//------------------------------//
// Beneath the Earth 
// Story: Friendship is Forever 
// by fabrosi 
//------------------------------//

Chapter 22: Beneath the Earth

As Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie chased after the Wonderbolts, they were surprised to find that their quarry never seemed to completely leave their sight. After traveling down countless flights of stairs, they sped through one final doorway and learned why.

Rather than leaping into the air again, the Wonderbolts skidded to a halt. The room was dark, dingy, and filled with barred-off cells built around a central intersection of hallways. The ponies had been lured directly into a dungeon.

Before they had time to act, the Wonderbolts tossed Rainbow Dash into a cell and locked the door just before the pegasus started ramming into it in a vain attempt to escape. She bruised her legs and shoulders badly before giving up and simply glaring furiously at her captors through the bars.

"Perfect," said Blizzard. "That's all four of them."

"Four?" asked Blast. "Aren't there supposed to be five, not counting Rainbow Dash?"

"Hey, you're right," observed Tyco. "We seem to be missing the purple one."

"So you don't know where Twilight is?" asked Rainbow Dash. "None of you do?"

The Wonderbolts all looked at each other. Then, Blizzard said "If your little unicorn friend is still sneaking around the castle, she's doing a much better job of it than any of you. We'll be sure to search for her once you're all locked up."

With that, they charged at the remaining ponies, who braced themselves to fight with every last ounce of strength. Unfortunately, the Wonderbolts were too agile for them, and soon they had managed to snatch Applejack. As they dragged her into a the same cell as Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Rarity and Fluttershy tried to chase after them, but it was too late for them to make a difference—the Wonderbolts vastly outclassed them in fighting ability, and soon all five of them were locked up together.

"Hey!" shouted Rainbow Dash as they flew away. "Come back here! I'm not finished with you!"

"Maybe you're not," said Blizzard, grinning at her. "I'm sure the princess will be very interested to know that we've managed to capture you at last."

Once the Wonderbolts had gone, Rainbow Dash slumped down on the cold stone floor, ears drooping. "Now what?" she despaired. "Luna was counting on us to find Twilight—hay, all of Equestria was—but now it looks like we can't even save ourselves."

"Rainbow!" chided Applejack. "Is that quitter talk I hear? These bars ain't nothin—watch!"

She turned around and kicked one of the bars of her cell as hard as she could, but only succeeded in giving her leg a very painful jolt.

"Well, so much fer that…" she muttered.

She jumped as she heard rustling coming from the adjacent cell. Everypony turned their heads to see Cheerilee stumbling over to the bars that separated her from the other captives.

"Cheerilee?" asked Pinkie Pie. "What happened to you?"

Her mane and coat looked as though they hadn't been washed in weeks, and her wide eyes and contracted pupils gave her a permanently disturbed look. "They got me a long a time ago," she said in a hollow voice. "They said they were looking for you… so I guess now they can finally relax." She laughed nervously.

"Don't worry, Cheerilee," said Fluttershy. "We'll find a way out, no matter what."

"I'd like to hope so," she tittered. "It certainly won't be pretty if you don't. Trust me."

They thought for a while, each of them trying to imagine some new escape strategy. Cheerilee seemed to become lost, staring into space as her eyes grew. Then, Applejack said:

" I know! Rarity, you got any magic that might be able to break us outta here?"

"I wish," sighed Rarity. "I'm afraid my repertoire is much, much more limited than Twilight's… most of my spells deal with sewing, or gems, or precious metals…"

"Wait!" interrupted Pinkie Pie. "That's it!"

"Beg pardon?" asked Rarity.

"The part about precious metals," explained Pinkie Pie. "Can you look for a weak point in the bars?"

Rarity's eyes lit up. "It's worth a try, isn't it?"

Several tense seconds passed as Rarity stared intently at different sections of the bars, her horn glowing. Finally, she said "The good news is here is one weak place in the bars. The bad news is it's too high up to reach."

"Too high up for you, maybe," said Rainbow Dash, flexing her wings. "Just point me to where I need to strike."

Rarity cast a spell to light up a small section of one of the bars, about twelve feet above Rainbow's head. In response, she flew up, turned around, and started bucking it as hard as she could. To everypony's relief, it broke after a few blows, and as she repeated the process, sections of metal started clattering on the ground below. Soon, there was a hole just large enough for Rainbow Dash to slip through, and she landed on the other side, looking in on her friends.

"Wish me luck," she said, but just as she was turning to leave, Pinkie Pie remembered something very important.

"Wait!" she cried. "You forgot the photo!" Dash hastily grabbed it from her through the bars, and then she was off in search of Twilight. Her friends watched her with earnest faith that she could get the job done, while Cheerilee looked on with a detached, mild curiosity before falling asleep.

…

After Twilight had finished her exquisite oat and cucumber salad, she sat down and contemplated what she should do next. She remembered Celestia saying something suggesting the Wonderbolts needed to be kept in check, and realized that the princess might be too busy to handle something like that herself. This seemed like as desirable a route to pursue as any, so she went on her way. Before she was out the door, however, she heard a voice behind her.

"Twilight?" Spike had woken up, and he was now looking at her apprehensively. "Do you really think we can trust the princess?"

"Of course we can," she replied, sounding almost irritated by the question. "If she wanted to hurt us, she's had plenty of opportunities, like when we were sleeping. I've heard her explanation for everything she's done that we thought was questionable, and, for the most part, I'm satisfied that she's making the right decisions."

Spike still wasn't placated. "Don't you get the feeling she might still be hiding something from us?"

"Like what?"

"Like… well…" he fumbled. "…I don't know. It just seems like if Princess Luna's known Celestia for over a thousand years and she doesn't trust her, then maybe there's something that deserves looking into."

"Maybe there is," admitted Twilight, "but I refuse to start sneaking around and following the princess from place to place until I'm presented with ample evidence that I should. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go ask Celestia about the Wonderbolts."

"What do you mean, excuse you?" he asked. "Don't I get to come?"

"Sorry, Spike," said Twilight, "but from what I've heard, the Wonderbolts might not take kindly to me telling them how to do their jobs. I think it's safer if you stay here." With that, she teleported away, leaving the frustrated dragon behind.

Celestia wasn't to be found in any of her usual haunts, so Twilight started warping between high-up balconies, trying to get a thorough look at the castle grounds. When she failed to find the princess that way, she went back inside the castle, teleporting through its rooms more or less at random and startling numerous nobleponies on the way.

This is taking forever, she thought. Maybe Celestia isn't in Canterlot at all?

After several minutes, she did what might be called a double-take mid-teleport, except that the spot she tried to give a second look was gone by the time she rematerialized elsewhere. She concentrated hard to remember where she'd just been, and magically returned there. It turned out to be an old, unused study, with dusty tables and chairs along with disorganized piles of yellowing parchment. There was, however, no sign of the pony that she knew she'd just seen. Deciding there was nothing to lose if she was wrong, she called out:

"Rainbow Dash?"

Almost immediately, the pegasus pony jumped out from behind one of the desks, making Twilight jump. "Twilight!" she cried with glee. "I've been looking all over for you!"

"Rainbow, what are you doing here?"

"It's a long story. Look, just teleport us to the dungeon as fast as you can. All of our friends are imprisoned there."

Twilight instinctively nodded and began to comply and had nearly finished her teleportation spell before she noticed a problem.

"I don't know where the dungeon is," she explained. "I've never been there and the princess never told me about it."

"It's really deep underground," Rainbow Dash quickly explained. "Just take us to someplace you know of that's really deep under the castle, and we should end up close."

Twilight racked her brain until she remembered one of her favorite hiding places from when she was filly. There was a series of secret passages that led to it, starting from behind an old bookcase in a tucked-away corner of one of the castle's many libraries.

Once she'd gotten a firm mental fix on the location, she commenced the teleportation spell. Sure enough, she and Rainbow Dash found themselves squeezed into an extremely cramped closet. As Twilight lit her horn, she noticed with satisfaction that this was definitely where she'd meant to go.

"That's funny," she observed as she tried to disentangle her hoof from Rainbow Dash's wing. "I remembered it being a lot bigger than this."

"Whatever. How do we get out?"

"There should be a door…"

As soon as she'd turned the knob, they tumbled clumsily out into a much larger room. Both ponies sprung to their hooves, worried that their noisy exit might have attracted unwanted attention, but their fears were unfounded—the kitchen they were in, like nearly all of the rooms located this deep inside the cliffs of Canterlot, had seen little use in decades, maybe even centuries.

"Alright," said Twilight, speaking quietly just in case there were guards nearby. "Where to now?"

"I don't know," confessed Rainbow Dash. "I don't remember seeing this room on my way up…"

So they chose a door at random, and navigated the dark hallways, with Twilight leading the way using her magical light. On a whim, she assumed that the dungeons were probably lower still, so whenever they came to a downward staircase, they took it.

It was amazing how much larger Canterlot was than Twilight had realized—why, she wondered, had she never bothered to make a comprehensive map of these passageways as a filly?

Every once in a while, Twilight would ask Rainbow Dash if she recognized the room they were in, but she never did. Eventually, they found a single, extremely long set of stairs which vanished into the darkness beyond the reach of Twilight's horn, and that seemed to lead down into the very bowels of the Earth.

"Here?" prompted Twilight.

Rainbow eyed the stairs with a sense of longing for the thrill of adventure they seemed to promise. On the one hoof, she knew that rescuing her friends had to be their top priority… but on the other, if this was the wrong direction, she still hadn't the foggiest idea which might be the right one.

"Maybe," she answered slowly. "I mean, I know it's really far underground, and we were going pretty fast when we ran down there, so it can't hurt to check."

As they made their way down, Twilight noticed a subtle change in the air. It was getting cooler, but that wasn't it, and it was getting drier, but that wasn't it, either. After hundreds of steps, the… feeling, whatever it was, grew so strong that Twilight stopped and asked Rainbow Dash if she could feel it, too.

"Feel what?"

This was even more puzzling—how could she not notice? Then, it hit her—magic.

"There's some kind of powerful enchantment here," explained Twilight. "I wonder if"—

She was struck by a sudden connection to something she'd forgotten about before. Her heart pounded as the pieces started coming together in her head and she grazed the walls with her sense of magic—then, sure enough, she found what she was looking for: an unusually thick ley-line. Here, at the bottom of this ancient staircase, lay the focal point of the enchantments over Canterlot, and perhaps even those over all of Equestria.

Twilight quickened her pace, prompting Rainbow Dash to do the same. Then, she noticed a large set of double doors at the bottom of the stairs. She opened them with magic so that there was no need to stop running, though she did slow down as she entered the vast vault.

Rainbow Dash shivered with shock as she recognized this place. In the center of this large, round room there was a small, square, metal plate embedded in the ground, right next to a set of magical runes arranged in a circular formation.

"Twilight," urged Rainbow Dash, "be careful, okay?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" As she cast light around the room, she noticed an opening in the back wall with yet another set of downward stairs behind it, wider and rougher than those behind them.

"If we don't find anything down those stairs," said Rainbow Dash nervously, "we should turn around and go back to looking higher up, okay?"

"Sure, okay."

As they started down the new set of stairs, Twilight said "I hope these don't take as long as the last ones did."

It turned out her fear was for naught. This stairway went down about twenty feet before opening into a massive, many-terraced cavern, filled with hundreds, maybe thousands of odd-looking white and off-white statues of unicorns in various positions, many contorted in one way or another, and in various states of disrepair. For some reason, the eyes appeared to be hollowed out.

"Well, this is kinda creepy," decided Rainbow Dash as she trotted up to one of them. "Why would anypony bother putting all these statues down here where nopony can see"—

She froze mid-sentence. Confused and worried, Twilight ran up to her and, seeing the expression of horror on her face, slowly turned her head to examine the statue closely, as Rainbow Dash had. Unable to contain herself, she let out a shrill, terrified scream.

They weren't statues.