Going Deep Under

by The Bricklayer


Part 19: Fury

Later that night…

While Night Glider slept softly beside her, Twilight was tossing and turning, eyes flicking to and fro behind her eyelids as she slept, lost in the dream world.

And it was anything but pleasant.

She found herself sitting in a red cushioned seat, the sounds of a train click clacking down the tracks filling the otherwise empty car. The entire carriage invoked that of the Golden Age of train travel with nicely adorned carpets, and gold brass everywhere with each window having a curtain over it. Soft piano music, sung by a female singer from a gramophone played in the background with the record crackling as it played. She couldn’t help but wonder why she was the only passenger on board this train… and why was she here?

She had no idea.

The train kept on click clacking down the tracks before the wheels screeched in protest as the brakes were applied. She was jostled in her seat with a sharp cry, whatever she was holding flying from her hooves and landing on the floor in front of her.

It was a book.

She made to pick it up when the doors nearby opened and in walked a mare who paid Twilight little attention as she took a seat nearby. The mare wore a black feather boa around her neck and was an eerie ghostly white in color. She picked up her book and laid it in her lap as the train began chugging along again. She could hear the sharp blow of a steam whistle as the pistons began to move and the wheels began to turn. The rails rattled beneath the train, it was an almost comforting sound. Almost.

Twilight opted to make conversation with the other mare but found she couldn’t so much as utter a single word. Twilight’s eyes then averted themselves to their situation. There was was, in a cocktail style party dress, golden in color and with her mane tied nicely in a ponytail.

“First question: Okay, so where am I?” Twilight thought quite unnerved by the whole situation, putting her analytical mind to work. Her eyes found themselves drawn to a window, where outside she saw the snow-covered tips of the Swiss Alps mountainside with pine trees outside the other window. She knew where she was and had a guess as to the timeline as well. The Simplon Orient Express, running from 1919 to today, one of the most legendary trains of all time going from Paris, Prance all the way to Istanbul in Turkey.

Twilight, mustering up her courage followed the mare all the way to the next train carriage all the while shouting for her to wait up, but the mare never slowed down. Twilight’s hooves galloped against the floor as the train kept running along the tracks over a wooden trestle bridge across a great expanse of river, rushing and flowing down beneath the train. The Orient Express then went around a sharp bend jerking Twilight to the left and sending her smacking into a window knocking the glasses off her face and sending her sprawling to the floor. Twilight picked up her glasses and then dabbed away at the side of her face, seeing small droplets of blood on the floor.

Twilight then shuddered and shivered as the carriage got uncomfortably cold. She let out a short, nervous breath and a fine mist formed in the air as the windows began to ice over.

“Please… Somepony… Anypony… Help.” Twilight whispered as the lights began to flicker off and on over and over again before they went out entirely. Next, inexplicably, the floor dropped out from under Twilight and she found herself falling into darkness. Faster, and faster she fell screaming at the top of her lungs till she hit bottom with the ground rushing up to greet her. The scenery changed, and she found herself in a swamp, frogs croaking and various animal eyes appearing from the moss-covered trees. The owners of those eyes were far too engulfed in darkness for their forms to be seen. Then, Twilight heard it.

A train rushing down the tracks, steam whistle screaming at the top of its lungs and brakes screeching but to no avail. She saw a light and saw a steam train barreling right towards her with no intention of slowing down…


Twilight awoke with a start and a scream then checked her surroundings. Yeah, she was still who-knows-where at the bottom of the ocean in a cavern inside her tent. Night Glider, upon hearing Twilight’s scream saw the younger mare sniffling to herself and clutching her pillow like it was her only lifeline.

“It… It wasn’t real… No, it couldn’t have been,” Twilight whispered to herself. She soon found herself pulled into a wing hug by Night Glider.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” The dark blue mare whispered in a soft and comforting tone of voice.

“I… I was on a train, the Orient Express… T-There was this mare, ghostly white and…” Twilight whispered. Night Glider growled, she had a suspicion of what, or rather who was behind this.

“I-I’m sorry, I never wanted you to see me like this…Me, looking like a weak little crying filly because of a simple little dream... ” Twilight apologized and Night Glider let out another small growl of anger.

“It’s okay, you don’t have to continue if you don’t want to,” She said reassuringly.

“N-No, I feel I need to say this, get this out there,” Twilight answered wiping away a tear before continuing. “S-Suddenly, everything went dark and I-I found myself falling into a swamp and then I saw it. A-A train rushing towards me…”

Night Glider pulled her into an even tighter hug and let the mare cry into her shoulder all the while whispering lovingly into her ear, “It’s okay, it’s alright. It never happened, it was just a simple nightmare. I’m here now…”

Eventually, Twilight fell back into a sleep her chest gently rising and falling, and Night Glider stayed by her side all the time, just watching her protectively...


The Next Morning:

Night Glider and Twilight awoke to the sound of a whistle being blown and saw Mister Gallants dragging everypony out of their beds and shouting “Come on, we have to get a move on here! Haven’t got all day!”

Groaning, Silver Spanner mumbled “And how do you suppose we do that, you plonker? In case you haven’t noticed, the bleedin’ Grand Canyon is in our way!” as she rubbed her tired eyes.

“Ah, glad you asked,” Powder chirped cheerfully, not noticing the dirty glare Night Glider was giving her. “All that talk about flying over the canyon gave me and my sis an idea!” She proclaimed.

“Oh, well this ought to be good…” Silver muttered.

“Fire in the hole!” Fuse shouted and pressed down on a big red plunger. Everypony covered their ears as sharp explosions came from the pillars on both sides of the truly gigantic canyon. They came crumbling down and formed a bridge large enough for even the largest vehicles in the convoy to cross if not pass each other. Twilight gaped in shock.

“D-Did you know how old that was? Thousands of years to carve! Thousands!” She yelled out in disbelief.

“Hey, look, we made ourselves a bridge. It only took us, like, what? Ten seconds? Eleven, tops!” Fuse said proudly with a gleeful look on her face.

“And destroyed who knows how much of Neighlantis’s written history in the process!” Twilight snapped back in retort.

“What would you have us do then? Build a giant catapult and have us thrown all across that gap? We’re demolitions experts, not miracle workers here!” Powder put in. Before the two could come to blows, Gallants pulled the two apart.

“Hey, hey! Got enough troubles around here without mares beating the crap out of each other, which while I’d like to see in any other situation… Just not here.”

Powder muttered “Perv…” under her breath as she walked away glaring at Twilight.

“Advance!” Gallants shouted, and so the convoy did. Slowly, carefully they made their way across the hastily built bridge. It cracked and crumbled under the weight of the convoy, but seemed to show no signs of giving way.

“Now… Slowly now…” Fancy murmured as Silver slowly and trepidatiously drove the gigantic drill machine across the makeshift bridge.

“Bulk, get your arms out of my face!” Silver shouted as she fought for control of the steering wheel.

“Not my fault!” The gigantic and muscular pegasus apologized. Silver wasn’t having any of it.

“Well, yes it is, ‘cause you’re so damn big!” She snapped trying to shove him out of her field of view.

“Hey, mares go wild for me!” Bulk defended himself holding his hooves up in a surrendering motion, quite intimidated by the hot-tempered mare.

“...Not this mare, ya hunk of ‘roid rage...” Silver muttered to herself. Why’d she have to get paired up with him again? She then realized exactly what she’d said and thought “What the Bloody Tartarus?” in shock. Not helping the matter at all was the song Makin’ Whoopee by Eddie Cantor playing over a recording crystal in the vehicle for all to hear. Both Powder and Fuse sniggered.

“Alright you two, quiet down,” Fancy warned, giving them both a look. Both ponies very quickly shut up at the Commander’s glare.

“Whatever you do… Don’t look down.” Target warned. Nopony dared disagree with her… Well, almost nopony. Grape, out of pure instinct looked down.

“Ah-Ah’m lookin’ down! Ah’m lookin’ down!” He squeaked in fear as he looked right down into the yawning abyss which seemed to be greeting him with open arms. Target quickly pulled the stallion away from the edge, as parts of it fell away and into the depths of the river below.

Eventually, the convoy made it to the other side and found themselves blocked by a huge pile of what was once a cliffside, that, thanks to the Blast Sisters’ explosives had become dislodged and was now blocking their path.

“Oh, well isn’t this just wonderful?” Silver exclaimed as she threw her forelegs up in the air in frustration before banging her head on the steering wheel.

“Think you can… remove it?” Fancy asked delicately as he looked at the Blast Sisters.

“Nah, it’s a no go least on our end. We could un-roadblock that if I had about two hundred of these.” Powder stated as Fuse pointed to the crate of dynamite in the back of a supply truck.  “Problem is, we only got about ten. Plus, you know, five of my own and couple of cherry bombs, road flare...” she commented. Right about then, an amused smile came to Fuse’s face.

“Hey, too bad we don't got some nitroglycerin eh, Twilight?" Fuse asked and both she and her sister cracked up as Twilight whimpered. Night Glider gained a truly venomous look on her face, she’d had enough of these two as she could stand. Slowly trodding forwards, both the Blast Sisters noted the look on her face and shared a nervous swallow.

“You know, I’ve had enough of you two picking on Twilight. Just last night, I had to comfort her from a nightmare that you two morons caused thanks to your ghost story!” Night Glider roared as both sisters looked defensive.

“H-Hey, w-we were just joking around! T-That story was made up, and besides, in our defense, we did warn everypony!” Powder stuttered out, now quite afraid of the enraged pegasus. Night Glider didn’t care and threw a strong right hook to Powder’s jaw knocking her flat and drawing blood.

Sudoku, in the background, muttered “Oh boy.” while Nimbus facehooved and let the hoof slide down his muzzle in an annoyed manner. They didn’t have time for this…

High Wind meanwhile shouted “Catfight!” as Twilight whimpered. No, she didn’t want this… She could have stood up for herself if she wanted to.

“Oh, so you want to continue what we started on the Moby Dick, do you?”  Powder snarled as she stumbled to her hooves before headbutting Night Glider who grabbed the pegasus and threw her into the side of a supply truck.

“Oh yeah, we’re finishing this,” she said in response before being bucked towards Riptalon, who caught her with his paws.

“Go get her.” The griffon commented as Powder ran towards Night Glider who socked her again and Powder was about to respond in kind before both of them were pulled apart by an aura of purple magic.

“Stop it! Just stop it!” Twilight said, eyes brimming with tears. She turned to Night Glider and did the last thing anyone, including herself, expected and slapped her.

“But… But I just wanted to help…” Night Glider murmured as Twilight choked back a sob.

“Yeah? Well, hope you’re happy.” Twilight growled before trotting off tears dripping from her eyes. Night Glider screamed and swore before punching the ground in frustration.

“Where… Where did I go wrong?” She asked herself.