Icy groaned as she tried to lift her head, a task made more difficult by the fact it was currently upside down, her back above it and bent over the thing beneath her. It was a little painful, but not as much as she would have thought, though that was likely because it wasn't curved back so much as to hurt her spine.
She shook her head as a thought occurred to her – ponies always talked about bending over backwards to do something, but what do you do when you're trying to unbend over backwards?
Twisting her head, she saw what exactly she was sprawled across, though she already had a fair idea. Pinned beneath her was the left side of Archer and beneath Archer was the entirety of Truffle.
“Ugh,” Archer moaned, succinctly summing up her own, Icy's and, Icy suspected, Truffle's general feeling on the present situation. “Could you maybe get off me, Icy. The soft landing helped, but I'm getting kinda sandwiched here.”
“Soft landing. That would have been nice,” Truffle sighed from the floor, more perturbed than annoyed.
After a couple of attempts at pulling herself up, Icy shrugged and rolled off to the side, tumbling off the pony pile and a short way across the floor. As she picked herself up, she saw Archer hop off Truffle with an annoying amount of grace. Grunting to herself, she looked around at where they had ended up.
It was a roughly semi-circular room made, of course, of crystal. However, the walls didn't shine with nearly the same brightness as most of the areas in the empire they had seen so far, including the entrance corridor they'd just been in. The colours were similarly varied here, but they all seemed a little muted. Of course, this might have been exacerbated by the amount of dust coating the floor and walls. Whatever this place was, it hadn't seen use for a very long time.
The one exception was the straight wall of the room. The edge that curved around, the floor and even the ceiling were all those same darkened colours, but the straight wall where the circular part ended was bright, shiny and looked almost brand new.
Icy blinked, trying to square the two aesthetics in her head. “Where do you think we are?”
“No idea,” Truffle replied as he rolled himself to his feet. “If I had to guess, probably somewhere in those caves still – if he wanted to transport us anywhere else, it'd either be a dungeon in the empire on the surface or right into some kind of death. Other than that, though, no idea.”
“Holding area, I'd say,” Archer added. “Drop us in here to stew until we can be dealt with personally.”
“Hmm,” Truffle thought for a moment before he pressed a hoof to his badge. “Hello? Alula, Dinky, Scoots? Are you receiving me?”
The message came out loud and clear over Icy and Archer's badges but, after a good ten seconds of silence, Truffle shook his head. “No good – the walls or the stuff in them must be blocking the signal.”
Icy nodded and turned to Archer. “So do you think we could talk to whoever set that trap.”
“Not unless you can talk to the dead,” Archer replied, looking around and pulling out her bow, though seemingly more out of habit and comfort than need. “That trap'll have been one of Sombra's – opening a portal like that's a pretty tricky thing, but it makes sense he'd trap this place like that. Whoever's been down to these caves probably doesn't know or care that we're down here.”
“Greetings!” A voice came from the walls around them.
Archer's mouth squeezed into a thin line. “Course, I could be wrong.” She said as the others readied themselves for battle.
“I do apologize for not being there myself to greet you, but I hope this will do.” The voice continued, a strange distortion in its sound, as an image faded into being on the flat wall.
The image was of a large pony, but only because the image itself was large – from the proportions of the body, it was very clearly a child – a filly, probably, but it was hard to tell due to the fact its face wasn't visible. Instead, over the entire area of the head was a big, crystalline orb, completely covered in small, pyramidal protrusions. Around the figure's neck was tied a white cloak that flowed over its back and around its side and hindquarters, masking its tail from view. The body that was visible shimmered with the distinctive lustre of a crystal pony, but so did the inside of the cloak, making it unclear whether it was the cloak or the pony had that effect. Overall, the figure looked imposing, certainly, but not particularly threatening.
“Did you send us here?” Icy asked, though she didn't expect an affirmative answer – a foal this old would probably lack the power and experience to create such a portal.
“I'm terribly sorry for the poor accommodations,” the pony continued, totally ignoring Icy, “but, as you've probably guessed, I'm doing some very important things down here and I really can't have you three messing things up for me. Fortunately, old King Sombra helped me out with his teleport traps.”
There was no indication from the tone that this was in answer to Icy's question. However, after listening carefully to the distorted voice, she could just about make out that it was a filly's voice, though any other details were impossible to determine.
“Okay, you got us down here, good start,” Icy smiled up at the image, “but now you've gotta...”
“Of course, there's no way out of this cell – Sombra saw to that. I'm probably safe just leaving you in here. Trouble for you is, I'm not a big believer in ‘probably’. Luckily, Sombra saw to that, too. Stallions and gentlemares, may I introduce you to your new cellmates?”
With that, a slight glow could be seen coming out of the top of the dome, emblematic of a unicorn's magic. A moment later, the image faded, as did the wall, revealing a larger, roughly circular room. However, there wasn't much time to appreciate that due to what was waiting for them on the other side of said room.
There were three of them, each around the size of a colt, but that was where the similarities to Icy's group ended. On the right of the three was a bipedal, hairless creature covered in grey, rough-looking hide. It tottered slightly on its short, strangely bent legs and held its arms out. One ended in an ordinary hand, though it was clenched firmly into a fist, while attached to the other arm was one, long, wickedly sharp-looking claw, easily as long as one of Lance's swords and much wider.
On the left was a strange, unnaturally thin, furless panther-like creature. Its four legs looked roughly equivalent to a pony's, but they weren't its only limbs. Extending out of its back were two short tentacles, both ending in a large, clawed hand that clasped a large, metal disc.
And in the centre was a sort of equinoid bird – bipedal, but with the proportions and limbs of a pony. It remained totally still and stable, its feathered arms held out in front of it in a strange position. One was bent in front of its torso, the other lowered and held out diagonally from it, like it was waltzing with an extremely strange looking dance partner.
“I'll leave you to get acquainted,” the voice said before cutting out.
There was a moment of silence while the two groups looked at each other. It seemed unnaturally still as the six gazes scanned the new arrivals, unsure about what threat had come up and what they needed to do.
Then, without warning, the massive-clawed creature leapt forward, its blade out in front and aimed straight at Archer, who was thankfully on-the-ball enough to hop out of the way.
The next instant, the two groups scattered. Truffle dashed to the side, only for the tentacled creature to hurl one of its discs at him, hitting him in the stomach and knocking him back, though not damaging him overly much. Meanwhile, the disc ricocheted off the wall and bounced right back into the waiting creature's claws.
With a “Hmph!”, Truffle started towards the creature, only for it to throw its other disc. This time, however, Truffle was ready for it and dodged to the side, using the opening to leap at the creature. “Banzai!” He cried, but the creature was quick enough to intercept him with its remaining disc. He impacted it and knocked the creature back considerably, but with a guttural grunt of intense effort, it was able to lift Truffle and throw him off its disc, holding its other tentacle out to catch the thrown one.
Meanwhile, Archer was mostly focused on dodging the swinging claw of the bladed creature. “Icy, slide!” She called as she hopped up onto the wall, waiting a moment before leaping over the creature's head the next time it swung.
Shaking her head, Icy just about managed to flap her wings and send a thin icy gust in a line along the ground, creating a long slick for Archer to land on and slide away from the creature. As she slid, she whirled around and fired a short stream of arrows behind her, shattering the ice and preventing the creature from following her as fast.
“Hah!” Archer cried as she hopped to her feet and readied an impact arrow. “Not so scary where you're out of range, are you, chopper?”
The creature tilted its head and raised its claw. After a moment, a massive spark of electricity surged down the claw's length and fired out in a bolt of lightning at Archer.
Fortunately, the buildup allowed Archer to dodge out of the way without getting fried, but it still shook her up a little. “On second thought, maybe not. Icy, a little help with this one?”
Icy shook her head again, cursing her tendency to get distracted observing. She flared her wings only for an unexpected sound to start up.
The bird-thing, still in its strange posture, had opened its mouth and begun singing. At first, it didn't seem threatening – it was a very lively and pleasant song, though the timbre of the notes was strange, wholly unlike any singing Icy had ever heard from ponies or animals. However, after a moment, a faint green energy started emerging from it and washed over the area, pooling around the other two creatures.
“Actually, third thought, that can't be good, take care of that!” Archer called, weaving from side to side to avoid the suddenly-quicker movements of the bladed creature.
Icy nodded, thinking for a moment about what to do about this. She wasn't sure how to deal with whatever energy this bird-thing was producing, but it seemed to be related to its singing. So hopefully, she just needed to shut it up.
As soon as she thought that, she smiled as she realized she could do so literally. Waiting for a moment until the bird had paused in its song briefly, she flapped her wings again and sent a freezing gust over it, encasing its beak in ice and clamping it firmly shut.
However, much to her confusion, the song didn't change. It was slightly more muffled to her ears, but it hadn't paused for an instant. That was impossible – if it was singing, then even if it could keep the song going when its mouth was sealed, it should have at least paused.
She squinted slightly, staring more intently at the creature as the song shifted in pitch and the ice started cracking. However, the cracking was starting on the right side of the ice chunk, where the creature's arms were pointed. In fact, now that she was truly focused on it, she could hear that the song was coming from around its arms, even though she was positive it had been coming from its beak only a moment ago. And what's more, it seemed like its arms were moving weirdly even though they were staying still as well and that didn't... it wasn't...
Something seemed to shatter around her as her eyes lost focus for a split second. Blinking her sight back, she saw something completely different.
Instead of a bizarre bird creature, standing in front of her was a filly, about her age. She was dressed in a black and white suit that fit her form well, yet still gave off a similar feeling to a tuxedo. Where the lapel of the suit would have been was a badge, similar to the ones Icy and her friends wore except that, whereas theirs had an iota symbol on it, this badge had a stylized number 6. The filly was standing on her hind hooves with a violin tucked under her chin, playing an energetic tune. Along with the music, that green energy was flowing out from the strings and into her allies.
Instantly, Icy's eyes widened as she realized what was going on. “Guys, it's an illusion!” She called out.
In response, she heard Truffle grunt as another disc impacted his stomach. “Feels pretty real to me!”
Icy shook her head, keeping her eye on the filly in case she had any surprises for her. “No, I mean this is a pony. She had an illusion over her to make her look like a monster! Listen, the music's coming from a violin!”
“Wait, what?!” Archer asked. After a moment, she loaded a hoof-snare arrow and shot the bladed creature, if that's what it truly was, in its clawed arm, pinning it to the wall. Turning, she focused on the filly. From the other side, Truffle looked up from the tentacled creature, having managed to catch one of its discs.
Remembering how she'd seen through it, Icy sent a smaller wave of cold over the filly's muzzle. It didn't last a second before she flexed her jaw out of it, but it would hopefully be enough to break the illusion for the others.
For a couple of seconds, they stared intensely and listened. Then Archer blinked and shook her head, followed by Truffle.
“Oh. Well then, I suppo- Whoa!” Truffle cried as the disc slipped out of his hooves, rushing back into the claws of the tentacled beast. “Well, I guess they're still attacking.”
The clawed beast rammed its free hand into the snare arrow, sending a bolt of force through it and shattering the bonds.
“Guess so, but how do we get rid of these illusions?” she asked.
“That's assuming they're all tricks,” Truffle pointed out. “Don't know any ponies with back limbs. Unless you count.. wait, of course. Which means...”
The tentacled creature threw one of its discs again, but Truffle dodged to the side and rushed at it again. However, at the last moment, he darted away from its body and grasped at its free tentacle.
“...you don't really have claws!” And, indeed, when he tried to grab at the digits on the end of the tentacle, his hoof passed straight through. Another moment of sensory dissonance later, it turned out his hoof was wrapped around... a tentacle.
At least, that's what it looked like at first. It took Icy a moment to see the shape of it and how the joints were spaced throughout it before she realized what it was – a wing. The filly Truffle had grabbed, dressed in a red and blue bodysuit with another badge, had a pair of wings on her back, but absolutely no feathers on them.
“Huh,” Truffle said, a little taken aback by this. “Wasn't really expecti- Oof!” For the second time in as many minutes, Truffle was interrupted mid-speech, this time by a kick to the stomach. It surprised more than hurt him, but it was enough for the filly to break away and gesture with the wing, a metal tip on the end of it glowing and apparently summoning her disc – a circular shield, like the one on her other wing, back to her.
The twang of a bowstring brought Icy back into the room, and she turned around just in time to see Archer's arrow knock the remaining, presumably illusionary creature's claw to the side, sending its next bolt flying wildly.
“I see how this works,” she said after a moment, pulling another hoof-snare arrow out. “And nopony I know's got a claw like that. Only thing that big a pony can hold's a sword.” She dashed to the side, sprinting around the thing as it tried to get a bead on her. However, she was able to get to the side enough to fire the arrow at the claw, knocking it off the creature's arm and pinning it to the wall.
“And claws don't detach!” Archer said proudly as the feeling of the illusion shattering overcame them once again. This time, however, it was not a pony that they saw when their vision cleared, but a zebra. He was also black and white, in his suit as well as his fur, though the pattern on his clothing was far more chaotic – reminiscent of energy surging randomly across his skin. His own badge was kept on his belt, near an ornate scabbard.
The zebra dashed over to his trapped sword, putting a hoof on its hilt and smashing down on its back with his other hoof, slicing through the snare.
“You think that you can scare me with your spines?
Alas, I've dealt with bigger porcupines!”
“Spines?!” Archer said before it hit her what he meant. “Oh, for... they're seeing us as monsters too.” An angry sneer came across her face and she gave a low growl – a great difference from the confident calm she’d had just a few seconds ago when she thought a monster was after her. “I am gonna murder that crystal-faced creep!” She snarled as she hopped out of the way of another bolt.
“Zat, you need a hand with that one?” The sort-of-winged filly asked, clearly not hearing Archer as she kept her eyes focused on Truffle, waiting for his next move.
“I thank you, Wing, but I need no defence.
Instead, I'd deal with your foe's corpulence!”
“Well,” Truffle said, smiling a little but not making any sudden movements, “they know I'm fat, so the illusions must not be too extensive.”
“Okay,” Archer called back as she rushed towards the Zebra, presumably thinking that a slash was both easier to dodge and slightly less damaging than an electrical bolt, “but how do we break these ones. Doubt they'll listen to us if we tell 'em.” She ducked under a sword swing. “They can't hear us!”
Icy thought for a moment, the music still being played by the violinist speeding up her thoughts a little. If they couldn't hear them, then how could they understand anything. If she couldn't hear, she'd...
Clopping a hoof as she realized, she turned around. “Guys, you think you can hold them off for about thirty seconds?”
“No...” There was a whoosh of air indicative of a sword stroke missing Archer. “...problem...” Another whoosh. “...Icy!”
Nodding, Icy hopped up onto her hind hooves, put her front hoof against the wall and called more freezing energy to her wings. However, this time, she didn't flap it into a gust, but instead held it in her wingtip and placed it against the wall, causing a small lump of ice to start forming.
Scowling in concentration, she moved her wing along the wall in movements that it wasn't exactly designed for. Still, she just about managed and, after about twenty seconds, she lowered herself down again.
The violinist was the first to notice, his playing slowing to a stop as his eyes caught what Icy had done.
“Huh? What's wrong?” This shield-bearing filly asked. “Why'd you stop... oh. Huh!” She said as she and the Zebra followed her eyeline and saw what she was looking at.
On the wall above Icy was a crude arrow, drawn in ice, pointing down at her. Written above, also in ice, was, in shaky wingwriting, the word “PONY”.
There was a moment of silence as the three tried to parse this new development.
After a few seconds, the shield-wielder spoke up. “Er, maybe it's just my eyes, but that doesn't look much like a pony to me.” The other nodded, still tensed for a fight.
Icy thought rapidly, squeezing her eyes shut. She'd stopped the fight for a short while, at least, but she needed to break the illusion and to do that, it seemed she needed to show something that conflicted with what she appeared to be. Unfortunately, she had no idea what she looked like to them, so the only thing she had to work with was what she did look like, but how...
She was briefly distracted as a slight shiver in her wing reminded her that she still had a small amount of energy in her wings. She looked around for a place to deposit it – she didn't want to send it flying out in case that caused the fight to start again – before she looked down at her hooves.
She was about to deposit it into the ground beneath them when a thought occurred to her. A smile rocketed onto her face as she placed her wings on the front of her torso and sent out the energy in a stream, calling up more to flow out after it.
After a few seconds of this, she let up and stepped back, out of the thin block of ice that, on her side, now held an inverted ice sculpture of the front of her body and her face.
There was a moment of confusion on their faces as their eyes lost focus, as Icy assumed had happened to her when she broke through the deception. Taking advantage of the distraction, she sent a small gust over the fronts of Archer and Truffle.
“Hey!” Truffle called as he stepped back, thankfully not breaking the ice mold she'd made. “Okay, I see what you were doing there, but warn a pony next time!”
“Yeah,” Archer said, wiping some water from her face, “not cool, Icy! Well,” she looked at the likeness she'd formed of her, “well, I mean, kinda cool, I guess. And if we're talking literally, very cool, but you know what I mean!”
Icy gave a sheepish grin. “Yeah, sorry about that. Got a bit caught up with the idea.”
“Huh,” the featherless pegasus said after a moment. “Looks like they are poni- Wha?!”
The peaceful moment was shattered when the zebra swung his sword again, missing Archer by millimetres only thanks to her quick reflexes.
“What the hell, dude?” Archer cried. “I'm a-”
“A pony's guise – a very cunning plan!” The zebra smirked.
“But you'll need more to fool old Zatrathan!”
“Er, Zat?” The shield-filly said, keeping her tone reasonable. “I don't think this is a trick.”
“Yeah, I'm really a pony!” Archer said as she dodged the wild swings. “There's gotta be something I can do for you to prove it.” Her eyes scanned over him. “Or maybe to you, I- Ah!” She flinched back as his sword nicked her hoof, her suit thankfully strong enough to prevent too deep a cut.
The zebra stepped back slightly, his sword pointed in front of him.
“You may think so, but let me say this plain:
I was not fooled... and won't get fooled again!”
He rushed forward, swinging again, though this time Archer was able to duck well under the strike.
“Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you. You asked for this. I swear I'm a pony!”
“Of course, you swear and plead and twist and vow!
But you'll not trick me!” The zebra swung again, making Archer dodge to the side.
“That...” he swung low and Archer jumped over the blade.
“I'll not...” he swung high again, allowing Archer to dip well under the blade and rush her head towards him. He opened his mouth to speak again.
And then Archer kissed him, fully on the lips.
The contact lasted less than a second, but it was enough to make the zebra's eyes widen and his sword drop from his hoof. “Oh, wow!” He finished as she pulled away.
Once that was done, Archer retreated with a mischievous smirk. “Still think I'm a monster?”
The zebra's mouth flapped up and down. “Buh... wha... this... kiss... I... Why...” He stammered.
Archer gave a firm nod. “That's what I thought!” She stepped back, only to hiss in surprise and pain as she moved the leg he had previously cut. She rolled up her sleeve to see that the cut had been a little deeper than it had first appeared.
Icy opened her mouth to speak again – about which of the many things she'd just seen, she wasn't sure, but she knew she had to say something – only to be cut off when the sound of beautiful music made itself known.
Looking up, she saw the violinist approaching Archer, her bipedal motion not disrupting her playing. Icy was about to ask what she was doing when she saw more energy flowing from her instrument. However, while the previous energy was a bold, solid looking field of pure green, this was a bluer green, lighter and gentler. It flowed down over Archer's leg, encasing it for a moment before the filly drew the tune to a smooth halt.
When the energy faded, the wound didn't look nearly so bad. It was still clearly visible, but it had stopped bleeding and didn't look nearly as deep.
Archer wiggled her hoof, showing no obvious sign of pain as she did. “Huh. Neat trick, that,” she said quietly, too astonished for anything more.
Icy looked to the violinist, who she realized had so far remained silent, presumably to concentrate on her music. Understandable, as that had been some of the most beautiful playing Icy had heard in a long time.
The filly gave a small smile. Then she stuck her hoof out suddenly, grabbed Archer's and shook.
“Hey, how ye doin'? Sorry 'bout that – things got real ugly there,” She said in the single thickest Manehattan accent Icy had ever heard. “That little 'llusion was a real doozy, know what I mean?”
Icy shook her head. It seemed said illusion wouldn't be the only source of sensory dissonance she'd encounter today.
The filly stepped back next to her friends. “Anyway, name's Caprice! This is Moonwing,” she indicated the other filly, who had put her shields down and was stretching her featherless wings, “and Zatrathan.” She indicated the still frozen zebra. “And we're from... Look, Zat, I get that weren't too expected, but close yer damn yap already. An' by the way, if that's what it takes to get the obvious through yer thick skull, I'd get real used to stayin' ignorant, know what I'm sayin'? I ain't kissin' yez an' I ain't thinkin' Wing, Aura or Griz'll be too eager, neither.” She chuckled. “An' you can always ask Runt, but...”
Zatrathan's hoof shot over her mouth as his eyes regained focus to glare at her.
Caprice just smiled and backed off a step, turning back to the others. “Anyways, we're from Manehattan. School trip. Whaddabout you guys?”
Truffle walked up behind Archer, clapping her and Icy on the back and nearly giving them new wounds. “Well, we're from Ponyville, also on a trip. I'm Truffle Shuffle!” He gave his belly a slap as if to emphasize this. “This is Archer and Icy Flight.”
Icy tilted her head. “Huh, I mean, I thought it was a bit of a coincidence both classes were heading here, but this is just weird.”
Zatrathan shook his head, a touch of his previous confidence returning.
“It may seem so... and be so, I suppose,
and yet, it's quite a common thing to find.
I guess it shows that, as the adage goes:
Where heroes travel, trouble walks behind.”
Icy sighed as she nodded. She'd heard a variant of that saying herself and, given her situation, she couldn't really argue with it.
There was an awkward pause.
“So, whaddaya think we should do now?” Caprice asked.
Archer raised an eyebrow. “Well, I don't know about anyone else, but my vote is for finding that filly and filling her with arrows until she looks like a toilet brush. Who's with me?”
There was another awkwardly silent moment as everyone stared at Archer, agreeing with her general sentiment of dealing with the filly but a little unnerved by the image she painted. Well, all seemed to feel that way except Zatrathan, who just nodded in agreement. Archer, for her part, didn't look especially surprised at the looks.
After a moment, the silence was broken by Moonwing. “How?”
Everyone looked at the room around them. There was little to see – the crystal walls, floor and ceiling, but that was it. There were no distinguishing marks, no indications of the room's location and, most pertinently, no doors.
Archer sighed. “Good question.”