Daring Do winced as an aggressive chime rang out throughout the room. Immediately, she had a sinking feeling in her gut. She felt her trap sense tingling, but it wasn't quite the same. It was different from normal. Nor did it feel exactly like a trap. For one, the entire room wasn't shaking, it was just the tone of the sound that made it sound as if something bad was about to happen.
A rapid beeping emanated from the crystal beside the door, and with it, the light flashed repeatedly. The inner door started to close. Immediately, her thoughts shifted to it most definitely being a trap of some kind. "Ah, not again..." she groaned, wincing.
For a split second, she bobbed her head, debating her options. While she was certain somepony would eventually figure out that they were trapped, it would be faster if she got help, although she knew that Twilight might also be able to get the door unsealed on her own. After all, the structure seemed to like her. But that still didn't mean it would happen. And still, there was the potential that she might end up getting knocked out like they found her before. Perhaps all three of them would, but there was no way to know it would be safe for Loose Translation or herself.
Acting fast, she bolted towards the door, barely managing to skid to a stop, realizing that the door would close before she made it to the other side. And like with most crushing-based traps, she didn't want to risk getting caught in that doorway when it closed. She had an aversion to traps. Fire traps, water traps, spike traps, sand traps, snake traps, and crushing traps. She did her absolute best to avoid those kinds of traps, along with, in general, any traps she came across.
She glared at the door, then jerked her head back to look at the room's resident alicorn, who also happened to supposedly be an expert in this sort of thing. "Twilight!" she shouted.
The mare's head was bobbing side to side as her eyes jumped over the screen and the information that was displayed- which, like the room's lighting, was now red, as if in warning of some kind. At the sound of her name, Twilight looked back at Daring. "Get the professor!" she ordered. In short order, she closed her eyes, then enveloped Daring Do in her magenta aura.
An instant later, Daring found herself woozy as everything she saw and felt suddenly shifted. The sudden change in scenery was jarring, but she had been through enough smacks to the head to recover. From her past experience with Twilight, she realized that she had been teleported out of the room. Almost immediately, the door to the control room sealed shut.
As she glanced over the door, she found an uncomfortable unease welling up inside her. The rapid beeping of the door's crystal had gone silent. For a moment, she waited, listening, hoping to hear something more, but there was nothing else, just silence.
She shivered, then turned around and darted down the hallway, having no time to waste. While she had no idea of what was happening, she knew better than to waste time waiting around. She had a task: find Ancient Knowledge and then figure out how to unseal the door if Twilight hadn't already by the time she returned.
As she dashed into the first large, open room, she heard a commanding, low tone ring out throughout the facility. The very walls seemed to vibrate from the low tone. Her pace slowed as the tone rang on, dominating the entire facility and demanding attention. Certainly, nopony could have missed that sound- it seemed to come from everywhere all at once. Slowly, the tone dropped in pitch several more octaves, then suddenly stopped.
While the facility had her constantly on edge before, the sudden silence following the wake of the tone left her feeling even more anxious. The only sounds she could hear were those of her hooves clicking on the cold alloy floor. She wasn't used to the anxiety now filling her being. When she explored ruins, she knew what she was getting into for the most part. The traps were straightforward and predictable. Sure, they might catch her by surprise, but she at least knew what she was dealing with.
But that wasn't so with this structure. It was just so different. She didn't like it one bit. Normally, a ruin filled her with a sense of adventure, excitement even. This structure brought only a sense of foreboding and unease. There was still the excitement of lexploring something so unknown, but it paled in comparison to the warnings her senses shouted out at her.
'Focus...' she told herself. Ignoring the ominous red glow illuminating the structure, she forced herself on, navigating her way to the crossroads in the hallway near the entrance. But she still found nopony else around, nor did she hear any other ponies.
It set alarms off in her mind. Unless the entire structure was sealed up, which she doubted, given that she had gone through more than one door that wasn't sealed, ponies should have heard that sound and come to the entrance. But nopony was here. Looking around, she found the wooden planks of cargo boxes strewn about carelessly, shattered and broken. Only some of the boxes weren't damaged, although even those were carelessly tossed aside and crumpled against the walls.
It looked like the place had been hastily searched, or the supplies had been destroyed- whether on purpose or on accident, although she leaned towards the former. Memories of times when she had returned to her camp to find it ransacked by her adversaries popped through her mind. Ponies trying to get out in a hurry wouldn't have caused this kind of destruction. It had to be something else. Her wingtips bristled in agitation and questions raced through her mind. Why was the facility, as Twilight called it, acting in such a way? Why had their equipment been searched and destroyed? Where was everypony?
"What's going on here?" she muttered.
She turned back around and hastily looked left and right, searching for any signs of ponies- or any other creatures- hiding, just waiting for the right time to pounce on her. But instead, there wasn't anything she could see that stood ready to attack. She would have preferred a dozen griffons jump out at her to the lack of anything being there. At least then she'd know what she was dealing with and could deal with it. Instead, she was left with the continuous feeling of wrongness.
But even with no immediate signs of her opponents, she did have a goal in mind: Locate Ancient Knowledge and figure out what was happening. Clearly, the door locking and the lights turning red had to relate to this destruction somehow. How could it have been a coincidence? Given that the society had advanced magic and reacted to Twilight favorably, most likely, it was a security measure. But if it was a security measure, how did this place know to enact it? And what triggered it?
They were questions that would have to wait, so she heaped it onto the pile of questions she'd ask later.
Glancing at the two open hallways to her left and right, she found that her gaze drawn to the right lingered longer than it had when she looked left. The door had been sealed and Twilight had to cut through it. She didn't like it then, and now it felt worse. The air felt heavier, colder, and more foreboding. A chill raced down her spine as cold air slid over her body.
Cautiously, she stepped forward and turned down the hallway to her right. She came to a stop when she stared down the length of the hallway. The lighting, like the rest of the structure, was all an ominous red glow, leaving everything darkly lit. The crystal controls in the walls were all either glowing with the same inner red light or were completely inert. The skeleton of the alicorn was still there, looking untouched, although there were some scattered planks near her body as if a crate had been shattered.
She fluttered her wings, then strode towards the open door. The sound of her hooves clicking against the alloy floor accompanied her, and she hated how loud the steps sounded. At least in other ancient structures, a fine layer of dust would have helped dampen the sound, even if it did leave the air smelling old and stagnant. Although it was a smell that was familiar to her, and one that welcomed her with open hooves. It had always been a refreshing smell, promising of adventure, exciting mysteries, and long-forgotten history. This structure lacked it.
She sped up as she walked in past the door. Her hoof steps came quicker, and her eyes darted about, scanning for any signs of life. Her ears swiveled around atop her head, trying to discern any distant sounds that could be coming from other ponies or whoever was responsible for the mess.
The silence weighed heavily on her, but as she continued along, she found herself settling into a familiar routine. It reminded her of searching out old ruins. The sort of thing she actually liked. Spurred on by the feeling of adventure, the anxiety drifted away, though never truly faded.
Turning as she approached a corner, she stopped in her tracks as her eyes glanced down at a crumpled lump on the floor against the left wall. It was unmistakably an earth pony, but he didn't move. Her attention was almost immediately drawn to the pool of blood underneath his body, the red stain rolling down from the upward facing side of his chest, and the gash from which the blood came.
She grimaced. Hesitating for a moment, she listened as intently as she could. She didn't hear any signs of danger, and while the discovery made her cautious, she didn't feel any more immediate danger than what she had before. Still, somepony had been killed, and it wasn't a self-inflicted wound. Slowly, she approached the poor stallion and examined his wound more thoroughly.
While the red lighting was rather poor compared to the light of the midday sun, it was far from the worst lighting she had to examine a wound over. No, that distinction went to one of the inner rooms in a ziggurat. Her torch had burnt out by that time, and the only light was that which had been reflected inside by mirrors. Needless to say, it was worse than the lighting of a full moon.
His wound was deep, like a puncture or stab wound, but it didn't have the right proportions for it to be caused by a knife, and a sword would have left a different wound as well. Her next guess was a spear, but the wound still didn't seem to have a profile that fit it. The wound was almost circular in shape, which would have fit a spike more than a spear or bladed weapon, but he had not fallen into any such pit. The only thing that really came to mind that could have caused the wound would have been a unicorn's horn.
She shivered at that thought. Not a unicorn's magic, their actual horn. Impalement. She couldn't determine the wound's depth because of the lighting, but the fact still remained that it fit the profile for a horn-caused wound. Most unicorns would never do such a thing, even if they were back against a wall with no other options for defendign themselves. Their horns weren't meant to inflict such a wound, and they were naturally too blunt and rounded to be used for such an attack. The end result of trying something like that would have been bruising their opponent and hurting themselves, most likely their neck and head. For the most part, they didn't have the strength to use their horn as a physical weapon, either. If they had the strength of an earth pony, perhaps they would have been able to use their blunt horns as weapons.
Looking over him again, she found her gaze drawn to his expression. Shock, surprise, and confusion. Looking up the wall, she found a reddened wet smear. With closer inspection, she determined it to be blood. She exhaled sharply, then used her forehoof to nudge the stallion's head back towards his body.
Sure enough, his temple was bloodied and left a wet spot on the floor. He had been thrown into the wall before or after being stabbed. For a few seconds, she grimaced at him, then she carefully rolled his head back into place. She shook her head and turned her gaze away from the stallion to examine the rest of the hallway.
There had to be more clues as to what happened, but if there were any, she didn't spot them. She was sure the ominous red lighting didn't help her with that any. She took a deep breath and walked away from him, then cautiously continued down the hallway. This was a section she hadn't thoroughly explored before- Ancient's ponies had been investigating this section of the structure after Twilight had cut through the door.
But it still nagged at her mind who their adversary could be and what had happened. With every step, her mind pondered the possibilities, but nothing seemed to fit. From what she knew, this expedition had been kept fairly quiet, outside of individuals who had been provided outside help, such as analyzing the materials they had sent back. She guessed that there was still the possibility that one of the couriers had let something slip, or perhaps that somepony had found out about their supply trips, but then, they still wouldn't know where, exactly, they were. But there was still the chance that somepony had found out through some means she couldn't immediately think of.
'And why would anypony want this place?' she wandered, sweeping her head left and right as she came to another hallway. The passage to the right ended abruptly with an unopened door, while the passage to the left went on, broken by the red-glowing crystals and a few doors, along with accompanying control crystals.
She knew history quite well. Maybe not as well as Princess Celestia or Princess Luna- they had actually lived that history- but she expected to know more about obscure history that most ponies did. And she knew nothing about this place. So far as she knew, this was the first time that something like this had been discovered. There was no history supporting this place's existence, no known connections. Just nothing. It had been discovered out of the blue, and it was far older than anything else discovered before. It even predated the Discordian Era by several thousand years and had survived. That meant there were no immediately known artifacts of interest that held power that ponies would want for their own gain.
She continued forward and turned to her left. Once again, boards and shattered boxes lined the wall. She shivered, seeing two more ponies' corpses slumped against the wall. The farthest one's head was bent back towards his tail, while the closest one had a burned gash along her side. With but a quick glance, she knew that the wound was magical in nature.
'Oh, so some upstart unicorn thinks he can end this expedition? Not on my watch.' Snorting in disdain, she plowed forward, evading debris and sweeping her head left and right, looking for any more clues or hints of what she was dealing with.
'They were running towards the exit,' flashed through her mind. She paused at that and frowned. After a moment, she turned around and looked over both bodies again. Had somepony managed to get inside before they started killing ponies? That had to be it- nothing else explained it properly. But how? Ancient Knowledge would have known if somepony who wasn't supposed to be here showed up and came inside. Surely the other ponies would have noticed somepony who wasn't supposed to be there? They would have tried to stop whoever it was, and so they would have tried to flee deeper into the structure, not run out.
'Or something was already inside, and they let it out...'
She considered the idea for a few moments as she turned back around. Surely, it couldn't have been that. That was jumping to conclusions. This structure had been sealed away for- if what they knew was correct- about ten-thousand years. Nothing could have survived that long. Right?
Sure, there were all sorts of stasis spells, but the magic required to sustain a spell for that long wasn't exactly something the average unicorn could muster. But then again, this society did have at least one alicorn. An alicorn who died in this structure.
If she had been anypony else, she knew she would have shivered at that thought. Present day alicorns were powerful and long-lived, perhaps even biologically immortal. Alicorns of myth and legend were described as powerful protectors, the guardians of life, and regarded by ancient ponies as rulers. Many ancient cultures worshipped alicorns: after all, they were more powerful than dozens of unicorns and long-lived. For one to have died, or to have been killed, was unthinkable for myths and legends to tell of, unless it was at the hooves of another alicorn, though she couldn't recall any specific myths about alicorns fighting other alicorns. They were always portrayed as benevolent, even if the cultures that worshipped them were somewhat twisted.
If it was the case that something had been trapped in stasis by an alicorn for ten-thousand years, then she had no experience with this before. Sure, she had dealt with long-dead civilizations that had worshipped alicorns before- they were quite common- but it was never confirmed that they ever had an alicorn. This was the first time she'd encountered an alicorn's skeleton, which was proof that, at the very least, this society had one alicorn.
But the alicorn was dead. Something had to have killed her, even if it was just being trapped in here for such a long time. How hadn't she escaped? Maybe the alicorn hadn't been as powerful as Twilight, but there had still been sections of the wall that had been scorched from, most likely, magic. They had struggled to get samples of that same alloy, even using their magic, but alicorns were far more powerful.
More alarms rang out in her mind at that. Something wasn't right here.
But, what was the fun in just waiting for something bad to happen? She smirked, fluffed her wings, then trotted along, casting her gaze left and right, looking for any more hallways or open doors to explore.
Eventually, she came to a half-opened door. The right side was opened, but the left side was stuck in place. The crystal control looked like it had been melted, and the crystal had flowed downward and solidified, creating a smooth but lumpy addition to the wall and floor.
The walls showed more signs of warping, in addition to scorch marks dotting the wall, reminiscent of what they had seen in the other hallway. She could smell the distinct smell of heated metal. Either the damage was recent, or the room had been sealed and somehow the smell hadn't settled.
Cautiously, she ventured into the room beyond the door. It reminded her of the bedroom they had found on the other side of the hallway. It seemed nearly identical to it, complete with an add-on bathroom. The bed, likewise, had been shredded. The major difference that stood out between the two rooms was this room's lack of an alicorn stature crouched down, ready to pounce, along with the presence of smoldering crates and corpses of two unicorns and a pegasus. Blood pooled under their bodies from their wounds. The pegasus was closest to the door as if she had been trying to escape, but her neck had been struck by a bolt of magic. One unicorn had been thrown into the left wall and laid crumpled against it, with a burned gash in her chest. The other unicorn had multiple burned gashes racing across his body.
But this was all wrong. It didn't look like what happened when the villains came into a ruin, or a camp, to secure some artifact that held some value or power. The way the bodies laid, along with the positions of their wounds said that whoever- or whatever- had attacked them had come from inside the room. Either their attacker had come inside, then turned on them, or the attacker had already been in the room.
The first option made her grimace, the second made her concerned. The society was magically advanced, so it wasn't like she could completely rule out them being able to imprison something in stasis for ten thousand years, as unlikely as it was. After all, the society had, apparently, already violated several things it wasn't supposed to be able to. An actual alicorn, knowing what modern-day Equis looked like, knowing and responding to Twilight Sparkle, despite her being ten thousand years removed from the structure's existence.
But jumping to conclusions wasn't a good idea. There were still many possibilities, and the evidence was incomplete. For all she knew, there were a hundred more explanations for what was happening that she simply hadn't thought of.
But the possibility still remained, that she was out of her element. This structure was unique as far as her experiences went. And as far as she knew, it was the only one of its kind. What history did this place have, that had now been added on to by what was now transpiring?
She shook her head and backed out of the room, then turned to her right. Quickly, she trotted back down the hallway, retracing her steps. Normally, she at least knew what to expect. A treasure chamber, for instance. But this structure had no such chamber, at least from what they knew. In the place of a treasure chamber, there was a control room. The structure was so different from other ancient ruins, she couldn't expect to know what she was dealing with. It was simply unexplained.
She gave the dead stallion's body a passing glance as she trotted past him before returning to the crossroads at the entrance. 'Where is everypony?' She had only counted a hoof-full of ponies who were dead, which was a far cry from the few dozen she had seen on the expedition. Surely, there had to be more ponies inside the structure. Perhaps they were hiding or trapped inside locked rooms. Or perhaps they had been taken captive by whoever had attacked, or perhaps they were already dead, killed for being witnesses, or in the way.
Quick, unsure hoofsteps echoed out from the hallway that led to the control room. Turning her head hastily, she looked in that direction. Despite the dim red glow, she felt a wave of relief wash over her- Ancient Knowledge approached, although her stride was almost panicked. "Daring? What's going on?" she called.
"I'm not sure," she answered. She looked back to the right and once again surveyed the destroyed crates. Ancient's hoofsteps slowed as she neared.
"The door to the Control Room was sealed shut, and when I came back through here, I found this-" Ancient waved her hoof at the damage "-like this."
Daring bobbed her head to the right. "Well, I've heard that professors can be disorganized, but I think this is a new record."
Ancient huffed indignantly. "My ponies wouldn't be so careless," she stated. "Why don't you go ahead and tell me what happened. And why is the lighting all red? I'm assuming it's related to the door being sealed."
Daring looked back at her. "I would assume that too," she commented. "I mean, it's not like we have any experience with red lighting being associated with sealed doors or anything," she said snidely. She paused a moment, putting on a look of faux surprise. "Oh, wait... We do."
Ancient groaned, looked down, and raised a forehoof to her forehead.
Daring smirked at Ancient's frustration, then took a deep breath. "There was this low sound, then a rapid beeping. The lights all went red- including the text on the projection- and the door started to seal. Twilight told me to go get you, then teleported me out of the room. I was heading back this way and another low tone rang out. It was like it was supposed to be a warning of some kind. I found this place like it is now, and when I went to investigate, I found several ponies dead."
Ancient paled. "W-what? Dead? How?"
Daring took a deep breath. "Mostly magical wounds. One of them was stabbed- I think it was a unicorn's horn." A wave of disgust washed over Ancient, but she kept silent. "One's neck was broken."
"I-I don't... what? Where is everypony else?"
Daring tilted her head and looked at her seriously. "I don't know. If I did, believe me, I'd tell you."
Ancient winced and looked away. "R-right... sorry..." she replied. "Did Twilight say anything about-"
"Yes, she explained absolutely everything," Daring said flatly, "and I'm just avoiding telling you for the heck of it." She snorted and shook her head. "No, she didn't say anything. I think it caught her off guard too. She told me to go and get you, though."
"Did she cause it?"
"I don't think so," Daring answered. She fluttered her wings. "We should..." she trailed off. What was the best course of action? Try to free Twilight, if she wasn't already free? Undoubtedly, she would be a great deal of help if, or rather when, they ran into whoever was causing them trouble. Even if she wasn't a fighter. After all, she was an alicorn.
But there was also no guarantee they'd be able to free her if the door was still sealed, which meant they would be wasting time. But Twilight was also smart, so when she managed to unseal the door, she would be able to figure things out and catch back up with them.
"Let's get to the camp and figure this out. Maybe we'll see who's behind this," Daring ordered. She turned and trotted towards the exit.
After a moment, Ancient followed, catching up with her to walk beside her. "This is... part of the reason why you're here," she commented.
Daring glanced aside at her. "Oh, so you planned this, did you?"
Ancient frowned. "No, I just mean that this is sort of your area of expertise? In case something like this happened, you're experienced with problems..."
"Dealing with bad guys trying to steal artifacts so that they can take over the world?" Daring asked. A moment passed, then she shrugged. "Yeah, sounds about right."
Ancient's frown persisted. "Although I suppose there aren't really any artifacts here..." she mused.
"No, there aren't," Daring agreed. As she stepped out into the heat of the canyon, she lifted a forehoof to shield her eyes. The lighting outside was still so very bright, far brighter than she was used to. The dry air probably didn't help that any. She pulled the rim of her hat down further, casting her eyes in its shadow to protect them from the bright light.
She spread her wings out, then pumped them downward and lifted off the ground. Hovering there, she turned around to face Ancient. "Alright, stay close-"
"I can't fly, you know. Unicorn, remember?" Ancient deadpanned.
"Oh, no, I couldn't tell. It's not like there's a horn coming out of your head to give it away or anything like that," Daring huffed. "I don't like this, so let's try to avoid being separated, okay? Generally, that ends badly in my experience."
"Right, but-"
"You're walking, and I'll be flying right beside you," Daring preempted.
Ancient nodded. She glanced left, then right, then walked on out. Despite their exchange, the small camp set up at the structure's entrance was deserted: nopony ducked out to look or greet them, and it made her uncomfortable. But regardless, she pushed ahead. "How long were you investigating for?"
"Maybe five to ten minutes," Daring answered. "Why?"
"That isn't a lot of time," Ancient replied, "so where is everypony? And why didn't I see anything when I came through here?"
"Whoever it is must be ahead of us, then," Daring replied. "I'm guessing it's probably a small group, maybe just one pony, since this is happening so quickly," she added. She pursed her lips and looked down at the doctor. "I found something strange, too. I found another one of those bedrooms, but there were two dead unicorns and a dead pegasus. All killed with magic, and it looked like whatever killed them was deeper inside the room than they were- or it was already there."
"It was already there? Daring, please, this structure is ten thousand years old. Nothing could have survived that long sealed away like that!" Ancient scoffed.
"It's just what I saw," Daring replied. She paused for a moment and swept her gaze throughout the canyon, but it was eerily empty. "Besides, we know that they had advanced magic."
Daring could almost feel Ancient's hesitation at that. "Good point..." Ancient admitted. "But still... ten thousand years? That far predates the Discordian Era. I don't think it's possible."
"An alicorn might be able to live that long," Daring replied.
"Yes," Ancient admitted, "But you saw the skeleton. If there was somepony else in there- even an alicorn- they wouldn't have survived that long. No food or water."
"Discord was imprisoned in stone for a few thousand years," Daring replied.
A few seconds passed in silence. "Okay, are we seriously considering this? So what then, did they imprison somepony for ten thousand years? Why? How did they power that spell for so long? That would take a lot of magic." A moment passed. "Okay, well, maybe not that much. It would depend on how powerful the individual was, so maybe..." she trailed off. "Do you have any experience with this?"
"With what? Ancient evils being awakened in my adventures? No, I can't say that I have. That's more Twilight's area of expertise," Daring answered.
With a few more steps, Ancient reached the top of the ravine. The camp looked untouched at first glance- none of the tents were damaged, none of the crates were turned aside or destroyed. But it also looked still. Nothing moved, save for the fabric of the tents shaking with the push and pull of the wind.
"I don't like this..." Daring stated. She beat her wings and flew ahead, then landed. Approaching the tent closest to the path down into the canyon, she regarded it cautiously. The fabric could have hidden anything or nothing at all. Ancient walked closer to her, then stopped a safe distance back in case something was to jump out. Slowly, she stepped forward, then pulled open the tent's flap.
Inside was a single body, that of a young pegasus mare. Daring exhaled sharply, then looked back at Ancient. "Another body," she said gravely.
Ancient's ears folded back. "I don't... understand. This... this sort of thing isn't supposed to happen! This was supposed to be safe!" Hesitantly, she approached the tent flap. She glanced inside, then turned away, but not before the magic wounds were engraved in her mind. "And now ponies are dying on my expedition..."
Daring touched Ancient's shoulder. She worked alone, but Ancient was the expedition's leader. She hadn't experienced the same kind of loss as Ancient was now experiencing. She couldn't relate, but she could offer her support. "It's not your fault. You couldn't have known this would happen. None of us could have," she stated firmly. Ancient turned back towards her. "All we knew was that there was some ruin out here that had been found recently. The entire thing was a mystery. We can always come back."
Ancient's eyes fell to the rocky, sandy ground. Her ears stayed pinned back, but she nodded. "That doesn't change the fact that I picked who came on this expedition. And now the university is going to have to deal with the fallout of this disaster..." Slowly, she shook her head and closed her eyes.
"Ancient. It's a tragedy, yes, but you can't blame yourself for this," Daring stated. "I know this is hard, but I need you to pull yourself together. I'll get us out of this mess and we can track down who's responsible and deal with them."
"I-I think I'll... leave that to you," Ancient replied. She swallowed and lifted her head up. "B-but I'll... try not to slow you down."
Daring offered a smile. It was brash, but not quite as brash as would usually be the case. It would have been inappropriate, given the circumstances. "Good... You stay here, I'm going to check the rest of the camp. We need to get everypony still alive together and then out of here. We also need to get Twilight out, too."
Ancient nodded. "Right... we can see about using explosives to breach the door, although it might be dangerous to do that- and it'll probably alert whoever is around to our presence. And there's also the chance it could hurt us- or Twilight- or damage the structure."
"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it," Daring breathed out. Beating her wings, she zipped away from the tent and slowly ascended into the air. It was a more exposed position, she knew, but that had its advantages. For one, it was a better vantage point- she could see the entirety of the camp, along with a good deal of the surrounding landscape.
But she didn't like what she saw. Scanning the camp, she found a mishmash of dead ponies- with wounds caused by magic- shredded tents, and busted crates. 'So much for the camp looking normal...' The chaos grew more intense further into the camp- as if whoever had attacked had come in and managed to start the killing without alerting others until getting closer to the center, where somepony managed to alert the others, which started what looked like a killing frenzy.
She shivered at the sight. It was such a waste of life. But, at the very least, it wasn't as horrific as it could have been. No, the killing was precise. Enraged, but precise. There were a method and reason to the murder, that much was clear. And yet, it still looked as if it hadn't been simple murder or an attack. It looked like methodical extermination.
Casting her gaze outward, she scanned the surrounding wasteland for anything- or anypony- out of place. Survivors, or perhaps perpetrators. But despite scanning the entire area, sweeping her gaze around in a full circle, there was nothing more than the sand and rocks that built the Badlands.
She gritted her teeth and growled in frustration. But, an idea occurred to her. She frowned. Going off on a hunch, she cast her gaze skyward and searched for any specs or shadows in the sky. After all, perhaps it hadn't been a unicorn was responsible. It could have been a changeling.
But in the back of her mind, she knew that didn't fit. The wound she had found that matched the profile of a horn didn't fit a changeling's jagged horn. It had to have been a unicorn's horn or a spike.
A primal screech tore through the air. In a brief moment, she froze up at that sound. Primal. Animalistic. Enraged. It was hatred incarnate, sounding inequine, yet still somehow retaining its undeniable equinity. The voice boomed out, demanding attention.
She flapped her right wing hard and turned around as she rolled. Shooting up into the sky from the ravine was a pegasus- a rather large one, at that. The wingspan easily put her own to shame, and her wings gracefully sloped back then forward, rather than bulging out and bending back. Her blue mane and tail rippled violently in the air as she rose up.
An instant later, there was a red flash emanating from her head, followed by a wave of red expanding outward, with an inner white light. The pony disappeared, and an instant later, the crack of magic reached her ears.
She swept her head about quickly and listened for the second retort of the teleportation spell- she knew that was what it was from her limited experience with Twilight- but it never came. Still, she kept vigilant as her body grew tenser and tenser. Seconds passed with nothing else transpiring.
Having seen what she just saw, flying out in the open, she knew, was a mistake. She quickly dived towards the ground, heading straight down to land as quickly as possible, then flaring her wings out and arcing her path so that she could immediately take off running. And when she landed, that was what she did- she raced to where she had left Ancient, avoiding debris and bodies.
And Ancient raced towards her. Both of them skidded to a stop, barely avoiding colliding. "Was that-!?"
"Yes," Daring answered. "It was."
"But-!"
"I know," Daring replied.
"Do you think-!?"
Daring squinted at her. "I don't know, but no, I don't think that scream sounded very friendly."
Ancient winced and stepped back. She bit her lip and looked around, though her gaze avoided the damage that had been brought to the camp. She turned back to face Daring, only to find the pegasus marching passed her. "Where are you-!?"
"We need to get Twilight," Daring called back. "We probably shouldn't jump to conclusions, but I don't like this."
Seeing that Daring didn't slow, Ancient hastily caught up with her. "I-I don't understand..." she whispered. "I... this... surely we're wrong?"
Daring glanced aside at her sharply. "It wouldn't be the first time there's been some alicorn bent on taking over the world," she quipped. "The fact that she's not dead suggests that she had to have been in stasis or something- possibly imprisoned. But maybe we're wrong! Who knows, maybe that screech wasn't actually a cry of anger. Maybe it was just a wail of despair at her realizing that everything is different and we should go try to talk to her and comfort her! To say nothing of the fact that we probably can't even understand her language." Flaring her wings, she jumped off the edge of the ravine to descend to the bottom.
Ancient turned and quickly hurried down the path. "Twilight would..." she muttered.
When the arrived at the bottom, they hurried to the entrance, rushing past the camp and racing inside. Daring took the lead, and Ancient was content to let the more athletic, adventurous pegasus have that lead.
"So, apparently a lot of ponies on your expedition are dead and we've uncovered not only a dead alicorn but a living one too," Daring muttered. "I have a sneaking suspicion that these events might somehow be related."
"Is now really the best time for sarcasm?" Ancient shot back.
"Of course it is, dear. It's always the perfect time for sarcasm," Daring replied sweetly. "Don't you know me?" She smiled in playful delight.
Ancient huffed as they continued deeper into the structure. The ominous red lighting continued to illuminate the hallways, and the sound of their hoofsteps broke the otherwise silent stillness.
Far from soon enough, they reached the door to the control room. The door was opened, the lighting was red, and the projection was gone. Twilight wasn't there, but the corpse of Loose Translation was.
Ancient whimpered as they raced into the room. She immediately went to the body, while Daring gritted her teeth and looked around. "She's not-"
There was a gentle chime emanating throughout the room, and the lighting immediately blinked to magenta.
For a moment, there was silence, then a gentle hum. The projection whisked back to life, but while the edges were magenta, all of the text was in red. Behind the text, a projection of Twilight's cutie mark slowly rotated.