//------------------------------// // (15) Top of the Food Chain // Story: The Ballad of Echo the Diamond Dog // by Rust //------------------------------// CHAPTER THE FIFTEENTH TOP OF THE FOOD CHAIN Creeeeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaa-kaBOOM! I swallowed nervously as the gates shut behind me, sealing the town up like a safe. My tail reflexively tucked itself between my legs, betraying just how tense I was, despite the sanguine way I try to carry myself in these circumstances. The armor I wore itched a little in the hot sun, and I found myself uncontrollably panting due to the heat. The almost-frantic energy coming off of Ginger, standing next to me, wasn't helping in the slightest. I frowned and put on my game face. For better or for worse, it was time. The fiery mare to my left made a few more adjustments to her own armor, a lighter, thinner version of the standard guard getup, but without a helmet and with a flexible, segmented back plate. It had originally been silver, but it was now covered in a smoky, dull film that reminded me of the appearance of a piece of chromed metal put over a fire. I didn't want to know how it got that way, but I assumed I was going to find out, anyway. It was made for movement, for mobility, and for increasing the chances of the wearer not getting entire limbs bitten off. Oh, goody. With a grunt and without bothering to see if I was following, Ginger hoofed the ground once before breaking into a steady gallop. I lurched into motion behind her, setting into an easy lope, my long legs eating up the turf to quickly catch up to her. If there's anything I've learned about putting yourself in the path of certain death or pain, it's that if you think about it too much, you'll chicken out, every time. I'd never even dreamed of doing anything like this on Earth, but, as we all know, shit happens. I'd been in several dangerous situations, yes, but they'd always been unexpected or extremely sudden. Sometimes both. In every case, I had no time to think. I simply reacted. For example... Getting shot at in some god-forsaken desert at the ends of the earth... Falling through the top floor of an abandoned tenement building I was exploring with a buddy... Caught in an avalanche while carving up the backcountry on my trusty snowboard... Sailboat capsizing three miles offshore in a storm... It's not that I was accident prone, mind you. On the contrary, I am usually quite coordinated under normal circumstances. It just seems that extreme things just love to occur to me, or around me. Or, if the Chili Cookoff last year was anything go by, inside me. By the gods, that poor, innocent toilet was never really the same... We set out northwest, and we had some distance to cover before we'd encounter the object of our endeavor. Our objective was quite simple, really. All we had to do was lure Big Momma far enough away from Wethoof so that she wouldn't present any danger to the town. It was exactly what we'd be doing when we launched our strike, except this would be practice, in a sense. A few, the more aggressive guards, had asked why we simply hadn't opted to simply attack her with the recently-refurbished catapults and charges and be done with it. "We aren't ready." Was all Tythus would say on the matter. And that was that. My paws beat out a soft rapport on the dusty plain, occasionally swerving or taking to the air to avoid some of the great tracks left by the deforestation. I began to clear my mind, as best as I could. It wasn't easy, let me tell you. Something would grab hold and say, what if this happens? What if this goes wrong? What if... I violently shook my head, scattering the flurry of doubts like leaves in the wind, leaving behind a blissfully calm center, a mental "eye of the storm," if you will. Ginger set the pace. For a while, there was peace, simply the noises of running, of breathing, of the wind whistling in the distant grasslands, of the soft tinkling of armor as it clattered against itself. And then, on the horizon, looming out of the heat waves like a mighty oasis, Big Momma appeared. I actually stumbled as I realized just how big the hydra was. Even from this distance, one could tell she was massive, slowly plodding toward us like a myth from an ancient legend. A rotund, barrel chest, tapering into a stubby, muscular tail the diameter of a cement mixer. Two pillar-like legs, as large as the columns of the temples of the Greek gods. Four weaving, bobbing, sinewy necks, stretching up so tall, they seemed to scrape the sky. Each head was angled, blunt, spade-shaped, with red frills along the jaws, fangs as big as myself, and enormous, red reptilian eyes that almost glowed with malevolence. Everything was covered in a snakelike hide of greenish-brown layered scales. They called her Big Momma, but "big" didn't even come close to it. The scaly bitch was monolithic! I almost pissed myself, right then and there. Are we seriously going to try and get that thing to chase us? Ginger picked up the pace. We were now traveling at her full speed, which was quite fast. Her horn began glowing, periodically shooting out green sparks in a manner similar to flint on steel. She gave me a look over her shoulder. She was just as scared as I was. "Come on, they're counting on us!" she cried, narrowing her eyes and pulling ahead, the magic coming out of her horn suddenly igniting into an intense green blaze. Her coat began changing color, from a tan cinnamon to the same color of an active heating coil on a stove. Her mane started moving weirdly, flickering and dancing like fire. The ground where her hooves landed became charred and blackened. She was putting out a tremendous amount of heat, so much so that I had to change my path to prevent the fur on my face from being singed, due to the fact that I was running downwind of her. I swallowed nervously and re-quashed the surge of fear and doubt that had crept into my mind. Adrenaline - my oldest ally, my oldest nemesis - kicked in at that moment, sending a powerful burst of energy screaming through my system. I have to get myself under control! Come on, man! Stop thinking about it! It's for the ponies of Wethoof! For Tythus and the guards, for Coconut and Baritone and Cloud Nine and Sparky and Ginger! It's because you made a promise, and you never, ever break a promise! For Equestria! For Narnia! For Science! For Daring Do! You can do this, just stop thinking about it! "One-thousand meters!" Ginger yelled back. DON'T THINK! The hydra loomed closer. Big Momma's many heads suddenly pricked up. It had noticed the approaching inferno. "Eight hundred!" DON'T THINK! One of the heads let out a terrible, bellowing roar. "S-Six hundred!" Don't think! Big Momma leaned forward, increasing her massive stride, homing in on us. "Four hundred! Echo! Make heat!" Don't think... Scales and teeth, the shaking ground. "Two hundred! ECHO!" There was a flurry of movement, a dull snapping noise, followed by a scream of pain. And then, I stopped thinking. Once again, I became a machine. Machines don't have time to think. They simply act. --- Ginger Snap took another gasping breath as she galloped at top speed, the thundering steps of the hydra approaching. Too fast. She grit her teeth, and her output of magic increased dramatically, causing all of the nearby grass to abruptly wilt and blacken. She felt like her horn was burning a hole through the top of her skull, but she kept on, blazing across the flat ground like a comet come to earth. And then she tripped. The pothole snuck up on her, hidden under a tangle of scrubby weeds, swallowing up her hoof and wrenching it violently, causing her to slam into the dust. Her concentration evaporated in an instant, the halo of flames surrounding her vanishing. She let out a pained screech as she tried rolling out of the fall, only to discover her foreleg bent at an unnatural angle. Her eyes widened in sudden terror as the impact of her situation dawned on her. She was dazed, injured, and unable to fight back, a hydra matriarch was bearing down on her, and that accursed Diamond Dog, the only other thing out here, had slipped into some kind of daze with one thousand meters to go. Big Momma lumbered ever onward, her incredible bulk coming forth towards her. There was no stopping her, she was just too big. A mountain with legs. She'd failed. After it finished with her, the innocent lives outside the walls of Wethoof were next... Ginger laid down in the dirt, and began closing her eyes, resigning herself to fate. So this is how it all ends, she thought. Despite herself, she was strangely relaxed, almost... at peace. Maybe it won't be so bad. It'll be quick, at least. Maybe I'll finally get to see Mother, now... She decided that the last thing she should see would be the the clouds, those sweet, warm balls of fluff she once loved so much. It was fitting, in a way. Might as well end her life with something beautiful, to make up for all the ugly it had been filled with. Ginger rolled over onto her back to take in the last thing she would ever see. The hydra was mere steps away. It wouldn't be long now. Something flickered on the edge of her vision. Where did the sun go...? Ginger blinked in surprise. It was that crazy Diamond Dog, silhouetted against the sun as he leaped high over Ginger's fallen form. The sunlight flashed and glittered off his armor, but it was his claws that drew the most attention. All eight lengths, now turned into brilliantly flaming spikes of heat and light, left an eerie, ghostly contrails as the biped arced across the sky, completing an almost-lazy flip to whip out a single forearm, fist tightly bunched, with all the force of a runaway train. The hydra and the Diamond Dog collided directly over Ginger's head with a sickening crunch. There was a bellowing rumble of pain, and something heavy landed in the dust several feet away. Big Momma, now sporting a massive bruise in the middle of her gargantuan chest, had been halted in her tracks by the sheer force of the blow. Ginger blinked, trying to make sense of it all. The thing that had landed in front of her, now revealed to be the mutt, quickly spun and tore her off the ground, slinging her across one powerful shoulder and taking off at a blistering pace, careening right under the hydra's legs as the four heads roared in pain and attempted to pursue. In the instant she could see his face, she noticed that his pupils, once round, had become slitted, and shone with a feral power that she'd only seen in normal Diamond Dogs. She unconsciously wrapped her good leg around his neck, clinging tightly to avoid falling off. He smelled like earth and sweat and fear. A lot of fear. Why had he bothered to save her after how she treated him? Ginger briefly wondered just what the hay was going through his mind before her consciousness began to flicker. She shuddered and tightened her grip. --- RUN AWAAAAAAAAAAY! Oh Jesus, God, Allah, Zeus, Odin, Vishnu, Buddha, Ra, Princess Luna, and Stephen Colbert... SAVE MEEEEEE-E-E-E-E! As I regained higher brain function, I was completely shocked once I'd realized what I'd just done. I had no idea I'd had that in me; that completely idiotic, showboating stunt I'd just pulled, and now I was paying for it. Fuck not thinking anymore! Fuck being a machine! I want to live, dammit! I risked a glance over the shoulder that Ginger wasn't latched onto, eyes widening in terror as Big Momma finally managed to turn her fat ass around and give chase. An earsplitting screech erupted from all four heads, sounding like a mix between a Screamo concert with crappy speakers and Godzilla on steroids. A lot of steroids. Oh, hell no! LUDICROUS SPEED! GO! I kicked my body into maximum overdrive, accelerating beyond anything I've ran before, pelting across the ground with my tail tucked between my legs like a puppy meeting the mailman for the first time. Well, at least she's following me. Now all I have to do is lead her away... but where? I decided to simply keep heading in the direction we'd set out in - northwest. A quick peek at the sun pointed me in the right direction, and I tore off towards the distant forest, over which a cloud bank was ominously hanging. I tightened my jaw and pressed on. Big Momma was deceptively fast, and when I finally hit the treeline, she was still in hot pursuit. I staggered for a few precious seconds as my paw caught on a root, before fleeing in terror as the massive hydra completely crushed a nearby bush flatter than a coin. The scents of the rainforest flooded my nose, and I honestly wished that I'd more time to savor them. Ginger let out a soft grunt as I ripped through a section of brambles, before tumbling down into a wide, hidden gully, once home to a mighty river, now dried and packed. I managed to keep my footing, though, and raced along the bank of a small trickle. The sound of the hydra's chase was being blasted throughout the otherwise tranquil forest, causing a nearby pack of monkeys to start shrieking in terror as it knocked over another huge tree somewhere behind me. And so, we carried on like that for a long while, sprinting down the dead river as I followed its path through the forest. The gully suddenly opened up into a grassy clearing, a flock of colorful birds rising into the air the moment I rushed in. A gently-sloping knoll took up the center of the space, topped with a small crater, like an anthill. My eyes flashed with recognition, memories that were not my own suddenly pouring through my mind. I slowed to a stop, breathing hard. Even though the forest had begun claiming back what had once been open, this place hadn't changed much in the eight years since I'd seen it - or rather, when Ginger had seen it. I risked another glance behind me. That gully I'd followed... had once been a path. Somehow, I'd ended up at the old Greenclaw den. I noticed a couple more trees being felled in the distance. Big Momma was coming, and fast. This place should be far enough to try and lose the trail. "No... no. We shouldn't be here," Ginger mumbled in a pained daze, now shivering violently. She was probably going into shock from her injury. I craned my neck and took a quick peek at it. Her foreleg was weirdly twisted in an unnatural direction, and the sight of a small white tip of bone poking out from her cinnamon coat made me a little nauseous. Experience from rugby had presented me with all kinds of injuries like these, a couple to myself. I frowned for a bit as I recalled some information on this particular kind of break. Crap! Not good. An open fracture - those could get infected very easily. I had to get her back to Wethoof as soon as possible for treatment. I shook my head in frustration, trying to tune out the noise of the approaching monster. There was one guaranteed way I could shake the hydra off our tracks. As much as I hated to think it, I couldn't come up with anything better. Down, into the caves. Ginger seemed to sense this as I began jogging up the hill. "I can't be here." Abruptly, her weight disappeared off my back. She'd let go. I whirled around to see her groaning in pain as she desperately tried to limp away. Big Momma finally caught up, and lurched into the clearing, easily flattening even more trees in her wake of destruction. Four pairs of eyes latched onto us. Four mouths opened wide. Four, earth-shaking, knee-knocking, make-you-shit-yourself-in-fear, vision-blurring, bestial roars issued forth from each maw. At that moment, something incredibly unlikely happened. "COWABUNGA, DUDES!" With a woosh and the whine of an engine, the familiar figure of a certain draconequus, accompanied by a tannish-gold pegasus, clamping down on his tail with all her jaw strength, screeched to a halt directly in front of the hydra's four, now very confused heads. Daring Do let go, and shakily fluttered to the ground beside me, exhausted. "Never. Again!" she gasped. The hell...? Disarray, still hovering before the hydra from a jetpack of some kind, coughed politely, and began to speak. "The path of the righteous is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of evil." He began slowly, turning in the air to address each of the dumbstruck hydra's faces. "Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost foals. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name when I lay my vengeance upon thee!" No. Freaking. Way. "But who am I, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. My name is Disarray Entropius of the Royal Family of Equestria!" He clapped all four limbs together, and in each appendage, a musketeer sword appeared, each of which he twirled around with an artful flourish. "Fear me - if you dare!" Big Momma suddenly came to her senses, and let loose another blast of rage into Disarray's face, blowing him backwards several feet and extinguishing the ethereal, rainbow mustache like a candle in a rouge wind. The draconequus grimaced and distastefully wiped a large glob of saliva from his face, and his colorful facial hair re-ignited. "Man, you need a Tic-Tac or something, 'cause your breath STINKS!" he calmly announced. With that, he pivoted and flew down, skimming the grass as he sped towards me, nabbing Ginger with one lobster claw, Daring in a bear paw, and simply grabbing me by the hood with his mouth as he rocketed up into the sky, completing an impressive loop-de-loop before zipping through the entrance of the den. The lack of sunlight was the first thing I noticed as Disarray zoomed through a perfectly rounded tunnel, followed by a rather pleasant scent of earth and stone. The sounds of the enraged hydra faded into the distance as we continued on, ever downwards. The former Prince of Equestria suddenly decided that he'd gone far enough, and abruptly braked, hard, and we came to a rest on the tunnel floor. Cracked and faded gemstones, spaced evenly down the tunnel's roof, dimly flickered like extremely old fluorescent lights, providing enough illumination to see by. At least we were away from that thrice-dammed hydra. With the first half of the mission completed, all the remained was to get back to Wethoof as quickly as possible. He set Ginger and Daring as gently as possible, before simply tossing me onto the floor. I glared up at him and rubbed my ass, now somewhat sore. He looked bigger, now somewhere in-between my height and Daring's. With a snap of his fingers, the rocket pack attached to his backside winked out of existence. He yawned and cracked his spine, adding somewhat moodily, "I'm getting too damn old for this. Well, now that we're all he-AUGH!" A lance of green fire rushed into his chest, knocking him into the other wall. Ginger staggered up onto three legs, the tip of her horn still smoldering. She seemed to have recovered, either by an adrenaline boost of her own or sheer willpower. "Get back, demon!" she hissed. "I may be weakened, but you'll not take me without a fight!" Daring Do came up in front of her, wings flared threateningly as she stood in-between the two "Whoa, there. He's not going to hurt us." "It's a draconnequus, a spreader of disharmony and chaos!" Ginger growled, fierce green eyes boring into Daring's own deep magenta gaze. "A monster!" "A very singed monster," Disarray quipped from where he rose from being sprawled on the sloping curve of the tunnel, brushing off ash and dust. "Nice to meet you, too," he said, plucking a smoking piece of plumage from his feathered backside. Ginger's horn flared up again, and she adopted as threatening of a position as she could, before she stumbled to her side and fell, severely handicapped by her broken leg. "That thing just attacked us!" she grunted in pain from her new position on the ground. "If by 'attacked' you mean 'saved', then yes. Yes he did." I stood up to my full height, towering over them all as I nonchalantly shook off my toga and adjusted the hood. "Thanks for that, by the way" I added to him. Disarray shrugged. "What are friends for?" "It was my idea..." Daring grouched to nopony in particular, as she shrugged off her saddlebags and began rooting through them. Ginger gawped at us. "You're friends with it?" " 'It' has a name, you know," said Disarray. "This is Disarray. He is a friend of mine, and he is not your enemy." I introduced the two. "But it's... he's a draconequus!" "No, really?" quipped Disarray. "I hadn't noticed. Thank you, Captain Obvious, Protector of the Things We Already Know! Now I can finally look in the mirror and say 'Gee! Now I know what I am! I'm just so happy right now I could just about die,'" he finished flatly, before cringing a little under my scolding gaze. "Just because somepony looks a certain way doesn't mean you should judge them for it," Daring stated, momentarily pulling her head out from her saddlebags. She pointed a wing to me. "He's a Diamond Dog. Does he act like one?" "No... but-!" "-Then stop trying to kill him and say you're sorry. We all need to work together to get home. Key word there, 'Together' " Ginger grimaced, as if she had swallowed something particularly slimy and foul-tasting. Disarray sat up expectantly, flourishing one paw before putting it to his draconian ear. "I'm waaaaaaaaaiiiiiting!" he sang. "Oh, and I'd like an apology too." Daring removed strips of gauze and a small, wooden rod. "You almost killed me as well when you wouldn't let Fluffy here into town." "Stop calling me that," I grumbled. Then stop being so fluffy," she retorted, and rubbed the top of my head with one hoof. My tail, a traitor to the very last, began thumping into the floor. I humphed and half-heartedly smacked her hoof away. What can I say? It feels good to get a nice rub every once and a while. "I'd like one as well, please. No offense, but you've been kind of mean. You know. Just a little." I said, as I forced my tail to behave itself. We all expectantly looked at Ginger, who was busy gazing at us with complete and utter disbelief. "You are all completely crazy!" she finally moaned in frustration. "Yes, and this crazy mare is the only one here who knows how to get you back on your hooves." Daring Do calmly tossed the ball of gauze up and down with one wing. "This crazy mare also remembers a certain night where she was bleeding and hurt, much like yourself, and was refused any help. And if you don't apologize to her for that, she just might do a very bad job of fixing your leg. Because she's crazy." Ginger flinched at this, and hissed in pain as her leg moved. "Daring is the best qualified to help you, Ginger. I would have died had it not been for her." I ran a claw across the gleaming white part in the fur on my neck for emphasis. "And, she is kind of crazy," I added, wincing as Daring lightly slapped me with a free wing. Ginger gave each of us a hard stare, one at a time, ending with Disarray, whom she spent quite a long time looking at. After several baited moments, she finally sighed, and lowered her head to the floor in defeat. "Fine. I'm... sorry for attacking the draconequus. I mean, Disarray," she said very quickly. "Aaaaaaaaaaand?" prompted Disarray, twiddling his thumbs and batting his eyelashes, a gesture that looked completely ridiculous on his dragon-like face. "And... I'm sorry for endangering your life, Daring." Her mumble was barely audibly, despite the silence of the cave. "Aaaaaaaaaaand?" She paused, closing her eyes to hide her shame. "...I'm sorry for treating Echo so poorly. I was wrong for doing that." I coughed politely. She hesitated again. I couldn't begin to imagine how hard this was for her. "...Um, and thanks. You know. For saving me back there." Damn straight, son! Gotta have my props! Satisfied with the apology, Daring Do approached the fallen unicorn and offered her a small red vial. "For the pain," she said. Ginger took it and swigged the entire thing down, murmuring her thanks before shuddering and slumping to the floor, her eyelids flickering in drowsiness. Daring gathered her materials and set to work on the leg, while Disarray and I began to get our bearings. From Ginger's memory spell, I knew the general layout of the den. I could only recall one entrance, however, and that was the one we'd come in. Leaving the same way was out of the question, as Big Momma was still out there, and probably still quite pissed off. I set off down the gently-sloping tunnel, brushing a finger over the walls. The floor of the cave was pitted with shallow, smooth depressions that my pads easily slipped into, as if they'd been made to fit in them. I somberly realized that these were ancient pawprints, made by generations upon generations of Diamond Dogs traveling the same path as I. How old was this place? There was history in these caves. But so much had been lost when the Greenclaws had been wiped out, by a combination of an enraged Frost Snap and whatever the hell had caused them to resort to kidnapping. Despite the instinctual comfort I felt of being underground, there was something eerily wrong about this place. It felt like I was walking through a graveyard at night, and if I made too much noise I'd upset the spirits resting beneath the dirt. Disarray seemed to notice this as well, and elected to creep along at my side. I gave him another glance. He'd grown, all right. Then again, he was well over two-thousand years old, and until recently, trapped inside a magical prison. He had some catching up to do. The rapid growth could be expected. Maybe this is what happened to Princess Luna when she came back from the moon? That would explain the change in appearance from season 1 to season 2. Then again, she'd spent only half the time he had in isolation. His changes would be more extreme, or so I deduced. At every fork in the tunnel, I attempted to use the left path. After all, this place had been excavated with this simple rule, "Left is Up, Right is Down." However, in every single branch, a collapse would halt my progress. All the tunnels except the main one seemed to be sealed off. "I smell evil." Disarray broke the silence after about ten minutes of walking. I continued onwards. "You smell like it?" "No. I smell it. Sniff, Fluffy. Your nose should be stronger than mine." I inhaled deeply through my nose, bringing in the scents of the earth. Underlying that was the sickly sweet, cloying stench of death, still detectable after eight years. I inhaled again, just to make sure. Another scent, fainter than all the others, registered in my brain. It was unlike anything I'd ever smelled before -there was no way to describe it- but my nose wrinkled immediately in reaction to it. My Diamond-Dog brain instinctively told me what it was. It smelled like corruption. And it was close by. I sank back down to all fours, anxiously sniffing the floor. Disarray noticed this, and snickered, "What is it, girl? Timmy's fallen down the well?" I smacked him upside the head. "Ow! Hey! Come on, that was a good one!" Ignoring his protests, I increased my pace padding softly through the murky tunnels, nose to the floor. The scent was barely detected by my nose, sometimes so faint I'd lose it, and have to double back. Occasionally, we'd encounter a fork in the tunnel, and every time, the trail would continue downwards down to the right. After five of these splits, I decided to head back. I could already guess where the trail led. When we got back, Daring was waiting for us. "Find anything?" She was all too eager to scope the place out, despite the circumstances. I couldn't help but grin at this; she had a bit of a one-track mind. "There's a large cavern further down, but I've got a bad feeling about it." My misgivings were well put. Dark deeds had been committed in that place. The explorer frowned, before turning and nudging the mare who was just now coming awake from the potion. Ginger's eyes sluggishly opened, and she groaned as she seemed to remember where she was and who she was with. Her leg, formerly twisted like a bent piece of metal, had been straightened, bound to a straight length of wood that Daring had brought in her saddlebags. The entire leg was wrapped in gauze, and even from here I could smell the various salves and potions that had been used on it. Daring must have set the bone back. Good. "Ginger, do you know any other way out of this place?" Daring asked her as she slowly sat up. Ginger hesitated for the briefest of seconds before vigorously shaking her head. I narrowed my eyes. "I know what being back here must be like for you, but we need to get back to Wethoof. There's no way we can go back the way we came, and I can guess that the Greenclaws weren't stupid. There must have been another way out of here. We need your help. I need your help." Ginger mumbled something, unwilling to meet my gaze. "Please." Once again, I found myself at her mercy, despite everything. Would she help us, even if it meant having to help a Diamond Dog, in the very place where her mother had been kidnapped and killed by one? "There is one way," she began, slowly and softly. "But I don't think it would be usable..." She thought for a moment, her brow furrowed in thought. "When my father was young, he would occasionally meet up with Mosspaw," she spat the word out like she'd swallowed some Windex, "But the Alpha at the time, as well as the mayor of Wethoof, didn't like that very much. So they had a secret place. A hidden tunnel, dug by the pair of them, that runs from the outskirts of Wethoof to the den. He showed me the entrances when I was little, as they had no need to be secret once the leadership had changed on both ends..." A secret tunnel, straight back to town? "And you didn't think to tell anyone about this until now?" "This place is empty for a reason!" she retorted. "Ponies shouldn't be here. And Diamond Dogs shouldn't be in Wethoof." I brushed that one off with about as much effort as swatting a fly. Her words were weak, where they should have been backed with spite. "How do we get to this tunnel from here?" She grimaced, before finally saying, "We have to go down." "To the cavern?" Daring asked tentatively. "Further." The word struck my ears with all the weight of a falling guillotine. Why did that feel like such a bad idea? There was silence for a moment, before Daring Do cheerfully sprang up. "Well, then! No point in wasting time here! Let's go find that tunnel!" She slung her saddlebags over her back and cocked her signature pith helmet back at a jaunty angle, before rising off the ground with a single wingbeat at moving off down the tunnel. Disarray shrugged and followed her, both pairs of arms clasped firmly behind his back as he strolled after her. "Wait, how am I going to come with you? I can't even walk... -hey!" Was all Ginger managed before I scooped her up and laid her on my left shoulder, the one not covered by an armored plate. "Put me down! I don't need your help." "You didn't seem to complain about it before." I ignored her protests and began to follow Daring. Her mouth clamped shut at that, and her face turned red with a furious blush. The spidersilk toga she was pressed against began to smoulder for the briefest of seconds, before she once again swallowed her pride, grumbling softly all the while. As we descended past the point I'd turned back, the air became cool and wet. From the ceiling, the tiny beginnings of stalactites, mere nubs at this point, had begun to form. Water would drip down from them on occasion, fat droplets splattering onto the rocky stone floor. This water would begin a slow, trickling descent down the slanted tunnel, keeping pace with us as we traveled. Eventually, the tiny rivulet became wider and deeper, to the point where it had begun to carve the cave floor by the tiniest of degrees. It cleanly bisected the tunnel, forcing us to use one side or the other to avoid wet hooves or paws. I scratched my chin thoughtfully. The scientist inside me squee'd with delight. A lot of knowledge about Equestrian geoscience could be gathered from this place. Then tunnel opened up, suddenly, abruptly, like ripping off a band-aid in one go. I found myself in a place that was eerily familiar, even though this was the first time I'd set paw in here. The stalactites and stalagmites were as thick as trees, here. From the blackness of the cavern roof, they hung ominously. Some were big enough to join together, creating thin, rocky pillars that stretched up into the dark infinity. The few glowing gems in this place were few and far between. A few had expired completely. It was dark and damp and smelled like evil. Perfect... Ginger stiffened and began shuddering softly, her ears laid flat against her skull, and her good foreleg covering her eyes. She was muttering something under her breath in a harried whisper, so low that even my sensitive hearing couldn't pick it up. Poor girl. The water was here, as well. From the tunnel, it spread out over the floor of the cavern, leaving no dry areas. It looked like it was gathering into a static, underground lake, but I could feel it moving under my pads. Daring seemed to sense this as well, and led us further on, following the path of the water. Water always flows down, after all. That's where we needed to go. "You smell that?" Daring had stopped suddenly. I paused and tested the air. It smelled exactly the same as before, except stronger. Wait, there was something else... I couldn't place it though, so I shrugged in response, unwilling to use my claws to speak, which I could tell would cast the most frightening kind of shadows in this place. The experienced explorer disappeared behind a pillar for one moment. There was the sound of metal sliding against rock. She emerged from the dimness with something in her mouth. She approached me and spat it out, holding the object up with a wingtip. I took it in my free paw, the one that wasn't keeping Ginger in place. It was a spear, of all things. The haft was rotted and warped and moldy, but the spearhead itself glimmered in the little light there was, still sharp and unblemished. My eyes widened in shock as I realized just what this was. Before the terrible battle that had occurred here, Mosspaw had tossed aside his spear in favor of tooth and claw. With a solemn respect and a twinge of irony, I gripped the old weapon tightly. I recognized it from Ginger's memories, still buzzing around under the surface of my mind. This had been the weapon of the Alpha, the pack leader. "I could smell the rotting wood. Not exactly something you'd find down in a place like this, huh?" Daring explained. "Found it stuck in the rock. Good thing too - had it been lying down, the water might have completely rotted the wood away and carried the head off." I nodded at this, thinking hard, as Daring wheeled about and flew on with soft wings. How strange the world was. The weapon itself was completely useless right now, I'd need to replace the haft with something. But still... of all the things I could have come across. This? Fate was a curious thing to me. I wasn't a believer of it. And yet, I secretly hoped that it existed. Maybe this was just coincidence. Maybe it was pure luck. Maybe it was destiny. Maybe it was magic. Either way, I didn't care. It felt right in my paw, and that's all that mattered. We continued on our way, through the stone towers and pillars that seemed more like trees. I couldn't help but chuckle a little at that. An underground forest? Preposterous! And yet, here I was, splishing and splashing through inch-high water in the belly of the earth. Disarray appeared at my side, lazily backstroking through the air as if swimming. "How strange," he mused. I gave him a questioning look, the butt of the spear making thunk-thunks into the watery floor as I padded along. "How you try so hard to be different from your kind, and yet end up embodying them." He pointed a lobster claw at the spear. "You look very ferocious with that, by the way." I snorted with amusement at this. "Humans, or D-Dogs?" "In your case, both." He cackled softly at this. "Each of these races travel a path, and very rarely do they change course. But you? No, you have a choice. You find yourself in a wood, on a long and winding road. It forks into two. Which will you take, the path more or less traveled? Of course, we'd all like to say the path less traveled, wouldn't we?" "And which would you pick?" "Oh, me? I'd burn the forest down. Regrow it with more than one path. Perhaps I could make a maze? Straight paths are so overrated anyway. And what about you? What would our noble adventurer chose?" I stepped over a small piece of rubble on the ground, before answering. "I'd make make my own." "Quite a rebel, aren't we?" A black leather jacket winked into existence over his form, accompanied by a pair of aviators. "Fight the man, man!" he proclaimed. "Not a rebel. Just curious about the forest. There are some things you can't see from the trail." Disarray looked like he had something to say to that, but bit it back. His costume vanished, and he lapsed into a brooding silence. We heard Daring yell something from up ahead. She'd gotten far away from us while we spoke. Increasing my stride, I hurried along Ginger, who had been constantly shivering this entire time, suddenly stilled and ceased her whispering, ears pricked. "This is it," she said softly. Indeed it was. We'd reached the end of the cavern, a solid wall of stone. Daring was waiting for us, impatiently examining the smooth surface. "What gives? I thought you said we had to keep going down? There's no way down from here," The explorer stated. "Look at the water," Ginger stated. The flow had indeed increased, tickling the small hairs on my paws and creating a small suction-like sensation as it traveled past. It hit the wall, and gathered against it, like the tilted end of one bathtub. In one spot, however, it dipped downwards into the stone, where the floor met the wall, seemingly disappearing through solid rock. "There's a secret passage there. A door." I approached the wall and stood before it, in almost a foot of liquid by now, rushing past my legs into a hidden crack in the stone. I placed my paws on it, feeling out the surface. Sure enough, I felt two hairline grooves. I braced myself against the stone and sank my claws into it, the lengths traveling roughly through the earth. With a heave, I pulled as hard as I could, muscles straining and heaving. There was a rumbling sound... ...And nothing happened. Ginger groaned from her position on my shoulder. "Push, not pull," she said. I totally knew that! I reversed my efforts and pressed hard into the rock. Another rumbling noise commenced, and a rough, half-oval shape appeared as the grooves increased. The entire shelf of stone was suddenly pushed backwards, and swung to the side, as if on hinges. The water surged forward into the gap, spilling into another tunnel, this one pitch-black and much smaller from the one we'd come here in. It looked like there was room for me if I hunched over a little. Daring rummaged around again in her saddlebags and produced a torch, which she struck against the wall. It sparked to life, bathing us in a wonderfully powerful glare. She hopped into the tunnel and gave us a wink. "First one topside is a rotten haybale!" And with that, we set off into the darkness. It wouldnt have been so bad... ...Were it not for the fact that the door slammed shut behind us.