Zachery rubbed the crust out of one of his eyes as he tried to stay awake. Standing on either side of him was a stoic Alec and a droopy eyed Kim. Right now their squad was one of the several squads standing near the base of one of the many outer mountains of Aria, listening to the instructions of the day’s first exercise.
The black haired militant didn’t know why they were dragged out of their beds before five and force to fly seven kilometers, but he did know that whoever ordered it should get a fine calculated and aimed punch to the face.
What part of forcing squads to work non-stop until twelve then waking them five hours later to climb up a freaking mountain promised good results? It made no sense, how the hell were any of them expected to have the energy to make it half way up or even stay awake?
This thought was punctuated with the light snores of Kim as she had fallen asleep while standing up…again. How she was able to fall asleep like that while keeping her eyes open was far beyond him.
With a quick punch to the arm, he woke her up again and went back to listening to the speech.
Like always, it was the same propaganda that was recycled over and over again throughout his youth.
“You are our standing hope against humanities oppression…blah, blah, blah…it is unknown when or how the courageous people who reside in our glorious divisions could or would be discovered again but it is tremendously vital that our guard is always up against the pony threat…blah, blah, blah…the divisions thank you for your continuous service in these trying times, blah.”
At first he paid close attention to what was said in these pep talks, eating up every word that was said with wide, shining, interest filled eyes. That was until he found out they used the same twenty speeches over and over again that were divided into four categories. Inspiration, fear, somber and unity inducing speeches that were meant to bring a hidden strength into the masses under command.
The speech that they were currently listening to now was somber inducing speech number three.
Zachery was really starting to hate how predictable the military was starting to get.
At the end of speech he saluted with the rest of the squads. He lifted his arms and positioned his hands, making an X formation in front of his neck. Then he walked with his half asleep squad to the darken base of the mountain.
“So what are we supposed to do here again?” Kim yawned as they got closer to the starting point.
“We have to climb that mountain to the summit.” Alec stated dispassionately while looking up at the towering peak.
“I know that," was Kim's growling response, "I mean what are the limitations that they put on us?”
“No wings, no sabotage, no magic beyond the mandatory magic hardened claws that all active soldiers are taught to make.” Zachery said while letting his darkly coloured magic pulse around one of his hands. With practiced ease, he hardened the loose magic, making a slick black claw and forearm.
“That brings me to my next question, why are we waking up before the ass-crack of dawn to do these exercises if we’re active soldiers? Shouldn’t we be doing surveillance at our borders or something?” Kim pronounced while shaking the last bit of sleep out of her head.
“Kim, you know that the divisions have more active soldiers than they have active missions," Zachery scratched the back of his head with his un-clawed arm, "beside a little extra training never did hurt anyone."
“Tell that to the victims of the weight lifting incident of ‘48.” Alec muttered while his own pastel orange coloured magic began to bind around his hand.
Zachery shot a dark glare at his unapologetic squad mate. “That one wasn’t my fault.”
“Tell that to private Johnson and his broken arm.” Alec retorted.
“He healed up just fine and was back to doing drills the next day!”
“After he had awakened from his coma.”
“You can’t call something a coma if you wake up out of it in eight hours!”
“They never found his tooth…”
“He went to a good dentist and got a replacement, didn’t he?”
“Excuse me!" The two bickering men turned their attention to the stormy grey glare of the smaller red head, "if you two fledglings are done we’re here.”
Zachery and Alec both stared up at the scene taking place on the mountain. Then they continued to stare.
The outer mountain’s peak reached up out of their field of view, and casted a large shadow that made every thing that stood under it slightly darker in the early hours of the morning. The rough terrain of the mountain went from loose gravel to sheer unforgiving cliff and everything in-between. This gave the mountain a highly dangerous edge as it was quite possible to fall from a cliff, drop in one of the creases of the mountain while bringing a suffocating amount gravel down upon you. To put insult to injury the outer mountains were one of the only places in Aria that had a steady population of monstrous beasts that had obtained a taste for human flesh.
The craziest part of the death trap that was the mountain, however, was the squads that were already quickly scaling it in a mad dash to the top, uncaring of the injuries they sustained along the way.
Alec, watching as one of the climbers dropped down one of the mountain’s many slopes only to start climbing it again with renewed vigor, voiced his opinion on the newest task placed before them.
“This is absolute madness.”
The squad stared at the display of their fellow soldiers fighting for the right to stand at the top of the summit of the towering mountain. Zachery flinched as he watched as one soldier took a nasty hit from what seemed to be a large dire wolf. Then stared in shocked admiration as the soldier began to fight the wolf off with what seemed to be a heavy fallen branch.
“So… should we go up?” Kim asked as she tried to gage the height of the mountain.
“On one hand if we don’t go up the commanders will most likely make an example of us, on the other hand," here Alec watched as the two squads that were closest to the top were stopped from advancing by a raging Manticorn, "if we go up there is no conceivable way we can get to the top without injury.”
“This right here is why I hate the freaking higher ups. While we’re here, busting our asses on some stupid as all hell training exercise, they’re sitting on their asses having a freaking tea party!” Kim grumbled distastefully under her breath, too quiet for the supervisors to hear.
“Kimberly, it’s unladylike to swear, how do you ever expect to get yourself a proper man?” Alec deadpanned to the fiery red head while keeping his eyes on the mountain.
“How ‘bout I break my foot off in your ass?" She turned to Zachery who was still captivity watching the fight between the soldier and the dire wolf, who was now using the two recently broken halves of the stick as makeshift double swords to fight off the large wolf, "What do you think?”
“I think we should get going, there is no reason to delay things," he smiled as the soldier finally chased the wolf off and continued to climb the mountain, "besides this could be fun.”
“Absolute madness.”
“Dammed by the three higher ups.”
“That’s the spirit!”
With that they began their climb. It was time for them to welcome the new day with a vigorous clawed scramble up the side of a mountain.
Trudge, trudge, trudge, trudge.
Rarity was not happy.
Normally the fashion designer was all for going to the ends of the earth. Helping her friends in their time of need, coming in and saving the day or dress when nopony else could. Sure she would sometimes whine or complain when things get too hard or too dirty, but she would never abandon somepony when they needed her the most.
She would not, she could not, leave her friends, as Rainbow Dash would say 'hanging', when she had the means to help them.
Normally, this was true.
Even though her own personal belief told her to stay for the one chance she may be needed, Rarity was sorely tempted to leave her friends, her princess, and the disgusting swamp she was currently hiking through behind for a nice, warm, clean, bath.
Trudge, trudge, trudge, trudge.
What kind of foalish pony puts their camp in the middle of a swamp? It was utterly ridiculous!
She didn’t even want to think about how bad her coat and mane was. She shuddered in disgust every time she happened to take a look at her muddy, gunk covered hooves.
Whenever she lifted her hoof it would make a sickening squelching popping sound as the slime in the swamp parted ways with her once well manicured hooves.
The once white and purple unicorn just about had enough. It didn’t help that she seemed to be the only one that was so affected by their swampy surroundings. Everypony was just following Princess Celestia as if she was just leading them through the Canterlot gardens, and not the pony forsaken swamp they were in!
Trudge, trudge, trudge, trudge.
Rarity could understand if it was only Applejack and Rainbow Dash acting like this was just an afternoon stroll. The orange farmer almost certainly walked through worse during her career and the cyan pegasus would never show weakness at just walking through a swamp, but Twilight, Pinkie Pie and even Fluttershy? How could they not show just a little disgust? It just didn’t make any sense.
However, her friends reactions to the swamp were nothing compared to how Princess Celestia looked.
She was stunning, marvelous, radiant, and did not in any way look like she had just spent the last hour slogging through a swamp. Her coat was still the purest of white and her mane was a cascade of painstaking placed pastel colours.
Rarity could not help feeling the smallest bit of jealousy. She knew that the sun monarch had to be using some sort of spell to keep herself that clean and orderly, she also knew that she had no hope of both learning that spell and control it needed to keep it going.
But the easily maintained beauty of Celestia still vexed her.
The fashion designer glared angrily at the sun princess as a fleck of gunk dropped from a tree above her to the monarch’s back, only to be dissipated before it could leave a mark on her pure white coat.
The white and purple unicorn could not see how this day could get any worst. It was absolutely the worst thing ever to happen to her.
Trudge, trudge, trudge, trudge, trip, slip and squelch.
The group stopped to stare at the downed unicorn. Rarity had somehow manage to trip, slide past them and land into a large puddle of concentrated swamp matter covering herself head to hoof in the chunky, heavy slime.
Two angry blue eyes stared at them from within the slop.
The five ponies plus two princesses stared back at the muddy unicorn, unsure what to do as leaves, bugs, and other things began to fall on or cover her. They were left in a thick silence as somepony tried to think of something to say.
Finally Pinkie Pie started to snort, laughing at Rarity, giggling uncontrollably at the unicorn’s predicament.
After a while she calmed down enough to speak.
“Silly Rarity," Pinkie Pie chirped wagging a playful hoof at the dirty unicorn, "not every type of mud is good for mud baths you know!”
The purple eyes from within the goop went into a hard vindictive glare.
“Um, Pinkie? ‘ah dun think she wanted to take a mud bath.”
“Don’t be silly Applejack of course she wanted to take a bath! Don’t you know how much Rarity hates dirt and loves the spa? She probably just couldn’t help herself when she saw the mud. Why else would she jump into that puddle?” The pink pony asked.
“Pinkie, I don’t think she willingly jumped into that puddle.” Twilight said as the muddy lump that was Rarity began to shake.
“Guys," Rainbow Dash said while slowly backing up, "I think she is about to blow!”
Suddenly, as if a large proverbial bubble had finally been blown up to its breaking point and popped, the grimy unicorn snapped.
Exploding out of the puddle Rarity let loose a loud sky shattering earth shaking screech, which pushed the ponies around her back as they tried to cover their ears from the onslaught. Around them the hundreds of nesting birds that made the swamp their home were startled into the air in a cyclone of feathers and panicked shrieking. As Rarity went to the pinnacle of her yell the muck that encased her body started to harden. Then with one last high pitched interval of sound the polluted casing shattered and broke into a million pieces leaving behind the, now once again, white and purple mare standing in the middle of her friends panting in heavy angry gasps.
Taking in a large steadying breath the now cleaner unicorn stood up straight and trotted up to her friends.
“It is done.”
Seeing that her friends still had not moved from their places Rarity stopped her trot and looked into their shocked faces.
With a slightly unnerving smile she spoke again, “Well what are we waiting for? We still have much area to cover, and this swamp isn’t getting any smaller is it?” At here she laughed loud and long as if she had heard the funniest joke ever told. Her ears twitched sporadically with each chuckle while her mane slowly frizzled. As her laughter got louder and louder her gaze got less and less focused causing her eyes to go from looking into the concerned stares of the ponies around her to staring at a falling leaf or a piece of jagged rock.
Then as Celestia was about to step in, the unexplainable expression of amusement stopped as quickly and inexplicably as it came leaving behind a long and uncomfortable silence.
Pinkie Pie slowly opened her mouth only for Fluttershy to leisurely place a hoof under her chin closing it again.
The silence continued. Rarity continued to smile painfully wide at them.
A piece of muck fell from a tree and landed with a loud squelch on Rarity’s back. Then it slither off the side off of the white unicorn’s coat leaving behind a long brown stripe.
Rarity’s eye twitched.
Twilight quickly intervened.
“So… princess Celestia, exactly how far away is the base?”
Celestia blinked in worried confusion one last time at the twitching unicorn before turning away to her student.
“The base should be around the next bend, its entrance is hidden by a small grove of trees in the middle of a bog. However, the trees may have grown larger with age. Nevertheless it should not be more than twenty minutes away," Rarity started to giggle again, "ten minutes or less if we hurry.”
“Well gals ya’ll heard the princess," Applejack pushed her Stetson firmly on her head while ignoring Rarity’s increasingly rampant mumbling, "let’s make us sum tracks.”
There was no complaints to the apple farmer’s statement as the group went from a casual pace to a more urgent trot. This urgent trot was quickly stopped by a deep tortured sound that resonated through the swamp.
The wailing howl shook the once silent swamp bouncing terribly around in the heads of the ponies gathered.
As quickly as it came, it came to a muffled then hushed end.
Rainbow Dash looked at the ponies gathered, “Well I don’t think that whatever that was came from Rarity.”
“I beg your pardon Rainbow Dash but a lady never howls as such!” Rarity said while trying to look haughty, this was impeded by her frayed mane and muddy stripe.
“Then what ‘da hay was that scream ya’ just did?” Applejack said while quizzically looking at the dirty unicorn.
Rarity began twitching again, “That Apple dear, was the appropriate response to this dreadful, awful, terrible, pony forsaken, Tartarus placed swamp!”
The fashion designer’s voice had risen in pitch at each interval leaving her at an almost incomprehensible screech at the word swamp.
Pinkie Pie took this as incentive to lean over to the purple alicorn, “Twilight, I think Rarity missed the gravy boat.” To punctuate this, the pink pony waved a hoof in circles beside her head while somehow spinning her eyes in two different directions.
“Right, so Fluttershy any clue on what that might be?” The young princess quickly asked her timid friend.
“Oh, um, well, that sounded like a hydra, but at the same time, not.” The shy pegasus replied.
“What the hay does that mean?” Rainbow Dash said while flying closer to Fluttershy’s face getting an eek out of the timid pony.
“I mean that even though it sounds like a hydra I never heard a hydra make that sound.” Fluttershy softly answered.
“Why is that?”
“It’s because it sounds like it is in a lot of pain. I never heard a hydra go through that much pain before." The yellow pegasus said with a downcast voice, "the poor thing is probably all sad and scared inside. He might even act out in anger because of this.”
This statement left an uneasy silence in the group.
“So what do you reckon we do?” Applejack said breaking the silence.
“The base is in the direction of the hydra," Celestia spoke solemnly, "we will have to confront it if we wish to continue. Though seeing the circumstances, I will not force anypony that doesn’t wish to follow to come with us.”
“Princess Celestia, we came here well informed about how dangerous this might be. We are not going to back down now, isn’t that right girls?”
Twilight’s declaration brought on nods of confirmation among the element bearers. None of them were going to back out now that they knew how close they were to their first solid goal.
Who cares if there was a possibly angry hydra waiting for them?
Seeing the bravery of her subjects, Celestia broke out in a small, but happy, smile. It was astonishing to witness how dedicated her ponies were in their tasks.
“Very well then my little ponies, the hideout should be no more than a few minutes away.” With that said and done the seven ponies went back into a trot, in their sure minds ready for whatever will be fall them.
True to Celestia’s word in the span of five minutes they came up to a no longer small grove of trees that was hundreds of years in the making. However, the sight of thousand year old trees wasn’t the only thing there to greet them as they broke through the tree line.
Rainbow Dash had seen a lot of things in her days of living at Ponyville and being an element bearer she had always been the first to run head first into a problem even if the situation frightened her. However there were times where she slowed down just a little when things became too much, but was back to the front after a little self pep talk.
This wasn’t one of those times.
Rainbow Dash grounded herself and tried to gather her courage, but now she just couldn’t keep her bravo up no matter how hard she tried.
The horrible scene in front of her caused her to gulp loudly, the only word passing her lips was a quiet choked, “Whoa.”
The trees that made the grove had grown on nothing but old leftover discarded magic and the decay of whatever was unfortunate enough to fall into the acidic bog that surrounded their immune starving roots. This left the trees with strange growths and twisted bark that shaped into mournful faces which seemed to beg for somepony to end their existence. The old crooked branches reached into the sky clawing through low hanging cloudy mist that covered the atmosphere of the swamp. A thin path connected them to the hidden entrance; on either side of the path was vast bog that gave off puffs of swamp gas in erratic intervals. The worst of it however wasn’t the mournful trees or the sickening smell of decay the bog gasses gave off. What rooted the ponies to there spot was the mostly clean ghostly bone white skeleton of the Hydra that fell into the swamp.
It was obvious that the Hydra had not been dead for a long time. It's five enormous heads were wide open in an eternal scream showing black decomposing tongues through red taunt face muscles.
Large stretches of thick grey skin still desperately clung to huge white bones. Only to slowly have their hold weaken by the acidic gasses, then fall into the waiting acidic bog below. When the raw meat collided with the black green muck below a shrill hissing noise filled the bog as it ate hungrily through the carcass.
This gave the area a positively haunted look and gave the seven ponies pause as they stared in horror at the unfortunate sight. They would have kept on staring in morbid shock if their view wasn’t suddenly blocked by a large alabaster wing.
They looked up to the grim face of their benevolent leader who kept her wing spread wide in between their view of the rapidly dissolving corpse.
“I believe that it is best if we keep moving.” The sun princess said grimly.
She ushered them across the thin walkway always keeping herself on an angle to prevent them from seeing any more of the unpleasant sight, however she couldn’t block them from hearing the violent decay of the corpse.
She couldn’t block the sound of dissolving flesh falling off snow with bones into the bog below.
She couldn’t block the overwhelming scent of still fresh tissue burning up in its own acidic soup.
She couldn’t block the call of starving crows circling the once living hydra, or the screaming pain filled calls of those that got to close to the bog gasses and fell due to the toxic air, or the begging screams as the ones that were still conscious made, as they desperately tried beating their wings to get away from the burning slush that slowly ate away at their thin legs.
The sun princess was also unable to properly comfort her ponies as they visibly shook from the sight which they had seen, as dropping her wings for even a moment to gently console her subjects would once again expose the horrors of the rotting corpse to them.
Celestia, once again wondered if it was truly worth putting her little ponies through such dreadfulness to find a lost race.
Once they made it to the grove of trees, Celestia casted a spell over the mournful barrier trees to open the secret passageway that they had guarded dutifully for hundreds of years.
With a grief-stricken groan the trees parted to reveal a tight spiral staircase that lead down so deep into the ground that its base was heavily concealed in the cold pitch blackness of the ground.
Celestia lead them into the ground making sure that she was the last pony to walk into the passageway. When everypony had gone a few feet down the staircase she quickly locked the entrance behind them, leaving them in the cold murky darkness of the unlit place.
Just as the already shaken ponies were about to panic in the complete darkness, their sun princess’s horn lit up the narrow staircase in a bright, warm glow that spread around and pass them.
Taking in a deep calming breath, Twilight took point and led her friends down into the hidden base in a single file line. As they walked the only sound that accompanied them was their hoof falls and their own ragged breaths as they slowly went further down into the abyss.
Clip. Clop.
Clip. Clop.
Clip. Clop.
Clip. Thunk!
Twilight had stepped on the ground floor of the hundred year lab.
The purple alicorn slowly began to explore the base.
She had led them into a spacious cavern that was carved out of the large roots that held up the grove of trees many yards above them. The cavern held desks, chairs, book shelves, scattered papers, rusted candle holders, mugs, buckets, and a long line of cots which rested against the back wall. The large wooden cavern branched out into four smaller caverns around them that held an innumerable amount of aged notes and artifacts that were stored in hundreds of cubbies that covered the walls. To keep all the more important things in the base safe a strong but fading spell was cast throughout the base.
Celestia, who was now standing beside her speechless student, raised her horn which was now glowing brighter than ever. A small sphere of condensed light appeared in front of her and began to grow in size. The light from the orb chased what darkness that remained in the base away, brightly lighting the place in a calming, yellow glow. Once the sphere was big enough Celestia brought it up to roof of the hideout effectively giving the place a semi unending light source.
“Well girls we’re finally here.” The purple alicorn turned to look into the faces of her downtrodden friends, noticing that at some point Pinkie Pie’s mane completely deflated. She knew she had to keep their spirits up and their minds away from…that thing outside. If she didn’t they could very easily descend into despair, then they would never finish their journey.
She looked to Applejack as the farm pony looked to be the least shaken up in their group excluding Celestia. Twilight needed the farm pony’s level head if she wanted to gain a hold of the situation again. Although Applejack had been staring at the space in front of her hooves quite intensely, Twilight had to take a chance as she was losing the group.
“Applejack," the orange pony whipped her head up and turned her intense gaze at Twilight, causing the purple alicorn to slightly falter, "I need you to take Fluttershy and Rarity and check out the left side of the base and the two rooms that are on that side. I will take Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie then check out the right side and the rooms there. Princess Celestia if you don’t mind I would like it if you stay in the main room and check through any useful information that may be here.”
Twilight closely watched the reactions of the ponies around her for any changes in their demeanor. Even though Pinkie Pie’s mane was still straight, Rarity’s face was a light shade of green, Rainbow Dash still hadn’t took to the air again, Fluttershy was still lightly sobbing at the horrific death of the hydra, and Applejack still had that intense stare on her face. They all resolutely nodded at her instructions and set off to carry them out.
Releasing a breath she didn’t know she was carrying the young alicorn followed Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie to the right side of the room after sharing a grave look with her mentor.
It was a matter of time before the stress and shock of the violence outside the base got the better of them. She could feel the ice cold tendrils of panic trying to invade her mind. Trying to get her to lose her fragilely held together composure and send the rest of her group into a blind panic.
It frightened her how close she felt to cracking. More so when she realized that her friends were going through the same half-panic she was, and that the only thing holding them together was the mind numbing task she gave them.
She had never felt the need to do Candace’s breathing exercise so badly before.
Twilight took a large breath of musky air in and slowly let it out.
There was no time for second guessing herself, not if she wanted to keep her well researched expedition afloat, not to mention that Celestia was closely watching what she did and how she acted.
Breathe in, and hold, breathe out.
Twilight couldn’t let that get to her now, not when she was so close to finally confirming the trueness of the old tome that was currently resting snugly in her saddlebags, and its unanswered questions.
She was so close to getting her answers that she could taste it.
Entering the first record holding side chamber of the base, she almost felt giddy. A whole hidden base that was filled to the brim with records and transcripts of a whole lost race unknown to the majority of Equestria and most likely the land’s races of the modern world. When this was over she had to write and publish a report about them to show all of Equestria.
She first had to find them, but she was sure that they would be able to find common ground and start a strong and trusting relationship between their races.
With that happy thought lightly covering the horror of the outside swamp, she began to sort the forgotten books in the room into more manageable piles.
She was ready to start unveiling the secrets of the humans.