//------------------------------// // 37. Dungeon (Battle of the Crystal Empire Part 4) // Story: The Red Sun Rises: Homefront // by The Atlantean //------------------------------// Sombra’s guards escorted Princess Twilight back down from the top of the castle. She now stood still while he circled her. He came close; enough for a brush against her coat, but she growled in response and he backed off slightly. “Have you come to a decision, Princess? Celestia’s Sun has reached the apex of its skyward journey.” “Yes. I-” She glanced at Luna, who’d been confined to a cage by the wall- “I will not accept your offer. As tempting as it may be, it will only delay the inevitable and cause the deaths of more ponies than need die today.” It was Sombra’s turn to growl. This was not out of personal space issues, but contempt for his would-be bride's stubbornness. Twilight held her ground, standing defiantly as he circled her once more. “What if I were to take the life of a young alicorn-” “You wouldn’t dare!” “And you did not allow me to finish. It is not the young Flurry Heart, whose whereabouts I do not have the knowledge of. I speak instead of a seven-year-old, one with whom I can end this war with or without your assistance. Her name is Andromeda.” “Colonel Dawn’s daughter.” “Yes, my dear, you are correct. Colonel Crimson Challenger Dawn’s young daughter is quite resistant to anything I can conceive of, except for shadow magic. If I wished, I could use shadow magic and you would be bound to obey my every order. However, even I value the right to choose on occasion.” A single messenger came racing through the great crystal doors. “My lord, General Shattered Hope has fallen in battle! Dragonspire Citadel is lost! We must retreat to the north while we are still able if we are to survive.” “And why have you left your post on the field of battle?” The King of Shadows had an icy edge to his normally calm but menacing voice. “I am just a messenger, my lord. I was ordered from the gates between Dragonspire and the city to deliver this message to you.” “Then we have little time. Guards! Bring young Andromeda to my throne. I shall await my foe here with his most precious daughter as my hostage. As for Princess Twilight, she is of no further use as of now. Put her in the dungeon.” Sombra turned to ascend his throne. Two castle guards walked to escort Twilight to the dungeon. But she had had enough. As soon as they came close, she dove to the side and smacked one in the little gap under his helmet. He gasped for air and she faced the other. Her self-defense reflexes kicked in and she whirled around, bucking him in the lower neck. She tried to run but was stopped by a levitation spell halfway across the room. “You are feisty, Princess Twilight Sparkle. Perhaps you will require me to teleport you to your cell?” Sombra asked. He cast his spell and Twilight opened her eyes to the musty dungeons below the shuddering ground where the Crystal Imperial Army desperately tried to stem the offensive. --------------------- The American Marines stepped off their boats to docks controlled by Midnight Shadow and Flintstone. Even though the humans only had conjured up two hundred fifty troops, they still outnumbered the remains of the First Manehattan. Midnight had fought his way to the docks, securing them minutes before the Americans were in effective range of the Crystal muskets. “Move it, move it! You ladies got three miles before you get to the action! Get off the goddamn boats and get a move on!” a particularly insulting Marine sergeant shouted. Controversial to most Equestrian logic, the Americans hurried, more motivated than before. They jogged west into the fray, followed by Midnight’s tired regiment. ---------------------- Forty-nine ponies in tattered blue uniforms ran through the snowflake maze of the city. The Second Coastal had abandoned their regimental flags to stand with lost comrades in favor of a more secretive approach to the castle. Dozens of barricades had popped up throughout the roadways during the battle, causing them to turn and find a way around. It was getting tiresome; the group had nearly circumnavigated half of Crystal City. “I’m done with this shit. Next barricade, we send them skyward.” Crimson fumed. The others agreed quietly. It didn’t take long to reach the next barricade. Crimson crept closer, explosives in his saddlebag. He sat behind a building. His wing delicately picked up the gunpowder-filled ball, already primed. Without a second thought, he threw it overhead and into the tiny wall of crystals, wood, and random junk. Its impact knocked a large hole in the loosely piled stuff with a loud bang and a small puff of smoke. Forty-eight ponies charged into the barricade while Crimson closed his saddlebag and slung his repeater, which he’d found after taking the city wall. One died rather quickly; the Crystal Empire still knew how to inflict casualties, even when taken by complete and utter surprise. In the end of the brief fight, the Crystal ponies here were dead. “Colonel! That building down the street looks good. We should plan our next move deeper into the city there,” a Lieutenant said. She gestured to a rather large construction about a hundred pony-lengths closer to the towering castle. By the looks of it, the place was likely to be a library. “Excellent. Regroup there. I have something I need to do,” Crimson replied, nodding towards their fallen comrade. She saluted. He returned it and knelt over the limp Earth pony’s body. Holding it in is hooves, he took a single locket from around the dead stallion’s neck. The Atlantean version of American dog tags, it let the officials back home identify those they lost. A single light kiss of gratitude, and Crimson headed to the library. The building itself wasn’t very impressive on the outside. It had the standard crystalline structure and two damn big wooden doors that were, for some reason, left wide open by his comrades. Probably so they can let me know where to go, he thought. Several windows had been shut for some time, again, for a reason that deluded itself. Then again, the raging battle less than a mile away would tell the ponies to close down everything. The inside, however unimpressive the outer shell was, had almost no words to describe it. The entire place had miraculously survived the ongoing Atlantean artillery bombardment, considering its size. At least three hundred pony-lengths of five separate floors were lined with bookshelves. The shelves were placed at least ten pony-lengths apart, connected at intervals by a bridge. There were two entire floors dedicated to fiction; a third, history; a fourth, science; with the center, ground floor being the reference section. Encyclopedias similar in size to dressers were positioned neatly side by side. It was a bookworm’s paradise. “May I help you ponies?” the old librarian mare asked. “Yes, as a matter of fact,” a Sergeant replied. “We need a map of the city.” “Reference floor, section seven, shelf thirty-nine. Hope you find what you’re looking for.” “Thanks.” The Sergeant walked to the location and cried. “She wasn’t kidding! There’s a whole tourist attraction map back here!” The rest hurried over. “Damn.” “Owe me on, Skip.” “Holy guacamole.” “And I thought our library had a big map.” “Quiet, all of you!” Crimson snapped. “Now, this is convenient. We go north through this road here, snake around the likely barricade here, and viola!” He bumped the map in his contained excitement, flipping some kind of lever. The forty-odd ponies immediately heard the whir of machinery echo throughout the building and pulled out their repeaters, fanning out to avoid getting caught in clumps. Then, below them, the floor sank into a ramp. Fifteen of Sombra’s personal guards came through silently and stood in the shadows beneath the “lower level” balcony. They sneaked up the stairs and walked right into an Atlantean who’d spontaneously decided to check that stairwell. Both sides were just as startled as the other. “Hooves up!” the Atlantean yelled. Immediately, his friends lined up to take aim at the fifteen. Surprisingly, they complied. “Up here!” Soon, all fifteen stood shaking before an entire line of forty-eight angry ponies. The ones in the guard gear were taller than the average pony, and it looked like the armor almost didn’t even fit their slim shape. One of them, the youngest by the looks of it, took off her helmet. She had an indigo mane that matched her weak, horn-blocked magic. She’d evidently used brute force to cast the levitation spell, and it was excruciatingly hard. “If you could release these horn locks, we would greatly appreciate it.” The other fourteen removed their helmets with their hooves. All had horns about as long as Celestia’s, in odd colors, with matching magic trying to unconsciously bust through the locks. They then removed the guard armor to reveal beaten, bruised backs and rope-tied wings. “I am Princess Indigo. I assisted Starswirl the Bearded train his apprentice Clover,” the youngest one said. “Might we ask an important question?” “Go ahead.” “What year is it?” ----------------------- “Let me get this straight. You all are the fifteen alicorns who lived - and died - before the Tribes of Earth ponies, Unicorns, and Pegasi? And for the last fifteen hundred to three thousand years, your souls have been trapped in the Gem? I thought they were all pulled into Sombra’s palace.” Crimson said. “We were being transferred to the dungeon. Then Indigo starts kicking and fighting, so we joined in. Storm found the secret passageway out of the place and we hurried through it,” the one who looked like a skinny roasted marshmallow said. Her name was, unsurprisingly, Smore. Indigo tried to get back up onto her tired legs and failed. One of the Atlanteans brought her a pillow. “I saw the King of Shadows. He wants your Princess Twilight in marriage. Problem is for him, she sees right through his plan to keep Equestria pinned if he gets aggressive. There’s also Luna, my old friend from when we were fillies.” She snorted. “Doubt she remembers me. It’s been sixteen hundred years.” An artillery shot whizzed over the roof, screaming its path. “Anyway, I’ve been here before, and the Crystal Empire is not how I remember it. So I need the story.” Crimson sighed. “Lieutenant Nightfall, you can do it. I have a job to do.” “Yes, sir.” Nightfall began telling how the war even started. Meanwhile, Crimson and four others headed down the stairs. Reaching the still-open trapdoor, they quickly hopped down the hole and clopped into the floor. The sound echoed for what seemed like miles. “Alright, you know what to do. Get through the tunnel, split into pairs and distract them. I go into the throne room alone. Sombra and I have some unfinished business.” “Yes, sir,” came the quiet chorus of replies. ------------------- A loud cry of terror and pain sounded through the three-pony-wide hall. Crimson and three others whirled around to see the fourth dangling from a shadow upside down. His eyes had already lulled, his pulse dead. They had only gone about halfway through the tunnel and they were already down one. Their small group huddled together for support and to suppress their fears. Crimson removed the locket and they carried on. Luckily, that seemed to be the only trap. But as they exited the tunnel into the dungeon, the pony in front was pulled to the side. The three remaining raced out and saw him impaled in a wall of spikes. His blood oozed to the floor, soaking into the dimly lit wood and spreading across the wet planks. Crimson stepped to him carefully and removed the locket. “What do we do, sir? We just lost Top Hat.” “We have no choice but to keep going.” Crimson’s mouth formed a grim line. They crouched low and near the walls. Then came the well-lit stairwell to the next level. Four guards stood watch sleepily, completely oblivious to the battle going on at the surface above them. One of them actually had his eyes closed and his head drooping. Another held a chunk of cheese in her hoof, edging it slowly towards her half-asleep face. The guards lasted less than ten seconds. As Crimson poked his head up to peek across the dungeon hall, ears still ringing from the echoing gunshots, an arrow whizzed overhead and clattered against the grey crystal wall. “I think we woke them up,” he whispered. He raised his gun to aim at the single guard this end of a sharp right turn. BAM! A few seconds later, his ears cleared enough for him to proceed. “Who are you?” a prisoner asked from her cell through the iron bars. “A really pissed-off Atlantean.” Crimson instantly replied. “Colonel Dawn?” she asked weakly. “Please - I need food. As much as the King of Shadows wants me to wed him, he forgets to feed me.” Crimson turned to look into the cell. Sure enough, a thin purple alicorn - having one’s soul in the Gem doesn’t really feed you - with a star on her flank was staring up at him. She lay in the far end of the cell, pitifully starving. “Princess Twilight Sparkle? I thought you’d be in the throne room with Sombra.” “No. He sent me down here. I honestly never thought five hours without food could do this to me. I feel like I haven’t eaten in months.” “You died, like, four months ago.” “That explains it.” Crimson nodded. He gestured to the Unicorn in the group. “Bear Trap, take care of the princess. Clockwork and I will head on to the throne room and possibly beat him.” “Yes, sir." The Pegasus Clockwork nodded. “I’ll take point, sir.” Then the two ponies were around the corner, moving to the next stairwell as quickly as possible.