//------------------------------// // Part 18: The Pony in the Dark // Story: Going Deep Under // by The Bricklayer //------------------------------// After passing through the doorway, the warning above it still weighing heavily on most, if not all of the convoy’s minds they came to a very large canyon. It was as wide as the streets in Manehatten, and quite possibly as deep, if not deeper than the Grand Canyon in Arizona. At their end of the canyon lay two pillars. Columns, really if you wanted to be accurate in your terminology. The other side of the canyon was exactly the same in design, with another door at the end. Nimbus let out a low whistle as the convoy ground to a halt at the sheer size and depth of the canyon. “By Tartarus…” Powder muttered as her sister crossed herself. In the background behind them, a supply truck driver peered out from his seat and rubbed his glasses with a soft cloth to make sure he wasn’t seeing things. “Ain’t getting across there, not easily at least.” Lightning commented. Twilight meanwhile, was focused on something else, namely the columns. “W-Will you just look at the size of these?” Twilight said excitedly, grabbing onto her Uncle’s foreleg and pointing at the objects in question. “It's gotta be half a mile high, at least. It must have taken hundred — no, thousands of years to carve these things,” she whispered in awe, and quickly took out a notebook and began jotting everything she could about it, from the design to the hieroglyphs down in it. Nimbus on the other hoof was focused on more important matters. “That’s one long fall… One wrong step, that’d be the end of you mates.” Nimbus muttered. “Like we didn’t need enough fuel for nightmares on this journey already…” Fuse muttered to herself. “What, you trying to make us acrophobic as well?” “A-Acro what?” High Wind asked in bewilderment, scratching his head with one of his paws. A couple of the crew stared at the snow white furred griffon. “Acrophobic, it means somepony has an extreme or irrational fear of heights,” Twilight said, almost as if she were quoting something from a medical journal. Probably was, really. “Ir-Irrational?” High Wind stuttered out, quite offended. “It’s not irrational! You’ve seen how deep that damn thing is! You peer down it and call me irrational!” “You’re deflecting,” Sudoku commented simply. Now High Wind looked really confused. In unison, Sudoku and Nimbus slapped their hooves to their faces. “Do you ever read, actually, strike that,” Nimbus asked sarcastically looking skywards as if to ask why oh why he put up with some of these idiots. “Have you even touched a book in your life?” “Well, somepony gave him what was practically a porn novel to help him through his marriage issues.” Riptalon cackled. Sudoku blushed quite red at the reminder and was trying to look at anything but High Wind himself. It seemed that little incident had made its way through the grapevine as it were. “What happened to Doctor and Patient Confidentiality?” He wondered to himself. “Has to be the guy’s wife, she never could keep a secret for the life of her.” “Yeah, and that worked out oh so well,” Lightning snarked. “Snowball over there probably only got hitched because his wife loved his penis. Probably regretting that choice now, eh?” “Oh shut up…” said “Snowball” muttered to himself, but it was useless as the crew around him erupted into laughter at Lightning’s remark. Well, most of them did anyways. Twilight on the other hoof blushed while everyone’s favorite resident unicorn mechanic muttered “Perverted gossip mongering idiots.” among other less nicer things. “Suppose we could all fly across,” Lightning theorized before she smirked. “That is unless Mr. Scared of Heights here but denies it profusely isn’t willing…” A few chuckles ran amongst the group at that remark. Twilight coughed nervously and pointed to her, Silver Spanner, Grape, and Fancy. Then she pointed to the various convoy vehicles which were in no way suited for flying in any sense of the word. “...Right, ignore everything I just said.” Lightning muttered, her cheeks flushing red in embarrassment. At about that moment, rocks fell down a nearby hill and everyone pointed their weapons in that direction. A shadowy figure with a pony like form, carrying a tall wooden staff with a glowing blue tip and piercing sapphire blue eyes was gazing in their direction. Nimbus pulled out a flashlight and shone it in the direction of the figure. He was revealed to be a pure white unicorn stallion, with a mane covered in varying shades of blue. “Halt, sir! I beseech you to halt!” Nimbus bellowed out as his order. The figure ignored him and scampered away into the darker corners of the hillsides. “Okay, only chance and he gave it up,” Nimbus muttered to himself before shouting “Men, you know what to do!” “Wait wait, he might be able to help us out!” Twilight shouted out over the din. “Or he might be a threat, can’t take any chances down here. One thing I've learned lass; if you don't draw first, sometimes you don't get to draw at all,” Nimbus commented, looking directly at the figure and not at her which showed how much he valued Twilight’s opinion at that moment.  “Alright, light him up!” He shouted. Battle Saddles wound up and unleashed a flurry of bullets sparks flying off the rocks before the figure’s staff glowed a bright blue. A flash lit up the area creating a moment of temporary blindness for everyone. “Celestia dammit,” Nimbus muttered to himself once the bright blue flash cleared before he shouted “Can’t you morons do anything right? Just hit a target, that’s all I bloody well ask of you!” as he turned to his men, who all took a step or two back at the sheer rage shown on Nimbus’s face. “...Yeesh, and they call me a quick-tempered one.” Lightning thought to herself and laughed nervously when she realized she’d said that aloud with everypony staring at her. “Great, you might have scared off a pony who might have been able to get us another way around this gap,” Twilight snapped. “Or worse, he might have gone on ahead to alert any other sentries to our presence. If they didn’t know we were coming before, they do now…” “Oh please, we can handle them,” Nimbus said dismissively. “Why should I be bothered, or worried, about them? For all we know, your theory may be wrong and that’s just a lone pony who somehow made his way down here, same as us.” In his heart though, he didn’t believe a word of what he was saying. Twilight might have somehow suspected that as well, as she asked “Oh, really?” and raised an eyebrow. “Right, and pigs will start flying and Celestia herself will come down from the skies to bless everypony and turn us all into Alicorns,” Nimbus thought sarcastically. “Much as I hate to admit it, girl’s got a point. That may not be the last we see of that stallion, and who knows what lies ahead… What’s that old quote? Oh yes, here be dragons.” “Alright everypony, simmer down,” Fancy stated, no, ordered as he checked his pocket watch. “We’ll make camp here tonight, and tomorrow morning we’ll think up a solution to our problem at hoof.” “Sounds good to me, I got some us s'mores that are just ripe for the cooking,” Grape stated, rubbing his hooves together gleefully. Behind him, Spent began sharpening some knives in a rather scary looking manner, blade grinding against blade creating sparks. “Good old southern style cooking, that’s what you all need.” “Joy.” Nimbus muttered. Later that night, or what Twilight assumed to be nighttime as she’d long lost track of the switches between day and night long weeks ago, the group made camp. Cooking around a campfire was a variation of different types of fish for the pegasi and Griffons amongst the convoy (As both species were half bird, so it was a required dietary supplement) along with fried hay and some s’mores, as Grape had promised. As it had turned out, among other things, Spent was a rather good cook. “Seriously Spent, despite your many moral failings, you could make a living off of this.” Lightning complimented as she bit into a Gray Triggerfish (Balistes capriscus in its Latin naming) on a stick. “Gee, thanks,” Spent commented dryly, not missing Lightning’s snideness towards him. “She’s not kidding, this stuff is great!” Powder put in. “Where’d you learn to cook like this?” “Ah, a guy on a previous sea expedition taught me when he had the spare time,” Spent remarked as he sizzled some Yellowfin Tuna (Thunnus albacares) over the fire. "Despite him being of the mind that the only real food you needed was baked beans, the guy was a real artiste when it came to good food.” “So, what next, should we tell ghost stories?” Twilight asked cheerfully. Night Glider had to stifle a giggle at that. She had to admit even if only to herself, Twilight could be rather adorkable at times, and this was one of those moments. “Oh, if we're going to tell ghost stories,” Fuse put in, and Powder smirked, knowing exactly where her sister was going. “Then I've got a real good one! Comes directly from my home town, Neigh Orleans.” “Go on, share it with us.” Spent said, somewhat intrigued. “Righty-O, ya asked for it. But don't say I didn't warn you… This one’s a real hoof-biter!” Fuse began, the red and orange flames illuminating her face as she gave off a rather ghoulish grin. “It was late one night, about 1912 if I remember correctly. Moon was full and a train full of iron ore from Oklahoma was trundling down the lines heading south bound down towards the coasts. The conductor, he was a real womanizing sort. Very lucky with the mares. Nopony knew how he exactly did it, but he always managed to invite a mare or two onto his train. Anyways, as he was approaching a station late that night, he noticed a mare. There she was, standing on the platform all alone. She’d been waiting all day and night in the sweltering heat for a train ride all the way to the coasts lantern in hoof. Now, as it happened, the conductor took pity on her, don't ask me why, and invited her onboard. Now, I admit the train wasn't the most romantic of spots but like always, the mare fell in love with the conductor. Now, when she learned of the conductor’s past history, she got real mad. Righteous, Celestia-given fury possessed her and they fought. Fought so hard in fact, conductor forgot about his duties. The train picked up speed and missed a junction. End of the line was coming up fast. The brakes were slammed on hard, wheels screeched against the rails but it was too late for them. The train smashed into the barrier at the end of the line and rocketed off the rails into a swamp full of alligators. The whole hulking mess sunk to the bottom of the bog, taking both the mare and the conductor with it Celestia bless both their souls. Now they say, and this is just a rumor really so make of it what you will, but that mare, she sometimes still appears on lonely station platforms late some nights when the moon is full and the mist just right. Now, whatever you do, never invite her on board your train otherwise you'll go the same way that poor conductor did.” By the end of Fuse’s little tail, Twilight was shivering, and not from the coldness of the cavern or the wind whipping up from the canyon. “That’s… That’s awful!” Twilight whispered nervously. “Like I said, I did warn ya,” Fuse shrugged. “Seems like something out of a sorry knock-off of a Forelock Holmes novel if you're asking me,” Fancy remarked, voicing his opinion. “Loads of old tosh.” “Believe what you want, but that mare is real. I swear by it.” Fuse stated as her final words on the subject. To get her mind off the ghastly tale she’d been told, Twilight’s eyes roamed to Nimbus, who was sitting away from everyone else and drinking a cup of coffee. “What’s his story?” She wondered aloud. Spent leaned over to her. “Now, I don't know all of it, but I do know this,” He began. “Poor guy has a rather sordid past. The fact that he was once part of the Pinkertons and thrown out for “Excessive Behavior”, says quite a bit really.” “The Pinkertons?” Twilight asked in surprise, wracking her brain in an attempt to remember where she’d heard that particular name before. “Weren't they the guys sent to break up worker’s strikes?” “That’s one way of putting it,” Spent said delicately. “Least, the nice way. Trust me on this Ms. Sparkle, there are some things in life you're better off not knowing about.” For the next few moments, Twilight’s thoughts were solely on Nimbus and Spent’s words. She was only snapped out of it when a few minutes later, Fancy called for lights out. Twilight wandered to her tent and as there were so few, she was forced to share her tent with Night Glider. “So, guess I’ll be sleeping with you tonight,” Night remarked before she grinned roguishly. “Unless of course, you’re opposed to that?” she teased. Twilight could barely manage to give out a response, blushing profusely. “I… Uh, no, of course not! W-Why would you ever think that?” She asked, and Night Glider laughed and shook her head as in the background somepony exclaimed: “Night night, don’t let the Changelings bite!” “Oh Twi, you’re so easy to tease. Never change, just don’t okay?” Night Glider asked. “I-I’ll try not to.” Twilight stuttered. Night Glider smiled as she snuggled up next to Twilight, who was placing her glasses next to the lamp on the ground. Twilight blushed even redder than before, if that was possible, as she felt the wings of the midnight blue pegasus wrap around her and felt her fur. Twilight smelled the familiar smell of dahlias and moonflowers and let her eyelids droop, falling asleep and drifting off to the land of dreams almost instantly...