. There were words written on the wall, words that Sumac could not read or understand, and arrows pointing in various directions. Jacked up on zap apple tincture, he was observant enough to notice that Twilight was staring at the signs with strange words in a strange language, and Sumac suspected that Twilight knew how to read them. It was a hunch, but it was a strong one.
Char was now walking on two legs again, and she did so with relative ease. Sumac marvelled at how she moved, her grace, her balance, the way that her tail acted as a counterbalance to allow her to remain upright. Twilight’s horn ignited, filling the vast gallery with more light, and the alicorn came to an abrupt halt.
Craning his head back, Sumac looked up to see whatever it was that had made Twilight stop with such suddenness. Above him, there was an enormous mural on the ceiling, made with thousands and thousands of tiny tiles. There was a massive centaur, black, kind of scary looking, but Sumac couldn’t say why he was scary looking. Both of his hands were held up and floating just above the palm of his right hand was an alicorn wreathed in fire, or maybe magic. Above the left hand was a black starburst shape, highly stylised, and it trailed fire as though it was coming down from the heavens.
Strange, unreadable words could be made out over the centaur’s head and in the centaur’s eyes, Sumac discovered that there were tiny versions of the alicorn and the black star. The mural on the ceiling was perhaps the greatest thing that Sumac had ever seen, and he had to sit down, as he could no longer keep standing. He felt Pebble press up against him and without thinking about it, he grabbed her fetlock with his own.
“They knew so much,” Twilight whispered, “and tried so hard to prepare.”
“What’s with the black star, Twilight?” Twinkleshine asked.
“It was an engine of corruption, like a plague-ridden body catapulted over a city wall to cause contagion during a siege,” Twilight replied in a hushed, almost reverent whisper. “It brought with it the corruption of all things… it was processed, rendered, and made into a crown for Grogar. Tarnish destroyed the crown and removed the black star from the world, but the corruption remains.”
“Right… the whole poison joke thing.” Twinkleshine grabbed both Sumac and Pebble with her foreleg and pulled them closer to her as she sat down.
“The shadow the falling star cast upon our world as it descended went bad and coalesced into a form of malignant, sentient evil.” Twilight, who had the attention of everyone present, shared a bit of what she knew. “That shadow developed its own will, of a sort, and would become the Rainbow of Darkness. I learned of this only recently. There is a lot we don’t know. And this might not even be true, but it feels true to me.”
“There is like, so much at stake.” Char’s tail coiled up around her as she too, looked overhead. “Ember is like, super worried, because she likes living and she has big plans for our future. All of this is like, such a buzzkill and she gets super-moody about it. Torch never had plans for our future… he was like, all stupid and stuff, and did whatever.”
“If Grogar wins, none of us has a future.” Twinkleshine gave both Pebble and Sumac a squeeze. “Everything we know will be smothered in darkness and die. We can’t let that happen.”
“I won’t let that happen,” Twilight said, her voice now fierce and gritty. “I gave Tirek the beatdown he deserved and Grogar will be no different. I have powerful friends now… heroes have gathered… Equestria has capable protectors. We have to win… we have to. There is just too much at stake. If we lose, the world goes dark.”
Sumac felt Pebble clinging to him and he was thankful for Twinkleshine’s embrace. Above him, the centaur no longer looked scary, not at all, but sad, as if he was perhaps uncertain about the future. In one hand, he held all of his hopes and dreams, and in the other, death and destruction, both of which were reflected in his eyes, the window to his soul.
Perhaps he was wrong, but Sumac felt as though the centaur was offering the viewer a choice; in one hand, life, in the other, death. A keen and curious notion filled his mind and he thought about the alicorns he knew, how they acted, how they were, and after thinking about this for a time, he peeled his eyes away from the mural above to have a look at Twilight, who had tears running down her cheeks. She looked so very tired and Sumac felt bad for her.
“We have to keep fighting until we win,” Twilight whispered as the light from her horn dimmed.