//------------------------------//
// Chapter Four: Into the Depths 
// Story: Skitter, Scurry and Screech (Iota Force Issue #4) 
// by The Iguana Man 
//------------------------------//

Icy sighed. It seemed that the group was making a habit out of misusing the word “we”. As it turned out, she had meant “I might be going back into the sewers.”

Not alone, admittedly, but not with Dinky. It made sense – this time they had a specific signal to home in on, so her magic wouldn't be necessary to track Skrik or his rats. Which was fortunate, since she was still a little magically drained after the previous day. Also, as she had pointed out when faced with a horde of tiny opponents, her abilities weren't really sufficient on their own when it came to a fight. That was the same reason Archer wasn't coming with them – one arrow at a time wasn't brilliant against a hundred enemies – she could disrupt them, but stopping them would be tricky.

It was hard to tell with Archer, but Icy could have sworn she'd heard a touch of resentment in her voice when she admitted that.

And so, Icy was going down with only Lance for company. Truffle had jokingly suggested that he probably wouldn't fit, but his reason for staying on the surface was that he was far from the fastest of the group, so if it came down to a chase again, he'd be more of a hindrance than a help.

However, he, Dinky and Archer were not staying back at base. As it turned out, the aetheroscope had found the apple's signal very near the town's sewage treatment plant. By cross-referencing with the sewer map, Alula was able to figure out where Skrik was probably holed up – a decently-sized chamber a few hundred meters from the plant's sewer entrance. As such, they were able to come up with a plan.

Nodding to her teammates hidden on the hill above the entrance, Icy looked around. She was in no way familiar with the workings of sewage treatment, so all she saw was a bunch of cylindrical pools. Ponyville was a small town, so they were neither as large nor as numerous as they probably were in the big cities, but Icy still felt ill at ease around them. And only partially because of the things other than water they contained.

“If anything happens,” Icy asked, looking Lance in the... face plate, “you won't have much room to swing or stand. Will you be okay?”

Lance gave a nod, swinging his sword from his back and holding it in front of him. Normally, he would stand on his hind legs, but this time he kept his right forehoof on the ground as well, giving a few demonstrative thrusts and swings. It was clear he wasn't as manoeuvrable like this, but could still handle himself.

Icy smiled. “Okay, just making sure. I guess when you're rearing up most of the time, it's easy to make yourself smaller.” She began to turn towards the tunnel entrance when something occurred to her. “Hang on,” she put a hoof to her badge, “Alula!”

“Yes?” Came the reply after a second.

“You're a shape-shifter!”

There was a lengthy pause.

“I appreciate the reminder.”

“No, I mean,” Icy shook her head and refocused, “you said we were going down without you because we were the smallest. So why couldn't you just shift yourself smaller and come too?”

There was another pause, this one not as long, but still a little longer than it should have been.

“Well, aside from my point about not crowding things, I could indeed do so, though I would have to keep at least a small part of my mind focused on it. However, I doubt it would prove that advantageous for us, since I lack the physical skills and abilities to really aid in your endeavours. The only service I could theoretically provide is stealth and scouting which, as it’s likely our quarry can see in the dark, would not be especially useful. And, since I think I am more use here, it seemed unnecessary.”

“Hmm... okay.” Icy said, nodding slowly. That made sense, certainly, and she might have accepted it except... there was something slightly off about the pause before Alula had said it. Like she had to recall her reasoning; like it wasn't her primary motivation.

A silent tilt of the head from Lance broke her out of her thoughts. “Oh, sorry.” She shook her head, resolving to question it further later.

Together, the pair headed into the tunnels. Fortunately, the route they were going was very simple, with only a couple of corners that they had memorized beforehand. Well, Lance had definitely memorized them and Icy was pretty sure she had as well. This meant that not only did they not need to talk, but their head lamps could be left very low so as not to give away their presence early. However, there were a couple of other things to remember.

After about fifty metres, they two came to the first branch of the tunnel system to their left. Lance indicated it with a hoof and Icy nodded. Gathering her energy in her wings, she started flapping slowly but forcefully. Within a few seconds, a sheet of ice began to form over the tunnel.

She kept flapping as the ice thickened. Given how warm it was down there, any ice she made would melt fairly quickly, so she had to make it as thick as she could. However, after about thirty seconds, she was confident that the sheet would last long enough for what they had planned.

She panted a little, both from fatigue and the warmth of the sewer, but straightened herself up regardless. If the map was accurate, there were only two more tunnels to block up.

As it turned out, this was a very good thing. After the third one, she genuinely wasn't sure she could manage a fourth. She might have even suggested going back and letting Lance handle the rest of the plan. However, even if her conscience permitted that, which it wouldn't, it wasn't possible. The third tunnel was the last before they reached the chamber they believed Skrik to be hiding out in. As a result, they had gone down that tunnel to circle round him and Icy had blocked it behind them. Now, there was no choice but to continue the plan.

They crept down the tunnels as they curved around the chamber in a side arc. Soon, they came to another four-way junction, one exit leading deeper into the tunnels, one where they were going and one leading to the chamber.

As they came within sight of the junction, Lance looked at Icy, indicated the junction and tilted his head. Icy shook her head, flapping her wings lethargically to show that she couldn't block it up, then indicated with a hoof down in the direction of the chamber – even if she could, he might see it before they were ready.

Lance nodded and reached a hoof up to his head lamp before Icy stopped him with a raised hoof of her own. She indicated him, mimed him going around, then pointed to herself and pointed down. She wasn't as good at non-verbal communication as Lance, but she was trying to suggest that she stay there and he go to the other end to cut of their quarry's escape.

Lance shook his head, flicking a hoof in two directions – that might make him run through one of the other exits rather than the one they needed him to go down, making their preparations useless. He indicated forward, that the best plan was to try to corral him down the correct tunnel.

Icy nodded, barely needing a second to understand what he was indicating. Lance's non-verbal communication skills were a high bar.

Lance reached up again and turned off his head lamp, then reached over and turned Icy's off as well. She nodded, mostly to herself as she now couldn't see Lance, and silently moved down the tunnel, putting her side up against the wall to her right to keep her direction and her balance. She tried desperately not to think about what the wall was rubbing into her coat.

She probably wasn't moving for more than ten seconds before she came to the junction, but that was a complete guess as it felt like minutes. If it wasn't pitch black, it was certainly close enough that it made no difference to Icy's eyes. She had nothing to focus her eyes on and the need to keep absolutely quiet meant she couldn't hear anything but the echoing sounds of flowing sewage from deeper in the tunnels. She could barely hear her own breathing. In fact, the only way she was able to sense her own body in relation to the world was through the wall she was touching, making for quite the surreal experience.

When she did come to the junction, she stepped forward, stuck her hoof out into the right tunnel and lost even that for a few moments, leaving only the feeling of her hooves on the ground. This was somewhat different from the previous sensation since hooves, or at least the hard part of them that was in contact with the ground, didn't have a direct sense of touch, only the feeling of pressure transferred to the soft bits of her leg. Not that this was unusual, it was always like that for ponies, but the lack of any other real stimulus made Icy consider it for the first time. She briefly considered pressing the frog of her hoof – the fleshy bit inside the hard rim – to the ground to see what it felt like. However, while the boots she was wearing were thin enough that she could have felt the ground through them, she figured the more space between her hooves and the sewer floor, the better. Perhaps if she...

Her outstretched hoof bumped into the far wall of the tunnel she was sticking it down, knocking her out of her thoughts. She almost gasped before remembering the need for stealth and closing her mouth just in time. Putting her coat back against the wall, she continued forward. This time, she counted ten seconds in her head, both to know when she could stop and turn on her light again and to keep herself focused on something.

As she reached ten, she stopped and reached up to her helmet's light. She turned the knob down even further than it had been before, then switched it on.

It flickered to life, just barely able now to illuminate the outline of things. However, after a minute or so in near complete darkness, the change was more than enough for Icy. She looked up, only to see no other pony forms in the corridor. Briefly confused, she turned around to look for Lance, only to see him a fair distance behind her, having just come off the junction.

He looked up at her and sped his pace up a little, coming off the wall he had put a hoof on. It made sense, Icy thought – not only was his clothing somewhat bulkier, but seeing through that face mask couldn't be easy. Lance had always insisted... well, insisted through action, which probably counted as insisting, but Icy wasn't sure... anyway, he had always insisted that he could see just as well as anyone else, but she had her doubts. Though he did admit that his peripheral vision was slightly reduced.

Icy still wasn't sure how he had managed to convey the concept of “slightly reduced peripheral vision” though only expressions and small gestures, but she figured it was better not to question these things. Don't look a gift monkey in the mouth, as the saying went. Although, now that Icy thought about it, that was kind of a weird saying, since the only time she could think of where a “gift monkey” was a thing was the wooden monkey of Trough, where the Troughans definitely should have looked a gift monkey in the mouth to make sure there wasn't a legion of Unicornian soldiers inside, so maybe...

A hoof on her shoulder brought her back to reality. She looked up to Lance and gave an apologetic smile, but he simply pointed down the tunnel. Turning around, she saw that they were only a few metres from the next junction – the one they need to approach the chamber from if they wanted to get Skrik where they wanted him. Turning back and nodding, she turned her lamp off again, twisting the knob back up in readiness for when they got where they were going. She held out her hoof as Lance turned his lamp off. She felt him take her hoof and she pressed her coat against the left side of the tunnel this time, leading the two of them down and around the junction. It might not have been strictly necessary to hold hooves, but it was probably best that they didn't get separated again.

After a couple more minutes of silent walking, she felt the wall vanish from the front of her side, indicating the tunnel opening out into the chamber. She stopped moving and held her hoof rigid to indicate for Lance to stop.

She strained her eyes, trying to see into the chamber, but it did little good. With their helmet lights off, the wall next to her and the open space in front of her were the exact same shade of black. Not only could she not see her hoof in front of her face, she could barely see her eyelids whenever she blinked.

However, after a moment of staring into the void, Icy's ears perked up as she heard something. It took a moment to pinpoint and identify it, but she smiled invisibly when she did.

It was the sound of somepony breathing. It wasn't loud, but it sounded deep and, after a few seconds of listening, completely regular. There was a slight rasp to it as well. While Icy was no expert on pony lung noises, it seemed to indicate something very encouraging.

The pony, whoever it was, was asleep.

Icy moved her hoof a little to where the noise was coming from and felt Lance's hoof dip slightly in acknowledgement. When they had made their plans, they had assumed that they would have to chase Skrik down, given how skittish he had seemed in their (admittedly brief) previous encounter. However, it had been agreed that, if they could confront him without a chase, they should, and him being asleep seemed to indicate that was the case.

Unfortunately, they had forgotten something.

Icy felt Lance tug her hoof a little in the direction of the sound. Taking that as an indication to go there, she started creeping towards the sound, Lance's hoof moving along with her.

One step. Two Steps. Three steps. Squelch.

The sound was unmistakable and rang out like a gong in the silent tunnels. Icy had stepped in something. Something slick and semi-solid. A tiny speck of solid matter gave her the clue as to what it was. The speck felt like a pip, meaning she had stepped in some sort of fruit.

Of course, the food pile!

She'd forgotten that the rats had moved the pile of rotting food. By the sounds of it, she had just stepped in some of it.

For an all-too-brief second, it seemed like the sound had gone unnoticed. The tunnels returned to near-complete silence, the only noises being the slight echo of the squelch and the breathing, uninterrupted.

Then, from the same direction as the breathing, a momentary small squeal came. There was a tiny, near-imperceptible flash of motion in the darkness.

Then the squeal rang out again, louder and longer this time. Then a few more squeals joined it, before one final squeal overshadowed them all, louder and deeper than any other. Icy recognized that as the cry Skrik had given. She let Lance's hoof go and quickly reached up with a wing to click the light of her helmet on.

The light flashed into existence, illuminating the form of the grey colt they had seen during the previous day's chase. He thrust a hoof over his eyes and gave a pained squeal, presumably not used to the light. He was nestled within the relocated nest of straw and hay. Scurrying over him in agitation were about half a dozen rats, their eyes shining in the sudden light and glaring at the two interlopers.

After half a second of non-motion, Skrik darted off the bed and away from the two, managing an impressive acceleration given the softness of his starting point. The moment he did, Lance darted off around the other side of the food pile and Icy, only fractionally slower, surged forward, the two engaging in a pincer movement around the pile to corral the colt down the tunnel they wanted.

Of course, the rats he was carrying didn't take kindly to this and leapt off him, scampering towards Icy. Her eyes widened and she leapt over them, going into a brief glide and landing behind them. She didn't dare look back, but she knew it would take them a moment to turn around and give chase.

Skrik sprinted down the tunnel opposite to the entrance Icy and Lance had come in from. The two joined each other again as they followed. Icy smiled and, though she couldn't see Lance's face in her peripheral vision due to his mask, she got the feeling he was smiling too.

Well, she thought as she remembered how Lance usually looked even with his mask off, on the inside, maybe.

Her own smile increased when Skrik moved to the right of the tunnel, making ready to turn down the left exit coming up, only to see the ice blockade Icy had created and squeak in panic. He quickened his pace, beginning to increase the distance between them, but Icy doubted that would do him any good.

He let off a louder squeal as he came to the next junction, only to see that exit covered in ice too. He suddenly dashed across the tunnel, ramming into the ice at an angle, presumably so he wouldn't have to stop if he didn't break through. Fortunately for the two chasing him, he didn't manage it and the impact did slow him down a little. Although, it might have been Icy's imagination, but it seemed like he was slowing down anyway for some reason.

Nevertheless, the chase continued for another short while. There was only one other iced up offshoot between there and the surface and he tried to smash through that as well. There was a brief moment of panic for Icy as she heard it crack. If he managed to break through, he would lead them deeper into the tunnels, probably lose them again and all their work would have been for nothing.

However, it didn't break. As Icy got closer, she could see the massive cracks the impact had made and she estimated Skrik could have broken through given one or two more attempts, but all three ponies knew he didn't have time to stop for that.

She looked back up, the light of her helmet beginning to merge into the light streaming from the end of the tunnel. She could see Skrik a lot more clearly now as he looked back at his pursuers, his dark eyes wide and his hooves moving with absolute certainty despite not looking where he was going. After a couple of seconds, he turned to look in front of him again, catching sight of the opening to the outside world.

The moment he did, his hooves locked up, bringing his retreat to a sliding stop. He let out a huge, high-pitched scream that echoed back down the tunnels, making Icy and Lance stumble to a halt themselves and put their hooves over their flattened ears.

Skrik backed away from the tunnel exit a couple of steps before whirling round to face Icy and Lance again. His hooves started scraping frantically against the ground and his eyes shrunk to tiny dots. He started chittering and squealing in distress as he curled up into a ball.

Lance and Icy exchanged a look of confusion. Icy turned back to the terrified colt and raised an eyebrow. “Are you... are you okay?”

“Bad!” The colt yelled out suddenly, making Icy step back and Lance move a couple of millimetres in shock.

“You can talk? Do you-” Icy managed before Skrik interrupted her to continue.

“Bad! Bad place!” He said, his words rapid and rushed as he pointed a hoof towards the exit. “Big place, bad place, big place, bad place, don't go, don't make Skrik go!”

Icy took another couple of steps back, jerking her head to indicate Lance to follow. “Okay, okay, we don't want to hurt you, we just want to talk.”

Skrik tilted his head jerkily. “Talk? Ran, ran at Skrik, not talked at Skrik, why ran not talked?”

Icy sighed. “You ran from us, remember? You saw us and you ran.”

Skrik shook his head. “Came to Skrik. Came for Skrik. Didn't...”

He trailed off as a smaller series of sounds came from his feet. Looking down, Icy saw a rat with its front paws on Skrik's leg, squeaking at him.

He gave a brief glare to Icy and Lance with a distinct undertone of “Don't move, I need to talk about this.” He started squealing back at the rat. Icy had no idea what was being said, the most she could make out was “Shhht hwi hwo hiw sweee sui twi” or something of the sort. She was about to say something when another series of squeals come just onto the edge of her hearing. The echoing of the tunnels made it impossible to tell where it was coming from, but there was definitely a lot of it. And, unless Icy was very much mistaken, it was getting louder.

“Talk.” Skrik said, looking up from his conversation with the rat. “You talk? We talk. What we... talk...” He trailed off as he looked behind the two.

Turning around, a sudden sense of imminent doom slowing her movements, Icy looked behind her.

Flood. That was the only word to describe the amount of rats streaming towards them. They were surging forward in one great, long mass, covering the floor so completely that barely a hint of the stone beneath was visible. A few were even scurrying along the lower parts of the curved walls, like splashes of water coming up onto a riverbank. The tunnel behind them faded quickly into darkness but, even if it didn't, Icy doubted she could have seen the back of the horde. They were moving chaotically, weaving in-between each other, even sometimes clambering over each other, looking like some furry waterfall.

And, while Icy was by no means an expert in reading animal moods, she got the distinct impression that they were not happy.

She barely had time to flare her wings before they were on top of her, swarming all over her. She tried to gather her energy, but the sudden scratches at her wings made it impossible to concentrate or keep the energy focused. She felt her hooves leave the ground and she fell backwards, landing on the tide of rats and finding herself carried forward towards the light.

She got a brief look back and saw that Lance was faring a little better, his sword swings deflecting many of the rats that tried to jump on him, but he was quickly becoming overwhelmed.

As she moved forward, struggling but unable to get her balance long enough to resist, she rushed past Skrik, who was gesticulating and squealing wildly, as if to stop the onslaught. Unfortunately, by now, it had gained enough momentum that even he couldn't control it.

She reached back toward him, but it was too late – she found herself bundled out of the tunnels and carried out towards the massive pools near the entrance.

For a moment, she panicked, flailing her limbs and knocking away a couple of rats, though not nearly enough. Her own pupils constricted as she considered what the rats were about to do to the filly who, as far as she could tell, they thought had threatened their king. She closed her eyes and held her breath.

A sudden whoosh of wind blew across her face, followed by a boom noise and an intense light briefly penetrating her eyelids. She opened her eyes to see a small patch of the rats on the outskirts of the swarm scurrying away. She barely had time to register this when another whoosh came from the other side of her, and she turned her head just in time to catch an arrow landing on the other side of the swarm before bursting into a flash and a bang.

She let out something between a gasp and an inhaled sigh at the reminder that her friends were here, and they were ready for this sort of thing.

Another arrow impacted and burst in the middle of the horde, just beneath Icy's stomach, sending many of the rats in the middle scurrying towards the edges and thinning the mass even more. Struggling through them, Icy managed to get a couple of hooves on the ground and lift herself up, her body swaying but, if nothing else happened, soon to find its balance.

Unfortunately, something else happened.

“BANZAI!”

Truffle's weight was a curious thing. While he was generally the first pony to admit to, even boast about, how fat he was, he didn't look it at first glance. He was big, certainly, no one would dispute that, but he didn't look like the lump of flesh and fat in a vaguely equine shape one would expect from one with his level of pudginess-pride. In fact, like his surprising level of fitness, it was due to his Special Talent. If his body truly reflected the amount he ate, he'd barely be able to move his shoulders enough to walk. As a result, the magic of his Mark made him internalize fat in a different way. It didn't disappear, it was just compacted and squeezed into his only-somewhat-larger-than-normal frame.

As a result, his body was dense. Very dense. Not solid, of course – hitting him in the stomach wasn't like kicking a brick wall, but more like hitting an incredibly overstuffed pillow. It would go in a little, maybe send a slight ripple across if it was hard enough, but not disturb it particularly.

Now, this compactness had a lot of advantages besides the extra agility it gave him – he wasn't exactly an Equestria Games gymnast, but he could certainly move if he needed to. For one thing, he had told Icy that it actually meant he hit harder, particularly when jumping on things. It was something about more weight in a smaller thing meaning more pressure. She didn't entirely understand, if she was honest, but it certainly sounded science-y.

Normally, this extra-hard impact was good. This time, however, he was hitting the ground very near a filly who was already quite unbalanced and teetering on the edge of a large body of water. The impact sent a tremor through the ground. Not a massive one, but more than enough destroy what balance Icy had achieved.

For a split second, she hung there, tilting at an angle over the edge of the pool, her limbs desperately screaming at her brain for directions it was too terrified to give.

Then she fell.

She saw Truffle, his eyes wide as he realized what he'd done, try to leap forward and grab her hoof, but it had taken him a moment to pick himself up and, again, he was far from the fastest of the group. His hoof fell short by two feet.

Icy plunged into the water, briefly blinded by the bubbles that surrounded her and made a trail from the surface. Panicking, she flailed her hooves, trying to shove herself upwards. Unfortunately, even if she could swim, which she couldn't, the tension in her body and the terror in her mind made certain she was incapable of stopping or controlling her descent.

She could feel the water around her, both on her skin and in her soul, clinging, cloying, wrapping around her and pulling her in. She tried to reach a hoof up, but felt the water shift with it, flowing up away from her and propelling her further down. She started fidgeting desperately, as it trying to shake off the chains she felt like she was wrapped in, but the water just shook even harder, spinning and vibrating into a maelstrom that spun Icy around and made her unsure which direction was up. She heard a faint scream, but wasn't sure if it was coming from the surface or from her.

A moment later, she felt the water pull on her, carrying her backwards. It took a moment to realize what was happening and by the time she knew what was going on, she found herself rushing away from the concrete-walled pool and into a pipe that flowed out of it. A small part of her registered that the water she had been in was clean, so probably the last place the water went before it left the plant, but that meant she had no idea where she was heading.

Shaking her head, she placed her hooves against the walls of the pipe, trying to halt her progress. She didn't think about why or whether that would help, she just wanted to stop her uncontrolled journey. For a moment, it seemed to work – she skidded to a halt and the water actually seemed to stop flowing.

Unfortunately, the pressure behind her seemed to build up and, after a couple of seconds, the flow started again much harder, knocking her from her hoofholds and sending her tumbling. She tried to right herself, but it was no good – every movement she made, the flow made as well, sending her spinning in a different way. It didn't help that the pipe was completely dark and she couldn't even make out when she was facing down the pipe and when she was facing a wall.

Her lungs screamed as her hoof started hitting her stomach in agitation. She was about to try to grab the walls again when she felt the flow of water around her fade. Looking around, she realized that there was light and open water around her.

She floated for a moment, gravity reasserting itself and letting her hooves face down once again. She looked to the side to see a slope of soil, and, steeling herself, looked down. The depth of the water nearly shocked her into another round of wild flailing, even in spite of her bracing herself, but the sudden chill kept her still. It looked like she was in a small lake of some kind – not as big as the main lake, hence why that was called “the Ponyville lake”, but still a sizable body of water. And, hopefully, one with a surface.

However, as she looked up, that brief flicker of hope was drowned. The lake did indeed have a surface – one that was completely covered in ice.

Were Icy in a more contemplative frame of mind, she might have thought about the irony. As it was, she just felt despair fill the ever-increasing void in her lungs.

She found herself floating up towards the ice, as if it were mocking her, her limbs kept still by the cold. She placed a hoof against the ice and beat at it slowly with the other, her hoof flowing along with the water, but it was no good. Even if her energy wasn't being rapidly drained by the temperature and suffocation, she couldn't have smashed her way through it.

Icy closed her eyes, feeling her tears diffuse into the water. Her fear had plateaued into a bizarre kind of calm that allowed her to fully appreciate her situation.

I'm gonna to die here. I'm gonna fall unconscious and drown and my body'll be found when the ice melts and Mom's gonna scream and cry and hate my friends and my friends are gonna feel horrible and not wanna defend Equestria anymore and I'll never learn to ice skate and OOMPH!

She was knocked out of her thoughts when a hoof wrapped around her barrel and yanked her downwards. The force knocked what little breath she still had out of her, sending up bubbles that rose up and bumped lazily against the ice. Blackness began to creep in at the edge of her vision as she looked back at whoever had grabbed her. Between her failing consciousness and the light fading as they descended, it was hard to make out, but Icy could just about see what looked like a thin, coltish face and a probably-grey mane and tail.

Wait, she thought as the light faded completely, the two entering some sort of underwater cave, it can't be...

In her last moments of consciousness, she felt the water around her recede as they broke to the surface. However, it was too late to stop her eyes flickering closed and her mind slipping into sleep.