Silent Ponyville: Reunion
Expecting.
Part 12
------
"That's her isn't it? The one that was leading you around?" Posey asked Lance at a whisper. It seemed the natural assumption. The sillhouette wasn't as large as she would have expected were it the monstrous metal clad alicorn her husband had described, it wasn't making a move to attack them either, and while she wasn't exactly sure how close one of those monsters had to be in order to set the watch to buzzing, it's current complete silence was reassuring.
Lance didn't respond at first. He only stood silently for a moment before taking a single step toward the mysterious mare in the fog. Just like back at the library crater the small move in her direction was enough to send her running back into the mist.
"Yeah...that's her."
Posey's first instinct was to take off and try to follow after her, but she only got as far as unfurling her wings before realizing she would be leaving Lance behind if she did so. Instead, the two stood there looking off into the fog in the direction of the hoof falls that retreated rapidly until they were out of earshot entirely.
...
"She's fast." Posey observed, lacking much else to do at that very second.
"She left me in the dust even before I got mauled." Lance replied as he set to limping after the unusual guide. He stopped as he felt Posey carefully put a hoof on his shoulder, looking back to face her.
"We're going to follow her?" She half stated, half asked.
Lance nodded.
"And you're sure you trust her?" This time her voice was all question, and when he thought about it, it was a very good question indeed...but he didn't need much time to resolve his answer before explaining to her.
"I do. When I first came here and had no idea what to do, she gave me a map and a place to go. When I was running around scared out of my mind she lead me to a safe place to rest and think things over. If it wasn't for her I never would've found the apartments. It's true that I never would've gotten so mangled if I had never found the apartments, but it's also true that I never would've found you either...if not for her. So, yes, I trust her." He nodded confidently as he concluded, then added, "Besides, how am I ever going to patch up her wound if I don't keep following her?
His wife smiled and returned the nod, letting go of his shoulder and strolling past him, "Okay Lance, if you trust her then I do too. Let's go."
He felt compelled to argue against her taking point but opted to keep his mouth shut and limp along after her. As much as he didn't like it, the alternative of him taking the lead in his condition was laughable. They had never kept track of little things that had been inconsequential before, like who was faster, or who was stronger, but thanks to current circumstances they had suddenly become very consequential, and she happened to be both of them. But all of that logic didn't placate him one bit. It was still voluntarily letting his wife put her neck out on his behalf. He hadn't liked it back at the bridge, and he didn't like it now. However, he also knew she wasn't going to budge on the issue should he object, and they didn't have time to engage in an argument of which they both already knew the result.
The mare in the fog's last known direction took them further north up the road until they hit an intersection, at which point Posey looked to and fro, "Okay...now which way?"
"Look on the ground, should be a trail." Lance reminded her as he caught up.
"Oh, right." She said as she lowered her gaze to the cobblestone. It was only a few seconds before she spotted the first small spatter, then another which didn't lead conclusively one way or the other, and finally one that was veering off to the right. She looked back and pointed, "Looks like this way."
It was only four steps before she paused and looked into the fog past the top of the T shape of the intersection.
"You see something?" Lance asked, cautiously stopping behind her.
"It's not one of those things it's just...wierd...look." She said, inviting him to take a place at her side. Lance accepted, stepping forward until the strange shape she saw in the fog loomed into his view as well.
It was a thick rust covered steel pole going down into a hexagonal base of cracked, mossy concrete with heavy bolts holding it steady to the ground. His first thought was that it was holding up a water tower, but the sheer size of it made that unlikely. Aside from that, a look only a bit further right revealed what had to be the town's wind mill, judging from the bit of one of the sails sticking out below the fog. If the wind mill was there then having a water tower right in front of it made no sense at all. But as it was a benign bit of strangeness, Lance felt perfectly fine dismissing it for now. There were much more dangerous things to devote his thoughts to.
"We should probably just keep moving honey." He suggested.
"What could it be holding up though? I mean something that big has got to be holding something up." She mused as she started down the eastward fork on the road.
"I don't really think it's worth worrying about right now." Lance said as he resumed limping along behind her. His leg was beginning to hurt a little more but he wasn't about to stop to do anything about it before they'd gotten inside and found a safe place.
"Yeah, good point." Posey relented and continued onward, keeping an eye on the road to make sure they were still following the trail of blood spatters. It lead them over another bridge, though fortunately this time the crossing was far less eventful. The gigantic steel pole had only been the first of many as well. There was another on the other side of the bridge. Further down there was one right in the middle of the road they had to make their way around, and after that yet another on the side of the road to their right. Even though there were better things to worry about, the presence of so many support poles made them both wonder all the more about what it was they were holding up in the fog. As usual though they were shortly thereafter distracted from these thoughts by another oddity as the road ended.
And so did the ground.
It was another chasm just like the one that had swallowed up the library before. Just before the edge was an odd tree, now obviously dead, that looked to have grown right up through the road and pushed the stones aside on its way. Its placement wasn't what made it odd though. That honor was left to what Lance at first assumed was a carving depicting a pony that had been tied with their back to the tree and their forelegs wrapped back around the trunk. The face was, as expected, featureless. As they approached though he could see that it wasn't a carving at all. For one, a carving would've gone into the trunk, not outward as this did. For another, it was actually a part of the tree, looking to have grown out on its own rather than be carved into shape. The only thing about the wooden pony effigy that didn't look perfectly integrated with the tree was a metal panel on its chest with a tightly arranged nine by nine grid of holes.
"And I thought the poles were wierd." Posey remarked as she stepped forward and examined the unsettling tree. Meanwhile Lance looked around the ground but found that the bleeding mare's trail ended there.
"I guess this is what she was leading us to." He said while moving to her side as she scrutinized the tree further.
"Well it looks like these holes are threaded for a bolt so maybe we're supposed to put these in there?" She pondered aloud, reaching into her saddlebag and pulling out the bundle they had found lying in front of the hospital.
"That'd be my guess, but what order? There are something like forty million different ways to arrange four points on a nine by nine grid." Lance pointed out rather unhelpfully.
"Did we get a clue or something anywhere?" She asked while looking around again in case they had missed anything the first time around.
"Yeah, 'why'."
"What do you mean why? So we can-"
"No no the clue was the word 'why' written on the wrapping of that bundle of bolts." Lance corrected, pointing to the aforementioned bundle held in her hoof. She looked down at it and groaned with an accompanying eyeroll at her own momentary lapse of intelligence.
"Sorry, sorry." Posey said sheepishly before the two of them settled into another silence while they tried to think of a solution. After a couple minutes she let out a sigh of frustration before she saw that look suddenly hit Lance's face. It was the expression he always made when he'd figured something out, she'd never forget that expression after seeing him so often make it while poring over medical texts at home, "What is it?"
"The tree's dead." Lance said while he reached over for the bundle.
"And?" She replied as she handed it over.
"So what made it die?" He set the bundle on the ground and pulled a bolt free, screwing it into the left most hole on the top row.
"Um...I don't know, what made any of the plants here die?" She countered as she took a seat, watching in curiosity.
"Exactly, we don't know what made it die. When somepony dies and we don't know why, what do we do?" He grabbed another bolt and screwed it into the right most hole of the top row.
"An autopsy?"
"Yes, and what's the first step to conducting an autopsy?" He asked further, screwing another bolt into the hole at the exact center of the grid.
Posey had to shrug, "Not a clue, never studied any of this."
"You make a Y incision across the chest." Lance took the final bolt and screwed it into the middle hole of the bottom most row, making the four bolts form a Y shape with one another, "Though the bottom segment usually goes a bit farther down than thi-"
He was interrupted by a sudden crack of wood that made him step back in surprise after he made one last turn of the bottom screw. Lance was correct of course, the bottom segment of a Y incision did travel down the body a ways further than the provided grid reached, but apparently the wood had decided to shoot an ugly looking crack further down the wooden pony's front to make up for it. As the two looked on a small stream of blood began trickling down from the crack, prompting both of them to wear an expression of mild alarm.
...
"Was...was there actually a pony in that-"
Lance was interrupted a second time by the metal plate falling off and clattering on the cobblestone below with a racket that made them both wince. It revealed not the assortment of pulsing, distressed organs that Lance had dreaded, but rather a mildly blood spattered leather lined compartment much like the inside of the chest he had found in the library crater. There was a nail sticking out with a key hanging on the end of it inside.
It took them several moments to recognize that they had nothing to fear. The blood must have leaked out from inside the compartment when the wood had cracked, they hadn't just jammed four screws into a horribly trapped pony's flesh after all. While a compartment partially filled with blood wasn't very comforting, they both still found it far preferable to having just unwittingly tortured somepony. He allowed himself a sigh of relief before raising a hoof and plucking the key from its perch.
"Can we get the hay away from this thing now?" Posey said, obviously having had quite enough of this strange tree and the abyss beyond it, "After all that noise something's probably headed over here."
"I doubt it," Lance replied as he dropped the key into his saddlebag and resumed following behind her.
"Why's that?" She asked him over her shoulder.
"Don't get me wrong, we shouldn't start singing while we walk or anything, but the only ones I've seen out here besides her were those masked ones, and they don't seem too sensitive to sound."
"So what makes you so sure she isn't out here too then?" She countered as they detoured around the pole in the middle of the road again.
Lance had to think about that one. He did have vague memories of her getting dragged away but those were nothing to be so cavalier over. There must have been some cue that was missing, something his subconscious was picking up on without him realizing it, because he was never a pony to make kneejerk assumptions. Then he realized how deafeningly silent it had been ever since they came out of the apartments.
"When I was out here before I would hear her doing something off in the distance every once in a while. Haven't heard a peep out of her yet ever since we left." He reasoned.
"Okay, sure, but she didn't even know you were here back then from what you told me, maybe she's just being quiet now that she does?" Posey replied just as the bridge emerged from the fog ahead of them.
"Well...yeah...that's a fair point. But, what can we do about it? I'm already moving as fast as I can." Lance pointed out. It was an evasive response but it was true enough so Posey decided to let it go with a quiet nod before resuming her vigilance of the fog around them. Their trip back over the bridge was equally as uneventful as the first and they were quite soon standing at the intersection about to turn left so they could head south and return to the hospital. Before they could go any further however Posey stopped dead in her tracks and looked down the road heading west while visibly tensing.
Lance was about to ask what was wrong when he heard it too, just as his watch began to buzz. Something was galloping toward them beyond the sight of the fog. The hoof falls were not metallic so he was at least able to scratch another attack from the sovereign off the list of possibilities. The drowning mares were unable to gallop in the first place so that ruled them out too. Was it the mare that had guided them there? Why would she be running towards them instead of away from them? Wait, no, it couldn't be her, she had never set off his watch, but if it wasn't her, a drowning mare, or the sovereign then that meant it had to be-
Posey cried out with fright and stepped back as the split headed scavenger leapt from the fog a good second or two before she had anticipated with its teeth bared. It arced through the air right at her. There was no time to dodge out of the way.
But instead of grabbing her by the throat it simply landed as the mare side closed her mouth. From it's body language, it looked confused now, sniffing at Posey curiously as the terrified pegasus stood stone silent with eyes wide trying not to scream at the aberration before her. She started to take another step back but a vicious growl from the scavenger in response made it clear it wasn't done inspecting her yet.
"Posey...just....stay still, maybe it will-"
The scavenger's ears twitched as it heard Lance's frightened voice and it suddenly lost all interest in his wife. It deftly sidestepped her before charging straight at him with jagged teeth once again on full display as it roared for his blood.
Lance knew it was fast, but he also knew it built up too much momentum to correct course in a quick fashion when it charged. Even so, the bit of agility he could summon up in the half second he had to work with was only barely enough to get him out of the lethal path of those jaws, and came at the cost of sending him toppling to the side as he lost his balance. It was quick to recover after landing, and wheeled around for a second attack only to be knocked off its hooves entirely by a cream colored blur. As the force of the blow rolled it over a few times Posey shook the stars out of her eyes then set her hooves back on the ground and spread her wings out to make herself look as large and intimidating as possible.
"You get away from my husband and go pick on somepony else who can actually fight back!" She shouted with a menacing stomp of her hoof, glaring daggers at the scavenger as it got to its hooves with a painful groan. Meanwhile Lance had managed to get halfway up, his forelegs holding up his front half as he struggled to get his good back leg beneath him. Once the scavenger had regained its senses it growled defiantly at Posey, now deeming her worthy of attention. Posey didn't move. She was scared out of her mind but she didn't move. Even as the scavenger took a step forward and lowered itself in preparation to pounce she didn't give it an inch of ground.
Lance was frantically trying to stand. He had to move. He had to make it unnecessary for Posey to stand between him and that monster before she got hurt just as badly as he had, or worse. Finally with one last grunt of effort he was up on his hooves. Now he only had to...limp away...slowly...in a mad dash to safety....who was he kidding? He was dead weight holding Posey down now. If she had to constantly slow down and protect him like this it was only a matter of time before something awful happened. She stood more of a chance on her own than she ever would with him.
"Posey, just go! I'm not worth it!" He pleaded.
Posey noticeably flinched at his words, but then took a step forward to match the scavenger's own. She still wasn't going to move. That suited the monster in front of her just fine. Its muscles tensed, but before it could propel itself into the air the colt side gave a muffled screech of pain that stopped both halves of the monster cold. A spot had appeared on the side of its head and began rapidly spreading outward in a series of sickly black veins that seemed to be the source of its pain. The mare half almost lost balance as the colt half's foreleg broke synch and began to ineffectually try and scrape the offending growth off. After regaining its balance the non panic stricken half of the creature's head gave Posey one last glance before it clumsily turned around and receded into the mist from whence it had emerged.
A tense moment passed after the fleeing monster had grown silent in the distance along with Lance's watch. She gave one last look around before letting out a shuddering breath as the raw fear of the encounter finally forced its way inside now that Lance was out of danger. Posey turned and moved past Lance with uneasy steps, her body still flush with adrenaline. He only got a brief look at her face in passing, but for some reason she looked more angry than shellshocked as he had expected, "Are you...okay?"
"No, I'm not okay Lance. Now come on." Her voice was a strange mix of tone, fearful yet commanding, quivering yet forceful. He did nothing in reply but to nod and limp along after her, saving his worries for later. She seemed somewhat shaken up but otherwise fine so it didn't seem right to delay their trip to check her over.
Though they hadn't far to go it still felt like ages before they were blessed with the sight of Ponyville Hospital once more. Lance's watch didn't make a peep as they approached either, adding to the pleasant feeling of impending safety as that meant there was nothing immediately behind the door either.
"The key." Posey said while holding out a hoof and not bothering to look back at him. He blinked with uncertainty regarding her sudden curtness with him before complying, grabbing the key out of his saddlebag and placing it in her hoof. She tried inserting the key but was unsuccesful for a few moments, getting progressively more frustrated over several tries before realizing the key's teeth were pointed in the wrong direction and cursing under her breath. A quick key flip and a much more succesful turn of the lock later, she slowly pushed the door open and moved aside for Lance and his surgical light.
He stopped at the threshold and switched it on before peering inside what turned out to be a waiting room in name only. Besides the entrance through which he was peering, there was only one other door that led further into the hospital on the left wall. The usual assortment of chairs one would expect were absent, a few stray bits of wood being the only sign they had even been there in the first place. The linoleum flooring was in poor shape and covered with a layer of dust, the wallpaper was faded and peeling in spots, and an oddly placed bit of sheet metal was bolted over the window that would have otherwise let incoming patients speak with a receptionist. It was far from the model of cleanliness that the apartments had initially been but strangely that was somewhat of a comfort in it's own peculiar way.
"Looks clear." Lance told his wife as she stepped past him and into the room. She took a few moments making her own inspection before concluding it was reasonably safe, then turned to look at him.
"Get in here and close the door." Posey ordered as she sat down.
Since he was about to do so anyway, the order was fairly easy to follow, a laughably obvious next step one might even say. But he wasn't about to say as much with the mood she was giving off. He couldn't really blame her for being out of sorts after the encounter at the crossroad but he couldn't put his hoof on what exactly had inspired this particular spike of anger. Thankfully he was spared further contemplation by the sound of something tapping against the door above him after he closed it. A glance upward placed the beam of his flashlight squarely on a lantern hanging from a hook on the inner side of the door, "Oh, hey, here's a lantern for you."
"What...oh, that's...that's good!" The discovery seemed to break her out of her ill mood as she got back to her hooves and was soon at his side with her front hooves on the door so she could reach the lantern. She managed to grab the handle in her teeth and pull it free of the hook before setting it on the ground to check it over while Lance kept his surgical light focused on it so she could see what she was doing.
"Does it have oil?" He asked.
"I think so, it's got some weight to it." She replied as she looked for a knob, switch, or anything else that looked like it was meant to light the lantern, "Only one way to be sure though...here it is." Posey gave the knob she had found a few swift twists before the lighting mechanism ignited the wick, causing a much larger circle of soft orange light to join the smaller but much more concentrated beam cast by her husband's surgical light, "Good, it works." She said before she popped the top off and blew the wick out, "We've got your light for now so we should save the oil."
"I haven't exactly seen any spare oil lying around." Lance agreed while Posey opened her saddlebag and set the unlit lantern inside. With that brief distraction taken care of she then visibly sank back into her foul mood from moments before, much to her husband's dismay.
"Lance, what was that back there?" She asked with a glare, taking a seat again and pointing toward the door through which they had just entered.
"What do you mean?"
"What do I mean? I mean the 'I'm not worth it leave me behind' nonsense you spouted! How could you say that about yourself?! Or ask me to do that?!" Posey clarified with a mix of creeping anger and sadness in her eyes.
He wilted, ears flattening against his head. That wasn't the reason he had been expecting. If anything he had anticipated it being the inconvenience he was quickly becoming in his injured state, not anger at what he thought had been an objective analysis...at the time. Now that it was being put right in front of him again he couldn't help but feel that perhaps it had been a bit rash and inconsiderate, but at the same time he couldn't just dismiss how valid his assumptions had been, "I was...afraid for you, honey."
"And I wasn't afraid for you?! I was terrified! And it was hard enough without you back there telling me to run too! I mean, after all you've done how can you think you're not worth defending?!" She exclaimed with a hoof of inquisition pointed at him.
"I...I don't-" He stammered before being cut off.
"Is it because Fluttershy blamed you?!"
"No, it wasn't-"
"Did my mother get to you?! Did she convince you it was your fault or something?!" Posey interrupted again.
"No she didn't. Nopony blamed me for letting you die-"
"But you still think you let me die don't you?" She countered.
Lance opened his mouth to speak but no words to refute her claim came to mind, soon closing his mouth and diverting his gaze down and away from hers. She was right, there was no other way to interpret what he'd said just then, and the words had been honest. It wasn't some sort of revelation for him though, even if Fluttershy had been the one to deliver the fatal stabbings to her mother, it had been his incompetence that had let her sink to the state she had been in at the time. He'd always blamed himself for that, always. But that wasn't what made him think he wasn't worth defending...not on its own at least.
She was a monster. He knew it. She deserved everything she'd gotten. It was just. It was right. It was proper payment for having taken one life and ruined another. So why now was he feeling a tug of guilt at having been the agent of that justice? Had it been the visit? Had he fallen for that...act? What monster could act that way?
A manipulative one perhaps...
That's what was happening. He was falling for it...badly. No monster would act like she had unless it had been with some ulterior motive.
Perhaps that conclusion was horseapples. Perhaps it wasn't. All he knew at that very moment was that Posey needed him to be as supportive of her as she was being for him, and guilt made that difficult. The concept of a manipulative monster toying with his emotions made it easier to push that guilt aside, so he took hold of that concept and used it. Besides, if he didn't just admit to feeling responsible for her death she might keep pushing and find out about what he'd done afterward, and then he would lose her trust.
"I'm...sorry, honey."
His guilt ridden apology took much of the wind out of her anger, and it showed on her face as she stood up, "It wasn't your fault. I never blamed you Lance...I know I probably said some nasty things but I did know better...you tried so hard...if you couldn't do it nopony could have." She said as she stepped forward and gently nuzzled him assuringly, "I know it's probably hard to let it go after so long, and you don't have to do it all right just now, but for the time being I need you here, not back when I died, okay?"
"Okay Posey." He replied while wrapping a foreleg around her and hugging her close. They remained that way for a long while until Posey finally pulled away and wiped another bit of moisture from her eyes, smiling at him.
"Besides, nopony talks about my husband that way, least of all my husband...now let's go." She concluded before turning and leading him toward the only other door in the room.
"Careful." He warned as she brought her hoof to the doorknob.
"I'm not too worried, if anything was through this door it would have been trying to break it down already from all that noise I just made." All the same, when the door proved unlocked Posey opened it only a crack, just enough to peer through and see if there was anything waiting for them on the other side. Curiously the linoleum floor stopped at the door, replaced with plain dirt. The light seeping out through the crack in the door stopped well short of any wall, and most oddly of all she could swear she heard wind in the distance, "Um...could you get your light over here Lance?"
Her puzzled tone was none too reassuring. He limped over, his wife opening the door a bit more for him as he approached. The bit of light his surgical light cast on the situation only exacerbated their confusion. The illuminating beam did indeed hit a wall...but that wall was so distant that it could easily be the outermost wall of the entire building, "That...is...interesting?"
Against his better judgement he pushed the door even further and stepped out onto the dirt, Posey following behind as he cast his light about to try and figure out what the hay was going on. The both stood in mute confusion as they watched the circle of light move about in the far distance, hitting the far off walls with nothing in the way of obstacles to block it.
"It's hollow..."
Lance couldn't think of a choice of words better than his wife. The entire hospital had been hollowed out, leaving only the outer wall and topmost ceiling, all of which had been braced with large bolted in iron bars to absorb the weight that the inner structures would usually hold. There was nothing inside but the dirt ground.
"There's got to be something in here if we were led here though..." Lance pondered as he kept casting his light about looking for anything at all.
"Wait, there!" Posey said suddenly as she saw something on the ground briefly as the light passed over it. Lance backtracked until they could see what was plainly a rusted metal trap door in the very middle of the shell of a building they found themselves in.
"Should we go check it out? Lots of dark out there for something to hide in." He asked. Posey still seemed unconcerned as she stepped past him.
"There's no fog in here, we'll hear and spot anything before it gets too close."
"Good point." He said while limping after her.
There proved to be nothing waiting for them in the dark, or at least nothing in their path to the trap door. Upon closer inspection there was a latch on the end of the trap door opposite the hinges that was clearly meant to hold a padlock, but said padlock was nowhere to be seen and there was nothing to make Posey think twice before grabbing the handled with her teeth and pulling up and back. It took her a few moments of pulling with all the strength she could muster, but as Lance was about to try and help her the rusted over hinges finally gave way with an ear splitting screech and let her pull the door open. While his wife caught her breath he carefully peered over the edge.
"What's...what's down there?" Posey asked as she caught her breath.
"It looks like...asphalt? ...and that's a ventilation duct...that's...there's a roof down there." Lance said, hardly believing his own words.
"What?!" She said with just as much disbelief, but it was apparently dealt with quickly as evidenced by her next question, "Well, how far down is it?"
Being a pegasus Lance wasn't exactly one to judge a drop just by eyeballing it. Pegasi never judged how far down something was, they just flew down to it. But as he obviously no longer enjoyed that luxury right then seemed a good a time as any to start trying, "Um...I'm no expert but I don't think I'd want to jump down there without wings even if I wasn't already hurt."
"Let me see." She had apparently caught her breath, walking over next to him and sticking her head out beside his, "...yeah...good call."
"How are we going to get down there then?" He asked, but then stopped and mentally took a step back to a much more sane starting point, "Wait, first off, do we even want to go down there?"
Posey brought a hoof to her chin in thought. It was actually a good question...but the answer seemed plain enough after a few moments, "Where else would we go? We were led here just like you were led to the apartments before right?"
"Right."
"So, it just seems to me like it's a choice between going down there or wandering around outside aimlessly some more." She explained, once again pointing her hoof back the way they had come.
"This is a bit different though, back at the apartments I could have just gone back out the front door. If we go down there I have no idea how we'll get back up...or, at least how I'll get back up." He pointed out in reply.
"You, us, same thing." She reminded him, "And you said the apartments gave you a way through the wall that didn't make sense...who's to say you won't get another way out of here that doesn't make sense?"
"So we just take it on faith after all that happened at the apartments?" Lance objected fairly reasonably.
"I know it's not the best plan but can you think of any others?" Posey replied with a shrug.
...
"Okay, so how are we going to get down there?" He asked again now that his need for a general sanity check had been sated.
"I guess I'll have to be your parachute." She suggested and turned, inspecting his back while trying to think of the best way to carry out the plan without aggrivating his injuries too much.
"You sure you can do it?"
"I've done it before, remember?"
"What?"
"Yeah, it was a few days after our first date, you wanted to see if your wing would work again so you tried jumping off a two story building like a dummy, and I caught you when your wing cramped up." Posey said with a soft smirk on her face.
Lance spent a quiet moment recalling the memory before his eyes widened in embarassment as he mentally confirmed the truth of her claim, "Oh, yeah...that."
"I would've expected better from an aspiring med student." She teased as she carefully climbed onto his back and wrapped her forelegs around his chest, her knees digging into his side. She felt him wince at the new weight that was put on his leg, "I'm sorry, I know it hurts, this'll only be for a moment."
"Urgh...yeah, I know...well, here we go..." He said with much more conviction than he actually felt. Lance hesitated a few moments more before finally summoning enough willpower to overcome his common sense and jumped down. Posey's grip grew even tighter as the duty of supporting their combined weight suddenly shifted to her. She flapped her wings as strongly and quickly as she was able as she held onto him, her efforts proving effective as their initially fast descent soon slowed to a crawl. Soon enough Lance's hooves set down on the strange subterranean rooftop, "Got it!"
Posey let go and hopped off him, lying down to catch her breath again, "I...told you...I could do it..." She boasted triumphantly between breaths with a grin.
Lance returned her smile and brough his head down to kiss her on the cheek, "Thanks."
"No problem...now let's go." She said before getting back to her hooves and suddenly realizing she had no idea where they were supposed to go from there, "...um...where to?"
Lance took a moment to look around. A rectangular area of dirt had been removed to accomodate the building he assumed they were standing atop of, the large walls and ceiling of dirt kept from collapsing by a series of wooden bracings much like the iron ones above. They didn't seem to be creaking from the strain at all so he thought it best to not worry about them for now. Bringing his gaze lower he soon spotted two rooftop structures that looked likely to be the building's roof access points, "Over there."
The structure to their right as they made their way over was a long rectangle, and the one to their left was about the same length except it was arranged in an L shape. Both of them had two visible doors, but they were discouraged from checking the L shaped building first due to the very prominent boarding up of one of its doors. The longer one by contrast only had a single padlock on the leftmost door labeled 'ELEVATOR CONTROL', and the other unmarked door was free of both boarding and padlocks. Posey brought her hoof to the handle and looked back, Lance silently nodding in agreement before she opened it.
Inside was a stairwell leading downward. The conditions inside weren't particularly menacing, just the same unkemptness they had both grown used to seeing by now. They made their way down one floor before their progress was blocked by another oddly placed set of iron bars that completely cut them off. Hoping to at least find out how many floors this underground building had, they turned their attention to that floor's door, only to find four empty bolt holes where the plaque bearing such a number would normally be. Though the door proved uninformative, it at least made up for it by also proving to be accesible.
They stepped through it into a hallway. The wall on their left looked like it had been full of windows, but the glass was now broken and gone, replaced by more wooden braces to keep the dirt from falling in...or at least any more of it from falling in. There were already several small piles of it gathered on the floor beneath the former windows. They could see the far side of the hallway, but only through the chainlink fence that was bolted into place to divide it in half. On both sides there was also a pileup of empty stretchers...slightly blood spattered empty stretchers. Lance had certainly already seen far worse but it did not bode well regardless. Moving away from the slightly offputting sight they spotted another door on the right wall and made their way over, only to find that despite the handle moving easily it still wouldn't budge. The lock must have been broken.
When they turned back they finally laid eyes on the open door to the elevator right next to the stairwell, and as luck would have it the elevator was on their floor already, "Well, down isn't exactly an encouraging direction but, again, not much choice." Posey observed as they stepped inside only to find the button panel had been covered with a thin but still plenty durable metal plate that been bolted over it, "...well...so much for that. Guess we check the other elevator control door up top?"
"They're not giving us a whole of...is this writing?" Lance said, interrupted by the discovery that the scratches on the surface of the plate were not quite as random as they first appeared. He squinted, focusing his light on it as he tried to make out the writing, "...'hallway'...'button'..."
"Hallway button? I didn't see a button in the hallway." Posey recalled as she looked at the plate with him to confirm he was right.
"We weren't looking for a button in the hallway though so we might have missed it." He reminded her.
"No harm in checking again I suppose." She relented with a shrug before venturing back out into the hallway. It didn't take them long to find it. It was in the right side wall, located about halfway between the door with the broken lock and the stretcher piled divider fencing. It was a small rusty button box that had been spliced directly into a wire through a hole in the outer wall. It looked like just another feature of the dilapidation at first glance so it was no surprise they had missed it the first time.
"Okay so...the message in the elevator lead us to this button so...I guess this controls the elevator?" Lance estimated before Posey simply pressed the button while looking over to the elevator in question. The cage-like doors quickly slammed shut and the elevator leisurely descended downward, "...well I hope we can get it back up here again."
"Uh...hehe...sorry..." Posey said with a blush of embarassment, "At least we know for sure you were right though."
They waited a tense few minutes before Lance pushed the button again. To their great relief they heard the machinery spring to life again shortly before the elevator emerged from below up to their floor and opened invitingly once more, "Okay, no harm done!"
"But...wait, how are we going to do this?" She inquired as they both realized the obvious problem.
"I...don't know. Do you think you can press the button and get in before it closes?" He asked.
"Not a chance with how fast they closed just now, I can be pretty fast but I'm not that fast."
They spent a few more silent moments trying to think of anything else besides the obvious solution to the problem.
...
Posey wordlessly opened her saddlebag and pulled out the lantern they had found above, "Good thing we found this when we did then."
"No." Lance immediately objected.
"Don't start, listen, it's plain as day we're not both going down in that elevator at the same time. We don't know what's down there, we know it's safe up here, you're still hurt, I'm still fine, the only monsters we've crossed paths with ignored me for the most part, and the one that didn't ignore me only stopped ignoring me when I defended you. Since you'll be safe up here, that won't be a problem." She explained as she took a moment to find the knob then lit the lantern anew.
"And you're so sure you'll be safe down there? How do you know there's not something else down there that won't ignore you?" Lance persisted stubbornly.
"I don't know, but I do know that if there is, I can get away from it a hay of a lot better than you can right now. That's why I've been in front ever since we left the apartments and that's why I'm going to be the first into the dark scary places we come across, understand?" She replied sternly. He knew that tone. It was the same one she'd used whenever he or Fluttershy had been sick and wanted to be up and about but had to be forced to stay in bed for their own good. Neither of them had won that argument with her before, and he knew he wasn't going to now. Besides, she was right. He hated how right she was.
"I...I..." Lance slumped downward, defeated and unable to come up with a convincing objection. He let out a frustrated but tired sigh before speaking, "How will I know when to bring it back up?"
"Good question..." Posey thought that one over for a while before continuing, "Tell you what, do your best to keep track of around...five minutes, then push the button again. I'll try to be quick and look for a key or button or...something, but I can just go back down again if I need to, okay?"
"...okay." Lance complied, looking over to the button on the wall with a great degree of doubt in his eyes.
"Don't worry Lance, I'll be fine." She said with a parting kiss before picking the lantern up and trotting back over to the elevator. He watched her go, feeling a tight dread in his gut as she turned around to look at him. It still took him a few gut wrenching moments before he was able to force himself to press the button and just sit there while his wife calmly descended into the unknown depths below.
He took a deep breath and slowly let it out with a stressed shudder in an attempt to counter the thoughts of the thousands of possible hells he had just sentenced her to with that single button press. But he couldn't dwell on that too long, he needed to keep track of time, and with his only watch busted all he could do was quietly count down the seconds...
------
"55...54...53...52...51-"
Lance's countdown was cut short as the elevator began coming up without his having pressed the button. Posey must have found a way to bring it back up herself! Feeling his spirits lifting again he ignored the spike of pain in his leg as he got back on his hooves and started limping toward the approaching elevator. He managed to get within ten steps of it by the time it arrived, and opened of its own accord.
He eyes shot open wide as the sudden stabbing, sickening feeling in his gut and the tightness in his chest forced him to stop before he could make another step.
The elevator car was soaked with splattered blood on the back wall, a small pool on the floor, and a streaked trail leading outward. The blood on the back wall seemed concentrated around a diamond shaped hole...and a few bars of the cage-like elevator door had been snapped in half. He could only conclude something big had broken in, impaled his wife against the wall, and dragged her out...and he only knew one thing that did this sort of damage. To describe his reaction as panic would be a delightfully tragic understatement.
"No, no, nonono, please Celestia no..." He muttered to himself as he limped into the car as fast as he could and started looking for some way, any way to make it go down, "Please! Please! Just take me down there! I have to help her! I don't know how I can but I have to for buck's sake! Please!!!" He cried out, pleading with nopony as he tried in vain to wrench the cover plate off the panel, heedless of the agony coming from his leg with the efforts.
Somepony had heard him.
Lance stumbled backward in surprise as the doors slammed shut and the elevator car started to descend again. He looked through the bars out into the hallway and caught a glimpse of a mare standing next to the button, faced away from him, her hoof lowered after having pressed it for him. There wasn't enough time to make out any details about her before she vanished from sight. Had that been the mare that had been leading him around?
"Thank you..." He said, wiping away the tears that had leaked from his eyes in his desperation of moments prior as the elevator descended into the unknown blackness below...