//------------------------------// // Chapter 10 // Story: Archives of the Friendquisition // by Inquisipony Stallius //------------------------------// Chapter 10 Before she could even comprehend what had happened, Mystic found herself pinned on her back, the Arbitrotter on top of her. There was a dreadful, screeching whistle, accompanied by a sound like the shattering of glass. Looking past the pegasus above her, Mystic saw the stone pillar she was just standing beside had been riddled with crystal shards. Its whole surface glittered in the dim light with jagged-edged rubies, emeralds and sapphires, each embedded in the rock by a tremendous force. The unicorn could only gape in shock as she realized that, but for Hairtrigger’s quick actions, those razor-sharp gems could have just as easily been embedded in her. “Quit your gawkin’ and run!” Hairtrigger yelled as he heaved her back onto her hooves. There were large, ragged holes in his duster, but the rest of him was miraculously unscathed. Mystic didn’t need to be told twice. She took off at a full gallop, weaving in between the mineral columns, trying to get away from whatever was attacking them. Hairtrigger was right above her, doing his best to cover Mystic from the air. But with all the stalactites hanging down, and his malfunctioning eye hampering his depth-perception, the pegasus could barely keep pace with her without risking a collision. “I can’t see nothing,” he yelled. He swung his gaze and his slingshot this way and that, but the targets refused to show themselves. “Gimme more light!” Mystic brightened her horn, pushing the shadows back. Most of them, at least. The light revealed shapes all around them, chasing them as they fled through the cave. Their pursuers were amorphous, shrouded in a cloak of impenetrable darkness. Whether by sorcery or artifice, the shadows themselves flowed around them like a thick, billowing smoke. At least a half-dozen of the fiends were after them, bounding easily around any obstacles between them and their prey. The shadow-beasts of her nightmare, Mystic thought in horror. “Duck!” Hairtrigger screamed from above. The unicorn did so, throwing herself to the ground a mere instant before one of the creatures released another hail of gem-shards at her. As it did, the flowing veil around it waned for a moment and Mystic caught fleeting glimpses of teeth, claws, and murderous yellow eyes. She started running again. Overhead, the orange pegasus had himself just managed avoid a shot from their attackers, darting behind a stone spike for cover. As soon as he flew out from behind it, he launched a cupcake in the direction the shot had come from. The sweet struck one of the shadow-beasts mid-leap, and it tumbled to the ground. He saw the cloak begin to melt away, but there was no time to get a good look before the remaining threats demanded his attention again. Another barrage of twinkling crystals rushed up to meet Hairtrigger from below, with only an instant to react. Banking sharply and executing a quick roll, he managed to dodge most of them. But not all. The few that didn’t miss sheared a clump of feathers cleanly off his right wing. The sudden pain and loss of flight stability sent him into a sharp dive, and he glanced off a stalactite before crashing the cave floor. Mystic heard the impact, looked back, and spotted the Arbitrotter’s crumpled form on the ground behind her. She skidded to a stop. “Hairtrigger!” The beasts were closing in on both of them. She could hear their excited panting, their frenzied snarls. Mystic rushed to his side. “We need to move! Now! I’m not going anywhere without you.” More screeching signaled another volley of incoming shards, with no time to move the stunned Arbitrotter. Mystic’s horn flared and she tore a slab of stone from the cave floor, holding it up as a shield. The projectiles harmlessly peppered the rock, and with a desperate cry, she flung the whole slab back at the shooter. It, whatever it was, had been caught in the path of the sailing boulder, and the impact scattered its shroud in a puff of smoky shadows. The rock kept flying, carrying them both into the dark beyond Mystic’s vision. A violent crash assured her there would be one less threat to worry about. Hairtrigger grunted as the unicorn propped him up. “Don’t… don’t you worry your pretty little—gah!—head none, missy,” he said, testing his injury, “just—argh!—just clipped my wings, is all.” He had landed on his wings rather hard. From the shooting pain he felt when he carefully folded them to his sides, the pegasus knew he probably wouldn’t be able to fly for some time. He shook the spots from his vision and looked a trembling Mystic in the eye. “I’m gonna lay down some cover,” he said, “and you’re gonna keep your head down, and keep moving. I’ll be right behind you.” Mystic nodded. The tense confidence with which Hairtrigger spoke was probably the one thing at the moment keeping the unicorn from paralyzing in fear. She had seen her share of scary as a Throne Agent, but having to fight off her own nightmares-come-to-life set a new bar. “Alright, go!” Two cupcakes in quick succession sent the closest of the shadowy attackers back behind cover. Mystic lowered her head and charged toward the largest gap she could see. As she gained speed, she charged a little magical “covering fire” of her own. Crackling electricity discharged from her horn at random, turning her into a galloping lightning storm. One of the fiends, lacking the good sense to keep his head down, tried to bar the unicorn’s path. It was instantly fried. The orange pegasus fell in directly behind Mystic, galloping along in the one spot that was spared from the electric assault. Together, they broke free of the tightening circle, and the chase began anew. Unfortunately, this only seemed to encourage their pursuers. Despite the apparent losses they had taken, the shadow-beasts no longer had to contend with Hairtrigger’s air-support. They didn’t even appear to be putting much effort into attacking anymore, merely matching the exhausted ponies’ pace. Their shots became lazy, aiming only enough to force their targets dodge them. Repeatedly, Mystic tried to break one way or the other, only to be rebuked by incoming fire. Every attempt that the ponies made to navigate out of the cavern’s maze of stalagmites found an ambush already waiting in their path. They’re toying with us, Mystic concluded as she veered away from another scattershot of gem-shards. They’re corralling us like animals. The obvious question was where were they being corralled? She didn’t have to wait long for the answer. As the green unicorn peered into the darkness before her, she found that suddenly there were no more obstacles in her path. And no more floor, either. She buckled her knees, dug her hooves into the ground, and skidded to a stop. Hairtrigger wasn’t prepared for her abrupt deceleration, and almost tackled Mystic into the gaping chasm in front of them. The two had nearly run straight over the precipice. Even when Mystic lit her horn as brightly as she could, neither of them could see either the bottom of the great subterranean abyss, or even the other side. There was nothing but a void. A void they were now cornered against. The two turned their backs to the empty space. Having no place else to run, there was no choice but to face the enemy head-on. Mystic prepared her magic, and Hairtrigger loaded a fresh cupcake into his slingshot. One by one, five shadow-creatures appeared before them, like circling predators. A single shape approached, the creature stepping out of the black cloud that cloaked it. For the first time, Mystic clearly saw the face of the monsters that had been hounding her since her dream the night before. She almost wished that she hadn’t. It was a hideous thing, proportioned like some sort of freakish ape: bipedal, but with almost comically short legs and long, massive forearms that could just as easily reach the ground for walking on all fours. Though hunched, it was still taller than either of the ponies. The head had vaguely canine features, floppy ears, bulging eyes and a pronounced underbite. Yellow fangs glistened with its saliva in a sinister grin. One by one, the shrouds concealing the other zoono-beasts evaporated as well. Suddenly the interference afflicting Hairtrigger’s bionic eye was gone, and he could see them all plain as day. Each was clad in thin, hard plates that interlocked into suits of dull, grey armor covering their chests. He wondered if the various spikes and blades protruding seemingly at random were purely ornamental, or if they were intended to be used. Their wiry fur had various earthy tones of brown, tan and grey, though the pegasus couldn’t tell if that was their actual colors, or if they were simply encrusted in filth. The one standing before them, apparently their leader, fixed his gaze on Mystic. “You magic pony,” it said in broken Low Equestrian. Its voice was bestial and grating to the ponies’ ears. They gave it no response. Its grin widened. “Magic pony is good,” it said, turning to its comrades. “Magic pony can find gems! Very precious.” The other dog-creatures’ short, spiked tails wagged with excitement. “We bring to Bismutt.” Hairtrigger planted himself firmly in front of Mystic, fuming. “Ain’t gonna happen, partner. Not a goldfish’s chance in the desert.” The leader lifted a weapon, a device very much resembling a crossbow. It dropped a handful of colorful gems into the top of the weapon’s mechanism. Then with a quick look up, it aimed and fired at the cave ceiling directly above the ponies. In an instant, the shot disappeared into the darkness, the faint sound of its impact echoing back down a moment later. Hairtrigger took a step back. “What in tarna-“ Before he could finish, he was drowned out by a deep, ominous groan and a loud cracking noise overhead. Straining his enhanced vision, the pegasus saw fractures threading across the damaged stalactites hanging above. Dust and pebbles rained down, followed immediately by several tons of stone. “Look out!” he shouted. Unable to see as well as him, Mystic couldn’t tell exactly what was coming, or where it would land. And backed up against the precipice, she had hardly anywhere to go. The rocks fell. For the second time, Mystic found herself with Hairtrigger on top of her. She was lying face down, and could sense his body standing above her. When the dust cleared, she looked back to where she had been standing just seconds ago. It was a huge pile of debris. “Th-thanks,” she said. He shook the chips of stone from his back. “Somepony’s gotta take care of you.” The green unicorn smiled weakly and attempted to stand up. But when she tried, a searing pain shot up her leg. She looked back again and saw that it was pinned under one of the huge boulders. “I… I’m stuck.” “Hang on,” Hairtrigger said, already trying to free her, “we’ll get you out of there, quicker than you can say ‘Golden Throne of Canterlot.’” No stranger to combat injury, Mystic was about to just grit her teeth and levitate the boulder herself. But something else landed in front of her. A small, metal orb clinked along the ground before rolling to a stop right before Mystic’s face. With a click, it opened, and it sprayed out a cloud of noxious mist. Hairtrigger reared back to avoid the gas, but trapped as she was, Mystic couldn’t help but breathe in a lungful. She coughed and in seconds she began to feel dizzy, her vision blurring and her pulse quickening. It had been a big dose; whatever it was supposed to do, she was going to find out. Hairtrigger turned to face the lead zoonos who had thrown the gas grenade. He stamped the ground and snorted, head down, ears back. The leader stood back, and the other beasts reactivated their cloaks, once again disappearing from the pegasus’s vision as the shadows enveloped them. They charged from every direction. On the ground, Mystic could only watch her companion take on the creatures alone. The poison, rather than dull her senses as she might have expected, actually seemed to make them sharper, more acutely aware of every sound and movement. In her eyes, tricks of the light became new horrors prowling for her. Echoes of her own fevered panting morphed into the tortured screams of invisible victims. Pain and panic consumed her reality like a wildfire, fuelled by the psychotropics coursing through her veins. When she looked at the shadow-beasts, she saw them as demons. Her hallucinations blended their real forms with her nightmares, combining the worst features of both and magnifying them a hundredfold. She also saw Hairtrigger differently. His luminator was still on, its bright beam flashing in all directions as he fought. In her impaired state, he appeared to Mystic as an avenging angel, a shining incarnation of the Princess’s divine fury. It was only slightly less terrifying a vision than the enemy he clashed with. The Arbitrotter was losing ground to the beasts. They were faster than any pony he had ever fought, and stronger too. They were so close, their shrouds so thick around him, that he was completely blind. He thought about breaking away, engaging them at range where he might have an advantage. But that would leave Mystic exposed, and that was unacceptable. So he tried to hold them back Finally, a clawed fist caught him in the muzzle and he went reeling. Another sent him to the cave floor. Two of the creatures picked him up by his elbows, dragging the struggling pony over to their leader. “One-eye pony fights hard,” it said with a self-satisfied smirk. Then the zoonos barked something in its own crude language to its minions, to which they cackled in delight. “But pony’s wing is hurt. Hurt pony can’t work. And pony that can’t work is no good.” They carried the beaten pegasus toward the cliff’s edge. Mystic couldn’t bear to watch, covering her eyes. “Please,” she whimpered, “please no…” “S’all right… little lady,” Hairtrigger said between heaving breaths. “Ain’t nothing’s… gonna happen to ya… and that’s the honest truth. Promise.” They cast him over the edge. Silence filled the long moments that followed. She was glad he didn’t scream; it would have been too much for her. She was also spared the sound of him hitting the bottom, so deep was the chasm. The quiet was instead broken by her muffled sobs. When she finally lifted her hooves from her eyes again, the shadow-monsters were standing around her. The leader crouched down to look her in the face. “Is magic pony’s leg stuck?” it taunted melodiously. The rancid stench on its breath made Mystic gag. She looked into its eyes, and in them saw reflections of her own wildest, darkest fears. A dagger made of serrated diamond appeared in its paw. “Good thing magic pony doesn’t need leg to find gems.” The green unicorn’s eyes went wide and her sobs became a wail. She thrashed against the boulder, like any wild animal caught in a trap. The artificially-heightened fear and despair had taken away all rationality, and kept her from concentrating on even the simplest of spells. The minions held her down. Mystic cringed, waiting for the cut. Instead, there was a furious gust of wind. In the blink of an eye, two of the creatures went flying, hit by something too fast for Mystic to follow. They sailed over the edge of the abyss, their shrieks echoing long after they disappeared into the void. An orange blur swooped in and tackled a third zoonos. It was flung back into a stalactite with such force that it demolished the pillar, and was buried under its rubble. The remaining dog-monsters stepped back in alarm. The hovering figure of a pegasus confronted them. It was Hairtrigger. He fluttered laboriously to the ground, favoring his clipped wing. “Y’all thought you could take me by the horns, huh?” he said, panting with rage. “I reckon y’all weren’t ready for the ride.” Having seen more than half its group decimated in mere seconds, the last minion lost its nerve and tried to run. The enraged pony pounced on the fleeing creature, pummeling it with his bare hooves. He kept hitting it, even after the body under him had gone limp. A huge paw seized the pegasus’s injured wing. He was instantly blinded by the pain, long enough for the zoonos leader to throw him to the ground. With a huge claw around his neck, the creature held him there. Every time he struggled, the monster stomped on the wing, making him howl in agony. “One-eye pony doesn’t know when to die,” it hissed, bringing its shard-weapon to bear in the other claw. He aimed it in Hairtrigger’s face. There was a loud splat noise. The dog-monster’s face went slack, and he slumped, falling face-first into the cave floor. There was a mess of pie all over the back of his head. Behind him, stood Caballus.