"Keps...?" Rainbow Dash leaned her head aside while her eyes remained locked on the fossilized mess in front of her. "...I'm waiting."
"Be patient, Rainbow Dash," Twilight Sparkle chided.
Rainbow Dash clenched her jaw tight. Nevertheless, she squirmed as she waited for the wyvern to provide an assessment.
The Heraldite in question paced back and forth. His scorpion tail curled and uncurled thoughtfully with each movement his limbs made. The scrapes of his claws against a metal floor echoed across the walls of a massive chamber stretching for meters and meters into darkness.
Ariel and Flynn stood off to the side, silent—but anxious.
Rainbow's marefriends hovered quietly in place. They watched, blinking with curious eyes.
"Hrrrmmmm..." Kepler finally scuffled to a stop. He scratched his chin while his spectacles reflected a smattering of enigmatic biomasses lingering in a discordant pile before the group. "Mmmm... quite..." At last, he pointed with a claw. "There are at least six species of non-equine situated here."
"No friggin' way," Ariel murmured. Her fuzzy brow furrowed. "So they're not all ponies?"
"Morre to the point—a good deal of the specimens situated herre simply do not belong to the Angels whose rremains we discoverred up above." He pointed at several varying examples. "Thrree of them arre mammalian, but theirr skeletal strructurre dynamically contrrasts with ponykind. Two of them appearr to be bipedal..." He pointed at other fossils. "One rresembles the spinal strructurre of a rreptile. And those? Those appear to be inverrtebrrates..."
"Invertebrates?" Ariel stammered.
"Their skeletons are external," Flynn droned.
"Meaning...?"
"Insects. Arachnids. Crustaceans..."
Ariel blanched visibly. "Bugs? That big?!?"
"My goodness!" Rarity looked over at Fluttershy. "Is that even possible?"
"I've... seen large specimens of butterflies and moths along the edge of the Everfree Forest," Fluttershy remarked. She then gulped. "But this...?"
"Show me one of the 'invertebrates,'" Rainbow Dash said.
Kepler pointed at a dust-laden husk. Rainbow Dash stepped closer. Her eyes narrowed as she observed the flaking, yellow'd facsimile of a segmented shell. Porous tubes—the scant remains of limbs—lay in a loose pile beneath open holes in the vacant carapace.
"Sooooooo... what?" Rainbow's ears twitched. "Were these someponies' pets?"
"Those are some bigass pets," Flynn remarked. "Aren't there more of them lying around?"
"Ach..." Kepler nodded. "I do believe this place is quite rripe with non-equine specimens." He pointed to the far end of the chamber, beyond the range of Flynn's glowing horn. "Therre appearrs to be an assorrtment of rremains off in the corrnerr."
"What?" Rainbow craned her neck. "You mean those dusty blankets over there?"
"I do not believe those arre blankets, Rrainbow One," Kepler said. "They arre most definitely comprrised of bio-tissue. And judging frrom the carrtiligenous corres that arre still intact, I suspect those crreaturres once possessed respectable-sized centrral nerrvous systems... fitting forr highly-complex intelligence."
"Sounds like cephalopods," Fluttershy remarked.
"Sounds like..." Rainbow Dash blinked awkwardly at her. "...cephalopods?"
"Ach!" Kepler nodded. "An unknown forrm of squid orr octopi. Terrrestrrial, even. Quite fascinating..."
"Wait wait wait..." Ariel waved her forelimbs. She gawked at the group. "Now... what in the hell are giant bugs and land-walking squid doing in a City of Angels?"
"Probably thrashin' it under the bridge!" Pinkie chirped.
Flynn spoke up: "That's what I was trying to get at..." He turned and gestured at the large, dim interior. "...there's so many non-ponies here. And such a large variety of species too. Is it any strange coincidence that this is the largest and widest building we've discovered so far?"
"Uhm..." Applejack scratched her chin. "...reckon it's a zoo?"
"Isn't the answer plain and simple?" Ariel shrugged. "These are just the remains of countless generations of Dark Side creatures that wandered in, trying to feast on the dead bodies."
"Ariel, the ponies who perished here did so eons ago," Rainbow Dash said. "And they laid here dormant and untouched for centuries. If an ecosystem survived—much less thrived—I doubt it chose to fester in this graveyard of all places." She waved a hoof nebulously towards the ceiling. "I'd say the first generations of living things started closer to the surface—where there's more light."
"I am with the Austrraeoh on this assumption," Kepler said.
"So... what, then?" Ariel grimaced. "All of these creepy-crawly things actually lived here with the Angels?"
"Is that really so friggin' hard to believe?" Rainbow looked up, shining her pendant's light on the high wall looming over the darkened chamber. The "Urohringr" symbol lingered above the rows of seats, furniture, and dormant glass displays. "I'm willing to bet this was some sort of meeting center."
"Meeting center?" Ariel murmured.
"Of course!" Twilight Sparkle's ghostly tail flicked. "A gathering place for multiple cultures to meet!"
Rainbow looked back at the other Heraldites. "Assuming that a ring of Urohringr was made up of twelve planes... and there were—perhaps—dozens of other rings..." She shrugged. "...isn't it stupidly erogenous to think it was only populated by ponies?"
"Well said, darling," Rarity said. "But I think the word you're looking for is 'egocentric.'"
Rainbow's eartips went red. "I know what I said..."
Ariel hovered slowly over the slew of fossilized bodies. "I... guess it would explain why they're all lying here so helter-skelter." She gulped. "If some cataclysmic event like the Sundering knocked them all dead, then they'd be scattered no less randomly than they are right now."
"That's... very sad," Fluttershy said, her ears drooping. "I doubt anyone who was here when the Sundering happened expected it at all." She sniffled slightly. "They were likely far from home on some errand or another. Now they're forever separated from their families on other planes of Urohringr."
"You never know, Fluttershy," Applejack said. She rested a ghostly hoof on the mare's shoulder. "Perhaps they lived here just like the Angels did." A bittersweet smile. "They coulda died alongside their best friends."
"It's still so tragic..." Fluttershy weathered a shuddering sigh. "They didn't even get a proper burial."
Ariel lingered above a pair of similar-looking skeletons. They possessed exceptionally long spines and round skulls. "Rainbow, look."
Rainbow hovered alongside her.
"Trolls...?" Ariel suggested.
"Mmmmm..." Rainbow shook her head. "Nah. Not goblins either. These things are way too tall."
"Remember that really big thing in the sketches we saw back in Darkreach?" Ariel remarked. "Maybe it's them."
"Their... rib-cages are too narrow." Rainbow sighed. "I dunno, Ariel. Who the hay knows what any of these things would have looked like back in the day." A gulp. "...or if any of them may have survived."
"Well, obviously they did," Twilight said.
Rainbow looked at her.
"Back in Val Roa," Twilight continued. "You met goblins there."
"Yeah!" Applejack nodded. "And talkin' turtles back in Alafreo!"
"Oooh!" Pinkie waved her hoof. "And masked alligators in Stratopolis!"
Twilight glared at her. "They were called naga."
"Them too!"
"My word..." Rarity brushed her bangs back, gazing into the shadows thoughtfully. "...are we meaning to suggest that so many intelligent species somehow made it from the Dark Side over to the Light?"
"Or perhaps they were always living on the Light Side as well," Twilight said with a shrug. "When the alicorns arrived, they appealed to ponies and non-ponies alike. It's just that they apparently met the ancient pegasi first."
"Right." Applejack nodded. "Maybe them 'Angel folk' were livin' on the Light Side also."
"It just ended up being a flip of the coin!" Pinkie Pie said. "Or... in this case... the flip of a really weirdly-curved... uhm..." Her eyes squinted one after another. "...salted potato chip?"
"Soooo..." Rainbow Dash exhaled through her nostrils as she gazed at the mass of bodies. "...Urohringr was essentially a giant floating apartment complex in space." She pivoted about on blurring wings. "This was just the 'pegasus district.' And they had visitors... some of whom are still here today..."
"Indeed." Kepler nodded. "I would venturre to say that the past is becoming morre and morre clearr."
"I wonder..." Rainbow's words trailed off.
Twilight craned her neck. "What, Rainbow?"
"... ... ..." Rainbow's lips pursed. "... ... ...what if it wasn't ponies who were responsible for the Sundering?"
The ghostly mares exchanged glances.
"Hey!" Flynn's voice echoed loudly from the far end of the chamber. "Keps!" His light wobbled. "Come take a look at this!"
"Hrrmm?" Kepler craned his neck. He flapped his wings and glided over. Rainbow and Ariel followed shortly behind.
Flynn was hunched over an overturned slab of metal. He looked back at the rest of the Herald, then used his telekinesis to lift the debris completely out of the way. In so doing, he uncovered a crumpled skeleton of a large feline... except that it had wings... and a segmented tail that curled up into a glossy black stinger.
"!!!" Kepler jolted to a stop, his glasses nearly falling off. "My..." He straightened the spectacles as a pale gleen rolled over his mane. "...starrs and garrterrs."
"Uhhhh..." Ariel blinked. "Someone you know, Kepler?"
"I..." Kepler grimaced through his tusks. "...cannot say that I do."
Rainbow hovered above the fossil. She measured it with her forelimbs, then held the same fetlocks in front of Kepler. "Kinda bigger than you, bro."
"A manticore?" Ariel suggested.
"No... too small..." Kepler gulped. "Also..." He pointed at the skull.
"...what?" Ariel asked blankly.
"There aren't any tusks," Rainbow said.
"Rright..." Kepler breathed. "They didn't brreak off eitherr. Look at the constrruction of the jaws. They simply did not forrm."
Rainbow looked at him. "Is that natural?"
"The averrage wyverrn's testosterrone is rresponsible forr grrowing the mane and tusk well into the second yearr," Kepler said. "And this is no body of a child."
"Yeah, and?" Ariel glanced at the others.
"Ariel, this was a female," Flynn said.
The pegasus did a double-take. "Holy shit..." She gawked at Kepler. "But... how...?"
Kepler sighed, leaning back. "This is a verry... verry old specimen, indeed." He looked at Rainbow Dash. "It is a glimpse into the past... when we werre evidently still vibrrant and self-sustaining."
"Well..." Rainbow shrugged, bearing a weak smile. "Kinda snazzy to know that our great-great-great grandparents possibly enjoyed pizza and game nights together."
"Ha-ha!" Kepler sounded off, then exhaled. "Goddess, it hurrts to laugh in this place..."
"Frickin' crazy..." Ariel looked at Flynn. "...was this guy alone?"
"Well..." Flynn grunted, yanking more slabs of debris away with his horn. "...that remains to be seen—"
Gossamer strands flew into his face, followed shortly after a mess of needle-thin legs.
"Gaaah! Buck!" Flynn leapt backwards, flailing.
Fluttershy and Rarity yelped.
Rainbow steeled herself as—
Th-Thunk!
—the shriveled-up corpse of a ceature rocked to a stand-still, half-covered in snow-white silk. A flailing bed of webbing waved in the air, then settled still. With the debris gone, an entire portion of the room had been exposed to the magical light, and it was filled to the brim with intertwined bands of ivory biomatter.
"... ... ..." Rainbow Dash relaxed in mid-hover. As Flynn trembled, she and Ariel ascended further, gazing at the new mess.
There were more corpses here—but they all belonged to the same species, each fitted with eight-legs curled upwards, frozen in necrotic time. The light from Rainbow's pendant glinted off cold colorless bristles of hair and multiple rows of eyes—like black pearls that gazed past her and the rest of the Herald.
"Huh..." Kepler blinked. "They'rre spiderrs—"
"YOU THINK?!?!" Flynn barked, continuing to brush and bat at himself with shaking fetlocks. "Rnnnnggh—grnnngh! Guh!"
"I was merrely stating—"
"How 'bout being even more obvious than you usually are!" Flynn hissed, still squirming and shaking. "Like—'Harrrrk frrrriends! They'rrre ten foot long frrrrrickin' giant spiderrrrs!!!"
Ariel squinted at the bald stallion. "You okay, there, buddy?"
"I'm fine!!!"
Applejack whistled. "On fire like he's fixin' to exterminate all pants that ever lived."
"It's okay, dude," Rainbow Dash droned. "We all have our phobias. I'm not a huge fan of pie, myself."
Pinkie gave her a double-take. "Since when?!?"
"I'm not phobic!" Flynn huffed and puffed, his hornlight shaking. "I'm a member of the Herald! Austraeoh's Eljunbyro! I can d-deal with it!"
"Just chillax, Flynn," Ariel said, stifling a giggle. "For Pete's sake. It's been dead for thousands and thousands of—"
The very tip of the closest fossil's left fang shifted left... shifted right... then stopped.
"... ... ...years." Ariel's eyes shrank to pinpricks.
The rest of the group went dead silent.