Harmony's Wrath

by hahatimeforponies

Storm World

They wasted no time in preparing. Thankfully, no storms were scheduled until next week, so they would be able to travel through the night if necessary. They planned to travel light - they had barely a single saddlebag of luggage between them. Rainbow Dash held on to the spear, and for it Rarity quickly prepared a new, sturdier, and arguably more fashionable sling. Twilight brought a couple of scrolls and a book for reference, and Applejack packed a small food supply, just in case. These preparations were complete in under half an hour, and they made haste to Canterlot without even tidying up the library. They told nopony where they were headed, or even that they would be gone - they didn't expect to be in Canterlot for very long, possibly returning before morning. To help throw any pursuers, they first headed to Fluttershy's cottage separately, and from there set off together.

The journey passed quietly. Everypony had too much on their mind for idle chat. Spike slept on Twilight's back most of the way there, and Rainbow Dash walked for a change, to let her wings rest. The cold was more tolerable in the sunlight, which was part of their rationale for leaving so soon - it was just past lunchtime when they left. Twilight found herself having to admit some of the advantages of Celestia's alleged curse - one of the things she had been studying previously, and contemplating to pass the time now, was the physiology of the ponies in the story. While their ancestors' bipedal form freed up two limbs to accommodate hands, it also made walking quite slow and inefficient compared to the four-legged form they were used to. She figured this might be the reason why Dawn and Spectra took so long to make the same journey - she guessed eight hours with enhanced means, not counting their stop to sleep. Modern ponies could walk from Ponyville to Canterlot in under six hours without the need for much of a break.

The sun set during their final approach to Canterlot, and already the chill was setting in. Hidden in a grove of bare trees a few hundred yards from the city's front gate, Twilight pulled out a pencil and began to sketch out a rough floorplan of the palace on one of the scrolls, her plans lit only by the moonlight reflected from the snow and the faint glow of her horn.

"Alright... from what I can tell, modern Canterlot is built directly on top of the old city, and the old palace is pretty much under the basement of the current one. Going through the top would certainly draw attention from Celestia and her guards, but if we can get in from underneath, then we can bypass all that. Some of the old streets were converted into sewers, so if we can break into the sewage network..."

"Sewers? You simply must be joking, Twilight!" Rarity protested. Applejack couldn't help but snicker.

"I'm afraid this is the safest way in. Anyway, once we're into the sewers, we should be able to enter the old palace easily. We just need a way in... Rainbow! Scout ahead to see if there's a maintenance entrance in the side of the cliff."

"On it!" the pegasus replied dutifully, and shot off, leaving a rush of cold wind and snow in her wake.

"We're gonna have some serious problems with the cold tonight..." Twilight sighed, shivering a little as she shook off the spray of snow.

"Really? I didn't no- oh..." Fluttershy spoke up, for the first time since they left Ponyville.

"I'll see what fires I can stir up, but we need to find some shelter pretty s-" Twilight's speculation was interrupted by another thin wave of snow, heralding Dash's swift return. "-oon." She wiped the flakes from her face, and glared at the pleased-looking pegasus before continuing. "Find anything?"

"No doors, but there's a huge open storm drain at the bottom of the mountain!" Dash pointed a hoof at a large opening in the mountain face, near the bottom of the cliff, showing up as a large black gash against the glistening, snow-covered rocks and trees. There was at least three hundred feet between the drain and the city.

"Egh, there's no way we'll make the whole trip in a night!" Applejack groaned. "I say make camp here and go for it in the mornin'."

"Actually, Applejack, now is the best time to enter the drains. In the morning the drains will have a higher water level from snow melt, and that far underground, daylight won't make it any warmer. I think we should try to get in and out before morning." Twilight replied, starting down the winding mountain path. One by one, the other ponies followed.

---

With the daylight vanishing on the Cutie Mark Crusaders' investigation, the three cold, tired fillies trudged up to the door of Twilight's library. They had been searching around town all day - they called in at the Carousel Boutique to find it closed, they stopped at Sugarcube Corner, where Mrs. Cake said Twilight was around earlier (and they also learned that Pinkie Pie was missing too!) but not seen since, and they had even trekked into the Everfree Forest to ask Zecora if she'd seen them.

"Alright, this must be it, we've tried everywhere else in town!" Applebloom wandered up to the door and prepared to knock.

"Yeah, plus I can't feel my hooves... can we go home after this?" Sweetie Belle whimpered, shaking her numb limbs as she walked. Scootaloo gave her a jocular shove. The door creaked ajar at the push of Applebloom's knock. She raised an eyebrow and hesitantly entered the building.

"Uh... hello? Y'all in here?" she called. Silence. "Dangit!" Scootaloo zipped by with a pipe in her mouth. When she puffed on it, it blew bubbles. She leaned over the piles of things left lying around, like everypony was out of here in a hurry: books, pillows, a couple of apples...

"Hmm... methinks something fishy is afoot." The little pegasus grunted, putting on the gruffest voice she could muster. Applebloom sniffed around the remains of hay on the floor by the open basement hatch. Sweetie Belle went over to the lit lantern and parked herself in front of it, in an attempt to warm some feeling back into her legs. As she sat down, she noticed one book lying separate from the rest, opened out on the floor. She pulled it over and turned the front cover over. The Birth Of Celestia, read the title. A couple of purple hairs bookmarked random pages. Intrigued, she began to read, lest this be a clue that passes under their noses.

---

Twilight and Rarity lit up their horns as they entered the drains. Just inside the natural-looking cave was the end of a red-brick tunnel, three or four yards wide, opening out into an empty gully that ran down the hillside. The mud outside the cave was completely frozen, and a layer of ice caked the brick floor, making it slippery and glassy. This was no trouble for either of the pegasi or Pinkie Pie (nopony knows where she kept those ice skates), but the other three found it hard going. They had only been struggling up the main pipe for about thirty seconds before Twilight gave up. She paused, her hooves glowed briefly, before she continuing much more comfortably. As she walked, the ice around her hooves melted like they were hot irons, clearing a path for the ponies behind her. Pinkie decided to ditch the skates and follow on behind them, after she crashed crossing the ice-free trail.

"Hey Twilight, why does Canterlot have storm drains anyway? If the weather is scheduled, then there shouldn't be overflow, right?" Rainbow Dash hovered in behind the unicorn. Twilight smirked, quietly satisfied with herself; she was getting her friends to start questioning their surroundings.

"My guess is that Canterlot gets a lot more rain than Ponyville since it's closer to the sea, and in some seasons the weatherponies can't break all the storms that come Canterlot's way, so they just pass it off as 'planned'." As the moonlight faded behind them, their words started to echo around the tunnels. Over about fifty feet, the tunnel in front of them began to curl upwards, soon becoming too steep to climb. Rainbow continued up the incline, her flying easier in the more humid air. She came to a halt with a loud clattering sound that reverberated around the cavern above. She felt around where she had hit her head - some kind of interlocking mesh. Twilight shot a small orb of light up to get a better look. It passed through the grate unhindered, showing up the thin wiring. The grate was mounted on a metal frame, locked against another mounted on the wall. She thought for a moment, and turned back down with a smirk.

"Hey Applejack," she whispered. "Think you can buck this thing open?"

"Ah sure as hay can, just gimme a boost!" The earth pony trotted up as far as the incline would let her and wheeled around, her hind hooves up against the wall. Rainbow got below her and put her front hooves under Applejack's, supporting her weight. Slowly, they ascended to the grate, Applejack 'walking' backwards up the wall with her hind hooves. Soon they were in position, Dash braced against the opposite side of the pipe, Applejack resting her hind hooves on the grate. She kicked off the grate and reared her legs back. Simultaneously, she struck both legs out, and Dash pushed forward for extra force. Her hooves connected with the metal mesh with an almighty bang, and the grate swung out. However, this is as far as Dash's plan had gotten. Now unbalanced, Applejack fell to the tunnel's icy floor, and slid down the curve as far as the cleared path behind Twilight, and rolled to a halt. Rainbow Dash, while not victim to gravity, was distracted enough not to notice the grate swinging back down towards her. It smacked her against the wall, stunning and winding her. She crumpled and slowly fluttered to the ground. Twilight nudged the two stunned ponies with a hoof. They merely groaned in response.

"C'mon guys, we don't have time for injury!" While she prodded them, a rusty metal ladder slid down from the opening, clattering on the bricks just behind them. Rarity, her flank just inches from its path, squealed and jumped away in fright. The unicorns stared befuddled at the ladder while the noises echoed to nothing. Twilight could hear Fluttershy trembling behind her. Spike hadn't even stirred. But where was Pin-

"Let's go, silly fillies! You guys are super lucky I found this ladder just sitting around up here, otherwise we would have..." Pinkie Pie dropped her head down a few moments after the ladder, and disappeared back up, babbling on incoherently about this and that. Twilight breathed a sigh of relief, and started to climb, with Rarity not far behind, and Fluttershy flying up with them. Applejack and Rainbow Dash slowly got themselves together and followed. Up top, Pinkie Pie was still wittering away. Twilight jammed a hoof in her mouth as soon as she reached the top. "... and then that's how I found Gummph!"

"Pinkie, we don't know where there might be guards, so I'd appreciate it if you put a sock in it." she whispered harshly. Pinkie Pie responded by pulling a brightly coloured hoof-sock from her mane and stuffing it into her mouth, looking rather pleased with herself. Twilight raised an eyebrow.

The orb the unicorn had sent up earlier fizzled out. She muttered under her breath and prepared another floating light, and sent this one up to the top of the room. This structure appeared to be much older than the relatively recent exit tunnel - the walls were all large limestone blocks, and tall archways dominated the room. They were standing on a small stone platform in the middle of the hall, barely big enough for the six of them to stand on, in the middle of a layer of inert blackness. The unshimmering, hazy reflections in this black film, broken up by the occasional grains of dust, indicated that it was ice. Pinkie Pie poked the ice to test its thickness. It cracked at the gentlest of prods, and water began to seep through the cracks. She gulped, and reasoned that this ice probably wasn't the best for skating.

"Wow..." Rainbow Dash wheezed as she fluttered up to look around.

"This must be one of the main outlets. There's tunnels in almost every direction..." Twilight mused. "Let's see, up, up..."

"Up there!" Applejack pointed straight up at the ceiling, where a hole was positioned almost directly over them. "I'll bet that their tunnel leads up to the ol' city!"

"I might have been wrong about the drains, this place looks old enough to be part of ancient Canterlot. We just need to get up there..."

"And across this ice." Rarity added. "It's wafer thin, and after taking that knock, I wouldn't trust Rainbow Dash to be able to carry all of us over, even with Fluttershy's help."

"Hmm..." Twilight looked around for anything that might help. There was a stone platform not far away, but nothing that might aid in getting across it, except... "Aha! If we can get that ladder off its rails, we can use it as a bridge between here and that big stone thing over there!" She let her light go out again, and took a psychic grip of the ladder. "Rarity, help me out here, I want to try and conserve as much energy as possible for the spell." The other unicorn nodded, and her magical torch was also replaced with a soft glow. Fluttershy clung to Rainbow Dash's leg, shivering a little. Slowly, they lifted the ladder up from the exit tunnel. It creaked and scratched against its rails, gingerly rising from the hole, inch by inch. The lifting was no real problem for Twilight; she had lifted many times the weight of the ladder with her magic before, but too much exertion now would really make things more difficult later. Minutes passed uneasily, with just the creaking and groaning of metal scraping against rusted metal. Each length freed of the corroded rocker lowered the friction of the system, letting them lift just a little bit faster. With the ladder about three-quarters free, they lost control. The remaining part of the rocker gave way. With the effort they had behind the ladder, it shot up into the air, breaking their grip on it. For a silent moment, they lost track of it completely, the glow of their horns extinguished. It wasn't until a second and a half later that they found the ladder again, when Twilight lit up her horn again to throw some light on the subject. It was just in time to watch the ladder crash through the ice and disappear into the reservoir. The ponies blinked and stared. Spike was still snoozing quietly through all this.

"I'll go look for another way up then!" Rainbow Dash announced, after a few moments to let the situation sink in.

Comments

[catrianheir]

Well, seems the mane 6 are in quite the pickle here, eh?

[wirriam]

man if celestia finds out what they are doing they are screwed

[Adixon524]

especially if qthe celestia is not a pony but is that creepy demon