//------------------------------//
// Chapter 4 - Light It Up 
// Story: The Depths of Discovery 
// by Seamserb 
//------------------------------//

Twilight’s eyes flutter open partly. The unicorn grumbles.

She just had the strangest dream… her head also hurts a little.

She instinctively reaches over for her stuffed animal, Smarty Pants. The few people who know that she still has it always told her to get rid of it, but personally she thinks—

Instead of the fabric and fluff, Twilight feels something else next to her… 

Slowly rotating her body over, she comes face to face with a bloody pony’s face. 

Twilight jolts up, screaming and scampering backwards. She feels the cold around her.

Snapping fully awake, she remembers everything that happened. The ambush, the fight… the crash. The pain rushes back to her as well. 

She immediately checks her horn, something most unicorns do if they get injured. Thankfully, it's not harmed. Besides that, she has a splitting headache, a few bruises, along with a pained wrist. But she’ll live. 

She looks at the SPAV around her — or at least, what remains of it. It looks like it’s been utterly torn apart, with large gashes and even not being in one piece anymore. Both the immediate front and back are gone, leaving the remaining body more like a tube than a cabin.  The whole thing is slightly tilted, lying on uneven ground below.

Her eyes focus on two specific figures. The soldier who was sitting next to Jack, as well as Jack herself both lie on the floor at different parts of the SPAV. She can’t tell if they’re dead or unconscious at a glance. Looking around in a full 360 degrees, she can’t seem to find any other of the bodies. They must've been thrown away somewhere else from the violence of the tumble. 

She takes a deep breath.





Twilight seems visibly strained as her horn glows. The soldier's body is covered with a purple shimmer as it is slowly pulled outside of the SPAV, where she stands. 

She grunts. She’s mainly used her magic to do stuff like grab small things at a distance. Rarely she could give herself a boost when reaching for something high. This is certainly more demanding.

His body flops out the broken back of the SPAV, face-planting the ground. Twilight cringes. Maybe she should've checked his pulse first? 

She does so, and fortunately, or maybe unfortunately, the soldier is dead. 

Twilight puts that aside right now, still trying to move him somewhere else. She grimaces as the task gets harder now that he’s on rough ground. Eventually though, she moves him to a secluded spot away from the SPAV, and flips him on his back.

Twilight just stares blankly as the corpse. Thankfully, his eyes are already closed, but the rest of his body is like a tapestry of horror. He has multiple broken limbs, his body is full of gashes, and his face is swollen and sunken. 

She’s seen dead bodies before… but in sanitated scenarios like dissections or the morgue. This… is something else.

Trying to stop herself from gagging at the morbid sight, she quickly levitates over a tarp from the SPAV to cover him. 

A bit relieved, she then walks over to the other body. Jack. 

From a distance, she looks pretty messed up as well, but not as much as the Soldier. Dried blood looks like it’s streamed down from her nose, and she has some fresh bruises. Her most grievous wound looks to be one of her front legs, which looks a bit bent up.

Before Twilight even dares to get closer, she checks the hovel’s pulse from a safe distance using her magic.

After a few seconds…

Thump… Thump... Thump.

A small, but steady pulse.

Twilight feels a cold sweat. 

Jack is still alive. 





Twilight grits her teeth, straining even more than before as she tries to slide Jack out of the SPAV. She’s actually lighter than the soldier, but the problem is the distance. She levitated the soldier just because she didn’t wanna touch her, but now she has to keep a far distance away from the very much alive Jack. 

This time, she set up another tarp below the SPAV’s ledge, as to hopefully cushion the fall slightly, and also give her a sort of sled to slide Jack towards where she wants her to be. 

Reaching the edge, Jack’s body gets taken away by gravity and completely misses the tarp, smacking into the ground right next to it. Twilight face-hooves. 

She painstakingly slides the tarp under the body, before then pulling the tarp along with her as intended.

Twilight moves Jack a moderate distance away, not to the same level of distance as the soldier’s corpse, but still a respectable amount away from the SPAV. 

Finding a relatively flat area, she moves a couple of stones away and releases the tarp. She just looks over the unconscious Hovel, unsure of how to proceed from here.

Is she going to have to kill her? 

Enclave doctrine says in an emergency, captives, prisoners, and other hostiles of the such should almost always to be disposed of, as they could pose unnecessary and unneeded risks and complexity to rescue or survival situations. 

She looks at the hovel’s damaged leg. It’s one of her back ones, meaning she probably won’t be able to move around very easily. But if she does somehow get a hold of her, it might be over. Twilight doesn’t doubt that she could crawl at her like a demon or something. 

She then looks over at her bleeding head. Maybe she’s in a coma or something..? Hopefully she just doesn’t wake up. 

But no, no… both of those are too unreliable for her right now. Pure chance. She has to take action.

Her first thought gravitates to the dagger. Quickly retrieving it from the SPAV, she just holds it a bit shakily, looking towards Jack. Even from afar, it would be far too gruesome. She just imagines herself being covered in blood like some mad-pony. She also can’t risk her coming to and grabbing the dagger away. 

She looks around, seeing some large rocks around. Levitating them, she grunts a bit from the weight, but it’s manageable. She drops it on the ground once or twice purposefully. 

Maybe she could just get a good drop on her head or chest? 

No… the chances of inflicting lethal damage to somepony with a rock of this weight and whatever height she can manage is far too unlikely. It would probably just maim her, which would make the situation even worse.

Finally, she looks in the distance. There’s another large chasm, just like the one the SPAV fell in. 

Is this entire place just a large series of chasms?! 

She figures that maybe she could just push her off the ledge or something. She’ll either die from the impact instantly, or live but be out of her hair. A win-win?

Twilight’s about to go through with the plan, beginning to levitate the tarp, but she pauses. 

Even with the ‘best’ method in mind, she struggles to go through with it. She glances down towards the comatose hovel.

Regardless of them trying to kill her, and no matter what she may have done before this moment, even if they deserve this... 

Twilight can’t bring herself to do it. 

She isn’t prepared for THIS! She never even thought she’d be in a situation where she’d have to take a  life before, especially not one that technically did not pose an immediate threat. 

Despite thinking that Hovel's are unintelligent and savage creatures... 

Twilight can’t help but see another fellow pony within Jack. 

Twilight groans, releasing the tarp from her magical grasp and beginning to walk away. She’ll need to find an alternate solution here.

As she's turned away, the Hovel's eye opens ever so slightly, before going back to being closed. 

Her hoof slowly reaches for a nearby rock.





Within Charlie Compound, a room full of different devices buzzes and whirs. Quite a few ponies, mainly unicorns, sit around at various desks and panels. A few quickly move around carrying papers or documents, and whispering in other ponies ears. 

This is the control room, the ‘brain’ of the Compound, located within the Epistrey itself. The beeping of telegraphs coincide with the crackling of radios, along with the alien noises of unfamiliar communicators.

In a private room, a stallion watches another screen as the main one in-front of him suddenly begins rapidly blinking red and alerting him.

Immediately noticing it, he looks at the situation. SPAV-3 appears to have activated its emergency alarm. 

He tries to radio in. “SPAV-3? Come in, SPAV-3. This is Charlie Control. Hello?” 

He pauses.

“Hello? Come in, SPAV-3. SPAV-3 do you copy?” 

Still no response.

“SPAV-3. Do—”

“Radio troubles?” A voice says from behind him. 

He nearly yelps, before realizing who it is. He quickly snaps to attention.

“C-Commander Raven!” He stutters

“At ease.” The unicorn orders, as she approaches the desk.

He’s about to fill her in, when she simply moves him and his rolling chair aside, squinting at the screen for herself, the SPAV’s icon and screen still flashing red.

“Pull up the visual recorders. Now.” The stallion wastes no time hitting some buttons, as a video is pulled on-screen. 

From the interior of the SPAV, they see a few presumably dead soldiers, along with a small purple and big orange pony struggling over what appears to be a knife. Video recording from the outside shows about a dozen dead soldiers with Hovel warriors standing over them. 

Raven’s eyes sharpen. “Hovels.” She mutters under her breath.

Inside the SPAV, the orange pony overpowers the purple one, and after choking her for a little bit, the entire SPAV suddenly lurches to its side. From the camera’s tilted angle, the two watch as both the orange and purple pony try to open the door, before the SPAV suddenly goes into free-fall, the camera cutting out. Raven raises an eyebrow at seeing the brief, but desperate teamwork. 

The stallion looks completely horrified from the grizzly scene, but Raven looks with a stern but calm expression.

“Send out an Enforcer Squad to its location, now. Two if necessary. Get them there as soon as possible.” She orders, before turning away.

The stallion seems flabbergasted. “But ma’am! It’s unlikely that anything survived that fall! And 

Raven barely turns her head back to him.

“Survive, didn’t survive, doesn’t matter. It’s a recovery mission now. I want to know what happened.” 

He gulps.

“...It’s uncharted territory. It could take days to find the wreck.” he responds, nervously.

This time, Raven fully turns her head to him.

“Then take days. I want it found eventually.” She takes her leave.

The stallion pauses for a moment, before hurriedly contacting another team elsewhere.





Twilight wipes her brow, looking around her. She just finished unloading anything useful she could find from the SPAV. 

A few tools, some rations, and probably most importantly, a first-aid kit. She also found a flintlock, but dreads the thought of having to use it. She decides to hide it under some of the other items. 

Unfortunately, it seems like most of the SPAV’s contents were thrown away from the crash, but thankfully what remains isn’t too shoddy either. She just hopes it’s enough for the time being.

Popping open the first aid-kid, she begins to clean some of her scratches and bruises, before bandaging them up. She also cleans up some blood on her face – It’s not her blood.

She notices what appears to be some kind of injection pen in the kit. There’s no label, so she doesn’t even risk using it right now.

Finishing cleaning herself up, she then looks towards the much more injured pony present. 

Jack’s body still lies on the tarp, not having moved whatsoever since she laid her there. 

Twilight approaches her with the kit in tow. This is going to be difficult. 

Doing something as delicate as wrapping gauze or cleaning wounds on something with levitation is already a difficult task for even experienced unicorns such as doctors – let alone for someone inexperienced like Twilight. It's also complicated when you're trying to keep a safe distance from said something.

She clumsily pats down and away some of the visible wounds, along with wrapping them up, mainly on Jack’s head. That should hopefully stop any possible infections. 

Her eyes drift towards the damaged leg. It looks slightly bent in the wrong direction. Not much she can do about that one. 

After finishing cleaning Jack up, Twilight thinks about what to do now. 

Her best bet would probably be to restrain or tie her up somehow, but she couldn’t manage to find any of the original restraints in the SPAV. She does have some ropes and zipties, but she doubts anything she can manage to cobble together could reasonably restrain Jack safely. 

As she thinks, her eyes drift towards the area around Jack. 

It looks... different. Like some of the rocks are in different spots.

Before she can even think about what that implies, Jack’s upper body suddenly springs upwards, yelling as she throws a rock at Twilight like a cannonball. 

Twilight screams, barely ducking the projectile that whizzes past her at an absurd speed. Looking back at Jack, Twilight sees the hovel on her feet, and about to pounce. 

The unicorn scampers backwards as Jack attempts to do so. 

However, the moment Jack attempts to put pressure on her bad foreleg, it gives out under her. One of her eyes scrunches up as she yelps in pain, falling flat on her stomach with a groan. 

Twilight stops back-pedaling, slowly getting back up after seeing the failure. She’s about to approach, when Jack begins to crawl towards her with a scowl on her face, gnashing her teeth like a psycho. 

Twilight levitates the knife in front of her, trying to daunt her away.

“Hey! Stop!” Twilight yells. 

Jack immediately grabs the knife out of the air with her good leg, now using it like a pick to keep crawling forward. 

Twilight face-hooves looking at the display.

Jack isn’t moving particularly fast, and Twilight could probably just walk away at a brisk pace, but she isn’t gonna be dealing with this cryptid the entire time.

“Can you stop?” Twilight asks, annoyed.

“You did this to me! I'll kill you!" Jack yells. 

“How did I—” 

She face-hooves again. 

Is she seriously using Twilight like a stand-in for the entire Enclave? 

Twilight quickly recovers the flintlock from the ration pile, and points it straight at Jack. This gets the Hovels attention and she comes to an immediate stop.

Jack eyes the flintlock, before chuckling.

“You don’t even know how to use that thing.” she says, beginning to inch forward again.

Twilight raises an eyebrow, cocking the flintlocks safety off. Jack’s eyes widen a little.

Internally, Twilight is barely holding herself together. She does indeed know how to use these things, as all Enclave citizens do, yet she’s only fired it a few times, and at stationary range targets no less. 

But she knows that the best way of resolving this situation without having to shoot Jack is by intimidating her.

Jack slightly recovers her bearings, before smirking again. 

“I bet it ain’t even loaded.”

Twilight taps the gun while tilting the muzzle down, as some gunpowder visibly comes out the end. Jack watches it fall out.

She yells, tossing the dagger uselessly in front of her. 

“Just do it already!” She yells, closing her eyes and waiting for the shot.

Twilight frowns, cocking the flintlock’s safety back on. 

“Why would I? I have no reason to kill someone who isn’t a threat.” Twilight says as calmly as possible, bluffing.

Jack looks shocked. “Not a thr— I tried to kill you multiple times!” she roars.

Twilight shrugs. “Tried and failed. I’m not gonna waste a bullet on you.” she says, putting away the flintlock and barely changing her expression. She metaphorically pats herself on the back for that cool line.

Jack just looks bewildered. She can’t fathom why she would be getting spared. 

She tries to get to her feet, but winces. She rolls onto her back, before looking at her damaged leg.

“You need to stop moving. You aren’t going to get better from trying to come at me like a mad-pony.” Twilight responds. 

Jack grumbles, but relents, laying on the ground. 

If she’s gonna get a chance at killing this unicorn, she’s going to need to conserve her energy. 

The rest of the day is about as awkward as could be expected. Twilight keeps a safe distance away from the Hovel, as the two occasionally shoot stares at the other when they aren’t looking. At one point, they do it at the same time, and Twilight breaks away first, with Jack sneering.

Twilight tries to make sense of the area they’re in. The original route the SPAV took wasn’t very well lit, but after they fell into what appeared to be pitch darkness, now they’re somewhere that has a somewhat greater level of light. 

Scientifically, it doesn’t make sense for most of the Underworld to even have light in the first place, considering they’re all… well, underground. Besides things like bioluminescence or pony-made lights, everything else should be pitch darkness. But she doesn’t dwell too long on it considering literal magic exists.

Their immediate surroundings look like some sort of basin, with a large sloped cliff in the same direction the SPAV came down, presumably the same ledge that they fell off from. There's various tunnels and small valleys branching off from the area, but exploring them would probably be a death-wish. Her best bet is probably to hunker down near the SPAV and wait for a rescue. 

Thankfully, there’s some foliage around the area, even a few trees. She could maybe go gathering later. Key word; later. 

It’s starting to get dark.

Twilight comes to the realization that she’s going to have to sleep out here… 

With Jack nearby. 

She glances over to see Jack picking at her teeth, disinterestedly staring off elsewhere. Twilight grimaces when she sees her teeth are somewhat sharp. She isn’t gonna dwell on that thought right now.

Right now, Twilight needs to devise a sleeping strategy. 

She briefly pauses, realizing how absurd that sounds, before shakes it off.

The wreck of the SPAV is probably the best shelter she could manage here, with a bit of furnishing to make an impromptu bed, and maaaaybe some sort of noise trap, it wouldn’t be so bad. 

Twilight quickly piles together random soft materials like a few tarps, some bushes, and even some loose clothing. She props up some boxes to stop the entire thing from sliding away. The entire SPAV is slightly tilted, meaning she’s gonna have to sleep diagonally. 

She crudely sets up a sort of tripwire on the ledge of the SPAV, attaching it to some nearby boxes to fall. Hopefully, this should be enough to wake her if Jack tries anything. 

Looking back towards the elevated front of the SPAV, she grimaces. Jack could maybe get in from the top, and slide down straight onto her. Although if the three-legged crawling pony manages to get that high up in the first place without making any audible noise, then she probably didn’t stand a chance anyways.

At this point, it’s become dark enough for Twilight to say it’s 'night'. Getting into her ‘bed’, she tries her best to sleep. She made sure to give herself a clear view of Jack from her resting position, seeing the hovel’s strewn out body across the floor. 

Twilight can’t help but feel suspicious. She already managed to trick her into being unconscious before… what if she’s waiting for –

Her thoughts are cut off by Jack’s loud snoring. She frowns. Is she going to have to hear this all night?

She sighs, curling a tarp blanket around herself.

At least she knows for certain that Jack is asleep. 





Jack isn’t asleep. 

With one eye barely open, she can see Twilight in the distance inside her little pillow fort. Her eyes are much better at seeing in the darkness than the unicorns. 

Twilight and her stare straight at each other, but judging by the unicorns only somewhat suspicious face, Jack assumes Twilight can't actually see the hovel looking back towards her.

Jack begins to loudly and obnoxiously ‘snore’, causing Twilight’s expression to go from one of suspicion to mild annoyance, before curling herself up. 

Jack smirks. Too easy.

Of course, her mind drifts to getting up there immediately and getting rid of her once and for all, but the unicorn did have a point. Her leg needs to get better before she tries anything.

Twilight shuffles around some more, clearly not able to get comfortable.

Jack uses the principle of endurance hunting here. 

She’ll continue getting her energy back and more well-rested, while the unicorn just gets more tired and paranoid. 

Eventually, she’ll make her move.





BA-BUM.

Twilight nearly jumps awake in the middle of the night. Something triggered her noise trap. Immediately, she throws off the tarp and pulls out the flintlock she had nearby. She shakily and wildly points it in the direction of Jack. She doesn’t see anything. 

Before she starts running around like a psycho, she illuminates the area slightly with a beam of light from her horn. Sure enough, Jack is still lying in the exact same position.

Twilight squints even more so than she already was due to the sudden awakening. She knows she already got tricked by Jack once, but in order to trigger the trap without moving from her position would require a perfect rock throw aimed in near pitch darkness. She also doesn’t see any rocks inside the SPAV.

Looking down, she slightly scampers backwards as she sees the culprit. 

A hoof-sized, nocturnal leech lies on the floor. A Dusk Sucker. 

It slowly slides around near the rope and downed pile of boxes. 

Twilight angrily slaps it away. It hits the ground with a wet smack, quickly skittering off. She painstakingly and poorly re-sets the box pile, before getting back into her sleeping position.

She covers her ears as she tries to fall asleep again, Jack still snoring loudly





Natural light breaches through both open sides of the SPAV. Twilight’s eyes open once again.

She feels like crap. Between Jack’s snoring and the false alarm, she barely got any meaningful sleep. 

Trying to shake it off, Twilight slowly gets to her feet, proceeding towards the edge of the SPAV. As she walks forward, she suddenly plummets straight down, forgetting about the elevation between the end of the SPAV and the ground below. 

“Watch out for the step by the way.” Jack says from the distance, already awake. 

Twilight curses under her breath as she slowly gets to her feet, and dusts herself off. She’s about to give her a squinted scowl, when she suddenly realizes Jack has crawled a short distance away to a nearby tree, pulling off a few branches and some vines, fashioning what appears to be a walking stick.

Jack notices the stares and smirks.

“Oh don’t worry, I know how to make one of these things. My granny’ uses one.” She says, continuing to shave away at one of the sticks.

Twilight bites her lip. 

Should she try to stop her? What is she even supposed to say? ‘Hey, you! crippled pony! Don’t make that walking stick or else I'll shoot you!'” 

She notices Jack is excessively sharpening one side of the stick, which seems a bit counter-intuitive regardless of which side of the walking stick it’s meant to be. But it would be perfect for say… a spear.

Twilight sighs. Just another reason to keep her distance. Sure, Jack could throw it, but then she’d be down a walking stick so it's a win-win for her… sorta.

She starts thinking about more practical problems. Going over to the pile of rations, she begins rummaging through the various packages and bags. There’s a lot of regular and junk food, but no water to be found. What the heck do these soldiers bother packing???

She puts a hoof to her brow. Ponies can survive for weeks without food, but three or four days without water and they’re done for. She didn’t drink much on the day the expedition left, nor yesterday. She already feels weaker and lamer than usual, in addition to the tiredness from the poor sleep. 

Reservoirs are a common occurrence within this Pocket, but she’s honestly worried to go anywhere past the immediate vicinity of the SPAV. Getting lost or falling further into the chasms would certainly mean death. If only there was someone who knew the wilderness better than her…

She sighs, looking back towards Jack. The hovel whistles as she continues whittling away.

“Water. We need water.” 

Jack’s eyes become focused, looking back at Twilight.

“Hm?” She asks, still shaving the stick away.

“We are going to need to find water, or else we are going to die.” Twilight says, plainly.

“Don’t y’all got water in your little metal wagon?” 

Twilight groans. Even the hovel has more common sense than the soldiers. 

“No. There isn’t any. We need to find water ourselves.” 

Jack chuckles. 

“We? You mean you'll find water on your own, and I’ll find my water on my own.” 

Twilight isn’t in the mood for games. She cocks the flintlock again.

“No, I mean we.” 

Jack rolls her eyes. “Fine.”

Using the walking stick to prop herself up, she slowly gets to her feet, finding a good balance for her weight. She begins to walk around slowly. Twilight watches with caution.

She limbers over to another tree, inspecting its branches. After finding one that she’s looking for, she yanks it off. It looks like a V shape, with a short curve on either side along with a point sticking out past where both curves meet. She holds it in both hooves, facing forward.

Twilight looks confused for a moment, before she realizes what she’s doing.

“Are you seriously trying to use a dowsing rod..?"

“ ‘trying’? I am usin’ a dowsing rod. They’re one of the most legendary tools of the Annui. The knowledge has been passed down for generations."  Jack begins to walk away.

Twilight puts both hooves to her face. 

She’s going to die out here.





The two have walked for quite some time, the wreck being completely out of sight. Twilight made a painful effort to make sure she remembers the way back, as to not get lost out here.

Jack leads the way, still using her dowsing rod, while Twilight follows behind, the duo traveling near a ledge. Jack is moving at a snail's pace, either to mess with Twilight or because that’s actually how slow she is with her bad leg. She hums to herself as she does so.

“You do know those things don't work, right..?” Twilight asks.

“Then why are ya following me?” 

“Because! Picking any  direction and walking in it has a chance of finding us water. Might as well go the same way you are.”

“Sounds like you’re sayin’ that it works.”

“If I thought it worked then why wouldn’t I have tried using it myself already?!” Twilight retorts.

“Cause you don’t know how.” Jack says with a shrug.

Twilight nearly face-hooves. 

“You don’t need to know how to hold a stupid stick out and let your body naturally and randomly move it in different directions!” She yells.

“Then why don't you do it?” Jack asks, turning around suddenly, now walking backwards. Twilight back-pedals slightly. Jack holds the dowsing rod towards her.

Twilight still doesn’t think it’ll work, but she’s fed up at this point. 

She reaches towards it, not realizing how close she’s getting towards Jack. She fails to notice Jack slowly pulling her walking stick back, like preparing for a strike. 

Twilight is almost in range, and then…

Jack accidentally takes a backwards step too far, losing her footing. Her eyes widen as her body slips off the edge. For the first time, Twilight hears a scream of terror from her.

Out of instinct, Twilight leaps forward, grabbing Jack’s hooves to stop her from falling. In her current state, heck, even in the best conditions, she wouldn’t be strong enough to pull Jack back up, but she stops her from falling further. 

“Don't let go!” Twilight cries.

Jack looks over the edge, seeing nothing below her. She desperately kicks her back legs forward repeatedly, trying to grab ahold of the ledge. Twilight winces from the pressure of Jack’s hooves, but still holds on to her as well. 

Twilight leans back to use her body-weight to her advantage, while also using her magic to levitate Jack’s lower half upwards. 

Eventually, Jack’s back legs get a grip, and manages to pull herself to safe ground. The two fall backwards side by side, panting out of fear and exhaustion. 

Jack rolls over slightly, looking at Twilight. Jack could easily bludgeon or stab her right now, but the Hovel just stares with pure shock and confusion. 

The damn unicorn just saved her life!

Twilight is equally surprised about putting herself on the line.

Twilight glances over, her eyes widening as she realizes the lapse judgment about the ‘safe distance’ thing, quickly side-rolling away. 

After a moment, the two regain their bearings and get to their feet. They share an awkward glance. 

“L-let’s keep lookin’.” Jack says, clearing her throat.

Twilight just nods. 





With Twilight now using the dowsing rod, the two continue their search. Jack’s stoicness has somewhat faded, and she looks just as weary as Twilight does. The near-death experience presumably didn’t help. 

Twilight is desperate at this point, her eyes barely open. She can't even imagine what will happen if—

She pauses. 

She hears the sound of ripples in the distance. Her and Jack share a brief glance, before nearly tripping over each other as they run towards it. Or in Jack’s case, hobbles.

Turning a corner, they see it. A fresh running stream of water.

“I told ya it worked!” Jack says, quickly scampering towards the stream. She sticks her head into it like an ostrich, drinking to her heart's content.

Twilight immediately tosses away the dowsing rod, not interested in the question of if it actually works or not. Quickly kneeling next to the stream. She begins to take out and fill various containers from her satchel. Hopefully, this should tide them over for the next few days if need be.





Back near the wreck, the two sit around. The area is starting to get cold, the flat and rocky terrain not giving much insulation. 

Twilight attempts to start a fire by making a small pit of rocks and sticks. She’s never done it before, but she’s seen others do so. Jack watches with a bit of interest.

The unicorn attempts to light the pit using her horn, blasting it with small beams. This does nothing except repeatedly throw small pieces of sticks and tiny rocks away. Jack frowns.

After a minute or two of watching the pathetic display, she groans and begins to hobble over.

“Move. Let me show you how it’s done.” Jack says. 

Twilight backs up a little as the hovel grabs one of the sticks from the piles, and begins to rapidly rub her hooves together with it in-between. After a while, a small spark happens, and the kindle begins. 

“There. So simple a filly could do it.” she says with a smirk. 

“You know that technique is somewhere around hundreds of years old, right?” Twilight asks, raising an eyebrow.

“So? Still works.” Jack flicks a few leaves and sticks onto the kindle while blowing on it. 

After a while, they have a full fledged fire going. Jack sighs as she stares into it, perhaps a bit too passionately. 

Twilight decides now’s as good a time as any to actually eat something. While they technically don't NEED to eat, no harm in doing so considering they have more food than they even know what to do with.

Twilight rummages through the ration pile, picking one for herself, before levitating a few over towards Jack. 
She eyes them with suspicion and caution. Not for some stupid reason like thinking they’re trapped or something, more so that she’s unfamiliar with food in this sort of fashion. 

She squints at one of the labels. 

“Uhhh…” 

Twilight, currently preparing her own pack, glances over. 

“I can’t read.” Jack says, grimacing a bit.

Twilight gives her the thousand-yard stare, literally rubbing her eyes with her hooves like she's wiping down some glass.

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU CAN’T READ?!" She yells.

Jack recoils a bit from the overly loud scream.

“...no? Why would I be able to? What would I even read out here? Hieroglyphics?” 

Twilight face-hooves. 

“You guys know what Hieroglyphics are… but can’t read.” She says, in total shock.

“I thought every-pony knew what Hieroglyphics were.” 

"Yeah, well, I thought every pony knew how to read in general.” Twilight retorts.

Jack shrugs. “Just tell me what this one is, miss reader.” Jack says, flipping around one of the packages and showing it to Twilight. 

Twilight rolls her eyes at its contents. “Corn and squash stew.” 

“Is it good?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t like corn.” 

“Well if you don’t like it, then I probably will.” Jack says with a snicker. 

She fumbles around with the bag a little, and at one point tries to brute force it open. 

Twilight’s eyes widen. “Hey. Hey! You’re supposed to put it over the fire. It’ll open by itself.” 

Jack looks at her with some confusion. She doesn’t appear to understand. 

“Just… put it over the fire.” Twilight says again.

Jack does so, unsure. She watches with surprise as the bag slowly expands, before opening itself into the shape of a small bowl.

“Literal magic.” Jack says, carefully fishing the bowl out of the fire. 

“No, it's science. Both the rations and the bag itself are designed to be put into any kind of heat, as so they—”

Jack is already eating into the stew with nothing but her mouth, clearly not listening. Twilight sighs, going back to eating her dish with a fork.

The two eat in silence for some-time. 

Although neither really notice it, they're sitting much closer than the previous nights, partly due to wanting to be near the fire.

Getting a closer and more clear and relaxed view of Jack, Twilight can't help but notice how different she looks from any other pony she's ever seen in her life. Theres a unique air around her.

The curiosity gnaws at Twilight a little. 

"Jack?" 

Jack looks up slightly, face still inside the stew. 

"I never bothered asking before but... what are your people like? The... Annui?" 

The question somewhat reminds her of what she asked Jack back in the SPAV.

Jack lowers the bowl, wiping some soup off her face. 

"Hm. Well. For one, we're nomads. We move around alot." 

"Why so?" 

Jack puts a hoof to her chin. "Foraging, mainly. There's only so much stuff' you can gather before somewhere runs out. But we also believe stayin' in one place for too long can bring misfortune."

Twilight frowns. According to the Enclave, the only reasons the Hovel move around is to cause more trouble, constantly avoiding detection or finding new places and routes to pillage or raid.

Jack continues. "We were actually gettin' prepared to begin moving to the next pocket over, when we got ambushed by some of those armored gun guys." she says, squinting slightly. 

"Wait, what? You guys were moving to another pocket?"

Jack looks confused. "...yes? Did y'all not know that we do that?"

"I've always been told that you guys purposefully stayed in this pocket. That you even avoided  going elsewhere just to keep causing problems." 

Jack blows her lips. "The whole reason we keep movin' around is to avoid trouble. Why would we purposefully stay?" 

Twilight puts her hooves up defensively. "That's only what I heard... relax." 

Theres a brief silence.

"If the Annui really are peaceful, then how-come you don't make attempts to amend with the Enclave?" Twilight asks, genuine.

Jack scoffs. "I said' we don't go out of our way for trouble. Not that we're peaceful. And besides... a few believers tried doing that long ago. We never heard from them again, nor did anythin' change. Now, every time we get within view of any of y'all, they either react with fear or aggression immediately."

Twilight feels a little uncomfortable. "Maybe they think you guys are like... some other bad group?" She's honestly amiss at what to say.

Jack rolls her eyes. "Ya. Because nothing screams bad guy like just sitting around and then randomly being shot from afar." 

Twilight feels a little bad, but she can't help but remember the SPAV ambush. Jack notices her face.

"What about the ambush??? The—" 

Jack was waiting for it.

"Oh don't give me that crap. They were trying to rescue  me. If they had never captured me, then that woulda' never happened. You really think your people wouldn't have done the same thing to us if you got captured or somethin'?"

Twilight can't help but admit that she's right. But Jack is a bit too fired up right now.

"How many of those soldiers you think killed some innocent Annui? One? Two? All of em'?" 

Twilight unconsciously begins to sit forward a bit, getting angry herself. 

"Just because some of them may have been horrible murderers doesn't mean you should feel justified killing ALL of them!" she yells.

Jack sits back, chuckling.

"I wish the Enclave thought like that. Imagine if they were somehow the stupidest ponies ever and think we're some bad cult or something.. They still have no problem killin' everypony. The elderly. The fillies. They punish collectively for the acts of a few, against ponies they cant even' tell apart. YOU couldn't even tell us apart from the bad ones." 

Jack turns away, clearly frustrated. 

Twilight frowns. 

She huffs. It's honestly quite sad.

Back when everypony first entered into the Underworld, the earthen were hit the hardest out of the three kinds. Lack of easily available natural light, plants, and livestock meant their natural farming talents were all but useless. 

Most of them fell back on their natural traits to survive — strength and resilience. A sizable amount of many modern-day outlaws, criminals, and all of the Hovel are earthen, descending from those desperate ponies centuries ago.

There' a few seconds of silence.

"I'm... sorry." Twilight says.

Jacks's ears and back perk up slightly, as she turns her head back somewhat.

"I'm sorry for everything the Enclave has done to the Annui. I'm  sorry for what I treated you like before, and the assumptions I made about you and your people. I had no idea."

Jack looks bewildered. Never did she think she'd get said that by a Enclave pony before.

She hunches over a little, rubbing her mane, nearly stammering. 

"U-uhm... I'm... sorry too? For blaming you for everything. And also trying to kill you... and stuff." She says, a bit awkwardly.

Twilight deadpans. Sort of blunt, but better than nothing.

The two awkwardly glance at each other, with not much else to say. They go back to eating.

After sometime, Twilight begins to think.

What if there's hope for this. What if... she could somehow bridge the gap. It's likely that the Annui have never had someone who could stick up for them. If she can prove that the Annui aren't like the other Hovel, she could—

“I thought stew was supposed to have meat in it.” Jack says, looking at her empty bowl.

Twilight's train of thought proceeds to crash and burn. She slowly looks up with horror.

“C-come again?” 

“Meat. All the stew’s that I’m familiar with had meat in em'.” Jack says, plainly.

What.

“You eat meat???” Twilight says, shocked. 

“Uh… yeah? What’s wrong with that?” Jack asks.

“What's wro— Ponies are herbivores!” Twilight yells. 

Jack shrugs.

“Speak for yourself. The Annui are omnivores. Meat has so much nutritional efficiency over vegetables or fruits, it's also digested way easier."

She speaks with an unusual efficacy on the topic. Twilight nearly gags.

“W-what kind of m-meat?” Twilight asks. She’s afraid of whatever Jack is gonna respond with.

“Oh you know. Fish.” 

Twilight relaxes a little. That wasn’t too bad of an answer. 

“Well, sorry. None of these food packs have meat in them. That’s not a… component of our diets.” Twilight says, somewhat regaining her bearings. 

Jack shrugs. “No biggie. I see some meat over there, anyways.” she says, hoofing behind Twilight.

Twilight looks confused.

What is she talki—

Turning around, she sees the covered corpse of the soldier. 

Twilight feels a pit form in her stomach.

She’s nearly about to vomit at the idea, when Jack quickly stops it.

“Kidding! That was just a joke.” She says, with a smirk. 

Twilight wipes her mouth, glancing lightly at Jack. 

Okay. Maybe it'll be harder than she thought to make something work here.

The two finish their meals, with Twilight pouring out the fire. Returning to their respective sleeping spots, Twilight offers to furnish a bed for Jack similar to one her own, but Jack declines, preferring to sleep on the bare ground.

Twilight thinks about the last hour or two as she slides into her 'bed'. 

Sure, there were some ups and downs, one very gross one in particular, but she feels... 

Strangely better. 

She isn't seeing Jack like some violent monster anymore. More like an — at worst —  somewhat crude and rough individual. 

But still an individual. 

A pony, like herself. 

Deciding to think more on it tomorrow, she slowly drifts asleep. 





Twilight awakens to the sound of gurgling and squelching.

“W-wuh?” She says, eyes slowly opening. 

She immediately illuminates the direction of Jack, although this time not preparing the flintlock. 

To her horror, Jack is missing from her spot.

Twilight’s mind begins to race and her heart begins to pound. The paranoia of the past few days is setting in. 

Is she about to ambush her??? Did she get taken away by something??? Was everything said before a lie???

She’s distracted by the sounds of squelching once more. She slowly turns, seeing them coming from the direction of the soldier’s corpse. Illuminating the direction, she sees the tarp visibly moving, something beneath it. 

Twilight’s heart sinks. 

She immediately grips the flintlock, slowly approaching.

She swears to Sol. If Jack is eating that corpse, she’ll shoot her dead. Screw everything she thought yesterday. No hesitation.

Twilight levitates throws the tarp off with levitation, flintlock at the ready. 

Her eyes widen. 

It’s not Jack, but... something else.

The Dusk Sucker from the night before. The creature has almost completely consumed the corpse, its body growing to gargantuan proportions. Parts of its amorphous mass even seep into the extremities of the soldier, like his body is seeping a black goo.

The tarp hid how truly big the Sucker actually became, with its body extending both long and wide past the soldier's body. It has to be at least six feet tall by now.

Twilight freezes with shock and fear.

What does she do??? Should she run??? 

Unfortunately, the Dusk Sucker doesn’t give her much time to react. 

One of its beady black eyes locks onto her, its pupil dilating at the light. Its full body violently erupts from the corpse, completely annihilating it. It screeches as it runs slithers towards Twilight.

She screams as she fires the flintlock at it. It hits it dead-center, making a part of its body jiggle, but it’s nowhere near enough. 

Twilight immediately sprints away, with the Sucker giving pursuit. She jumps back into the wreck of the SPAV, hoping the height can buy her some time, but it doesn’t take long for the Sucker to start climbing into the wreck as-well. 

She begins to kick and throw nearby things at it with her levitation. Random boxes, rations, supplies, even her bed. They smack into the Sucker, but it continues on, barely deterred. 

Twilight attempts to run away further, but the weight of the Sucker makes the entire wreck move. It tilts at a sharper angle, causing Twilight to lose her footing and get put on her back-side. She isn’t moving towards the Sucker, but she’s unable to easily get away now. 

Getting a good look at its ‘face’, two large black eyes flank a horrifying mouth, multiple layers and rows of jagged, sharp, and bloody teeth. It gnashes them as it tries to get further into the wreck. 

She tries to levitate herself up, or levitate the Sucker away, but she isn't strong enough to do either.

Twilight screams for help.





Jack slowly hobbles away from the site of the wreck. 

She’s honestly surprised at how things went. But, even if things were briefly and strangely nice, she can’t stay there. Her people are probably waiting, and still looking for her. Sitting at the camp-site with some Enclave pony won’t do her—

She freezes as she hears a scream coming from behind. 

It’s the unicorn. 

Jack knows she shouldn’t care. She tried to kill the unicorn herself multiple times. Heck, she literally just abandoned her right now!

But... something inside Jack feels off.

With only a brief pause, she turns tail and runs back towards the wreck as fast as her bad leg can manage. 





Twilight continues screaming as the wreck shifts more and more at a harsher angle. Now, she’s actually sliding towards the Sucker slowly. 

It doesn’t even attempt to get up, seeing the prey approaching its mouth for it. It just sits at the base of the edge, waiting. 

Twilight desperately tries to get traction on the metal floor, but it’s too slippery. 

Just as her leg is about to touch the Suckers mouth…

“Hey!” 

A rock smacks into the back of the Suckers head. It slowly turns around. 

From her elevated angle, Twilight can see who it is clearly.

“Jack! Help!” Twilight cries. 

Seeing that the newcomer would be a more worth-while meal, the Sucker begins to slither towards Jack. Jack immediately brandishes her walking stick like a spear, propping the sharp side forward with both of her front legs. The sucker doesn’t know any better, and charges at her anyways.

She stabs it straight into the mouth, making it screech. It thrashes around violently. Jack still holding onto the lodged stick, is thrown away a short distance, tumbling on the ground.

Twilight jumps out of the SPAV, running to Jack's side.

“Jack! We need to run away!” Twilight yells.

“You need to run away. I can’t run like this.” Jack says, looking at her still bad leg. The tumble wasn’t doing her any favors. 

The unicorn notices Jack look at the Sucker with a fiery intensity. She’s intending to fight this thing to the death. 

Twilight knows this is incredibly stupid, and she isn’t just gonna watch it happen. She runs off back towards the wreck.

“Just distract it for now! I have a plan!” Twilight says, running off.

Jack glances at her, before turning back to the Sucker. Its circular mouth finally manages to shred up the stick, vomiting out the wooden shards in front of it with a roar. 

Unable to move much, Jack does the only thing she can think of. 

She immediately begins to throw rocks towards the Sucker, hitting it in the face repeatedly, and even getting a few in its mouth. It very clearly is causing discomfort, but it isn’t enough to stop it. 

Back at the SPAV, Twilight throws multiple items on the ground in front of her, including some sticks, cloth, gunpowder, a food packet, the flintlock, knife and the first aid kit. She rapidly begins to cut, stitch, and pour. She's so desperate that she even uses her levitation in conjunction with her hooves. 

“Come on… come on!” She repeatedly looks back at the Sucker closing the distance to Jack. 

Jack crawls away as fast as she can, but the Sucker is ever so slightly faster, beginning to catch up to her. She eventually hits a corner, and can’t turn herself away in time. She puts up her hooves, ready to fight it out to the end. 

But suddenly…

A flaming bundle of sticks lands in front of Jack, between her and the Sucker. Jack sees Twilight threw it over from a distance, holding a bunch of other things like a mad-mare. The Sucker screeches, turning away from the light and heat. Jack immediately notices this, kicking the burning wood towards the Sucker, causing it to rapidly back away. 

Twilight runs over to Jack's side, now with a bit of breathing room. The two see the Sucker orbiting around the fire, trying to get a clear path. 

“Got any more of those flamin’ things? Let's just make a ring around ourselves!” Jack says.

“Nice plan, but no. I’m not gonna be dealing with this thing all night.” Twilight says.

Jack frowns. “Then what are we gonna do? And what’s all that stuff ya got?” She says, pointing towards all the things Twilight is carrying.

Twilight suddenly points in another direction. “Look! It’s your grandma!” She says.

Jack immediately turns to the direction. “WHERE?!” She shouts. 

Her pupils shrink as she feels a prick. She looks back and sees Twilight pricked her with something. 

“Ow! What in the—?!” 

She’s about to instinctively punch Twilight, when she suddenly feels… better. 

Stronger.

“I found a shot in the first-aid kit. It’s a combat stim. It should—”

Jack immediately jumps to her feet, bad leg be damned. It’s like it isn’t even there. She’s very clearly amped up.

“Alright! Let's kill this thing!” She roars.

Twilight simply hands her a food pack. Jack looks at her with confusion.

“Are we trying to feed it to death?” She asks.

“Just get this inside its mouth, however you can.” Twilight says, immediately beginning to reload the flintlock. 

Jack grabs the food pack from her a bit confused, before nearly bounding over the fire and towards the Sucker.

It seemed to have wisened up by now, not keeping its mouth as open as before. It even spits out one of the rocks it swallowed earlier. 

But in her heightened state, Jack is running circles around it. Literally. She rapidly approaches and backs away, baiting it to strike. At one point she even gets a punch on one of its eyes, making it screech and charge at her. 

She quickly tosses the food pack into the Suckers mouth. It’s immediately torn to shreds, and Jack barely gets a glimpse of what its contents are. A black powder.

“Get back!” Twilight yells from a short distance away. She’s finished loading the flintlock, pointing it straight at the Sucker. Jack gets the hint, and makes distance as fast as possible.

The sucker charges straight at Twilight. 

She carefully steadies her aim, even using levitation to make it perfect. 

With a pull of the trigger...

BANG!

The bullet whizzes straight into the Sucker’s mouth, igniting the gunpowder. Within moments, its body turns a bright orange as it begins to burn from the inside, screeching and flailing. 

Jack watches with shock and awe. She can’t help but laugh, looking back at the relieved Twilight.

She stops laughing when she notices the burning beginning to fizzle out, with the Sucker still moving. 

She glances back at Twilight, who looks equally as worried. 

The Sucker lets out a guttural screech, spewing out parts of its own melted insides. Jack and Twilight both back away slowly.

“Is there a plan B..?” Jack asks, now next to Twilight.

“That was plan B!” 

The two watch in horror as it charges them once more.

But then…

A brilliant blue light shines from above. It’s like the area suddenly became daytime. The Sucker obviously backs away, but even Jack and Twilight have to cover their eyes from the intense shine.

A flare.

Jack quickly realizes that she probably shouldn’t stick around for whatever is about to happen, and runs off to a nearby crevice of foliage to hide. With perfect timing, the stim begins to wear off, and she winces from the pain coming back.

Multiple heavily armed ponies suddenly descend around the cliff-side. Their bodies are almost entirely concealed with bulky armor, save for some hair, tails, and a few wings.

Twilight recognizes them almost immediately. Elite troopers of the Enclave – Enforcers.

She hits the deck in the nick of time, as the Enforcers proceed to light up the Sucker. 

As opposed to the somewhat primitive gunpowder weapons the soldiers and Twilight had, the Enforcers use relatively more advanced guns like breech loaders, revolvers, and double barreled shotguns. 

The Suckers already damaged body is rapidly chunked and torn apart as it screeches and writhes. 

After a few seconds of significant firepower, there’s a brief pause. The Sucker makes a gurgling noise, causing the Enforcers to open fire on it again. 

One of the Enforcers wields some tube-like weapon which Twilight cant make out.

He fires a rocket straight at the Sucker, completely blowing it to bits. Twilight covers her face from the blast as she's covered in black goo and red blood. 

As even more Enforcers drop into the wreck site to secure it, a pair immediately approach Twilight. 

“PATHFINDER TWILIGHT SPARKLE. YOU ARE BEING RESCUED. DO NOT RESIST.” 

She complies as they put a bag on her head, before whisking her away. 

Jack watches from her hiding place with a mixture of awe, fear, and confusion. 

After a few minutes, the Enforcers completely extract from the location, repelling back up the cliffside they came from. Thankfully, nobody seemed to notice her. 

Jack carefully comes out of the foliage, approaching the now obliterated remains of the Sucker. 

She grabs a little piece of it, and takes a small bite. 

Not bad. Not bad at all. Little burnt, though. 

Finishing her exotic taste test, she looks around at the impromptu battle-site that just happened.

Now she needs to find a way to get the heck out of here.