• Published 20th Jul 2016
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Going Deep Under - The Bricklayer



The seas harbor many mysteries, and one of them is about to be uncovered. Question is, will those that have uncovered it survive the experience...?

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Part 16: Remembrance

Author's Note:

Two chapters in one month? I know, heresy!:derpytongue2:

The Neighlantic Ocean: Unknown Location: Unknown Depth:
The splash of the Sub-Pods breaking the surface of a small pool, situated in front of a temple of unknown origin and age was like a breath of fresh air for the remaining crew of the Moby Dick. The deep-sea voyagers had endured many perils to even get this far, so reaching this destination was like reaching the climax of a book. They knew the worst had to be over, and now it was all downhill from here, so to speak. But this breath of fresh air was not without a great feeling of loss. Their captain, along with far too many of their other crewmates were dead. Silver Spanner sniffled, the shock of losing her sister, and perhaps her only real friend, finally setting in. She was gone, lost to the dark abyss below. And the last words she said to her, if not verbally, while she was alive were ones of pure anger.

Just then, Silverspeed’s pod flew by and slammed into Silver Spanner’s who flipped her off with a hoof as they collided. Then, her eyes widened in horror as she saw Silverspeed’s pod hit a cavern wall and go up in a fiery explosion with Spanner’s own pod emerging from the flames outer shell scorched.

“It’s getting tighter!” she shouted. “Damnit Spent, you better be right about this! We just lost Silverspeed!”

“I am! I am!” Spent shouted back at her. “I know my information! I was down this route before, remember! ...Just not this far down it, that’s all.”

Silver muttered something quite rude under her breath as she slammed her head against the console and muttered “She was right, we’re all going to die. Hate to admit it, but the bloody cloud-hoofer was right. ...My sister always did have the last laugh, even in death it seems.”

Silver slammed a hoof on her console in rage, anger, sadness, or perhaps even frustration. She honestly couldn’t pin down what it was.

“Why… Why can’t I take it all back? I… I flipped her off and then… Fire and death. That’s all she knew. She probably died thinking I bloody hated her,” Silver Spanner sobbed quietly to herself “Honestly… If I could, I would take her place. She was a better pony than me, that’s for damn sure.”

She then flashed back to better days, when the twosome weren’t quite so estranged.

Sixteen Years Ago: 1915: The United Kingdom: Silver Family home:

Two sisters trembled in their room, late one night as a radio blared of the ongoing crisis of the Western Front of what was called the Great War, or as history later termed it World War One. The entirety of Europe had become engulfed in a hellfire of chaos that would do the ancient chaos deity Discord proud. Honestly, some suspected he was laughing at them, the devil. Mind you, neither Silver Spanner nor her older sister could comprehend the muck, the squalor and the madness. Nopony could really. All they knew was that the calm peacefulness of the world they knew had been shattered, all thanks to the arsehole that had shot Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria. What had replaced it was Hell. Complete and utter hell. William Tecumseh Sherman’s quote was apt indeed. Thankfully, it seemed England had been spared from the insanity, but for how long… Nopony knew.

Silver Spanner sobbed in her sister’s wings, the grey feathers wrapped around her younger sibling protectively.
“...When?” Silver Spanner asked, looking up at her. “When is it going to end?”

“Honestly sis, I don’t know. I wish I did, but I can’t give you an answer.” Silverspeed replied.

“B-But you always know the answer to everything!” Silver Spanner sobbed. “Math tests, history… You know it all So why can’t you tell me when this Tartarus is going to end!?!”

Her voice had become a shout and Silverspeed just hugged her sister tighter even as her hooves pounded her chest fur. She had no answer. But she could provide comfort, that she did know.

“Perhaps this war may go on for years, perhaps it won’t. But I do know one thing little sis, I’ll always be there for you. No matter what. I promise you that.”

Silver Spanner looked up at her sister with tear stained eyes, her brown form shaking.

“R-Really?” She quavered. Silverspeed nodded.

“Yeah, I promise. Love’s a promise, and I love you my dear sister. So, no matter what happens, Tartarus or High Tides, I’ll be there for you. Count on that, if nothing else,” Silverspeed said resolutely, and Silver Spanner would believe that for the rest of her life. With a grimace, Silverspeed used one of her wings to turn the radio off.

“Now, enough of that. You need your sleep.” She said before picking up her younger sister and tucking her into bed. Then, Silverspeed began to sing softly to her.

Hush now, quiet now
It's time to lay your sleepy head
Hush now, quiet now
It's time to go to bed.
Hush now, quiet it now, it's time to lay your sleepy head.
Hush now, quiet now, it's time to go to bed.
Hush now, quiet now, close your sleepy eyes.
Hush now, quiet now, my how time sure flies.
Drifting, drifting off to sleep the days excitement behind you.
Drifting drifting off to sleep let the joy of dreamland find you.”

As Silver Spanner’s eyes slowly slid shut, Silver Speed kissed her younger sister’s forehead and dimmed the lights.

Now:

“Where… Where did it all go so wrong? We were supposed to be together, watch out for each other… But instead, look what happened.” Silver mused, her voice choking up with sobs. She wiped away her tears. She couldn’t let anypony see her cry. She was too tough for that.

“Yeah… I’m the tough one, and I have to look the part. For better… or for worse.”

As each of the Sub-Pods protective glass bubbles opened up with hissing sounds, Fancy turned to his niece who gazed up in awe at the temple before them. Nearby, other Pods, the larger ones, were unloading the various vehicles and supplies that had survived the journey.

“I… I don’t believe it,” Twilight thought in awe as she gazed up at the temple, her jaw dropping. Two tall statues of twin dragons, easily 33 feet in height if she had to make a guess, flanked either side of the temple entrance. The entrance was truly gigantic, both equally taller and wider than even the largest vehicle the crew had on them. For what reason for its size, that was a mystery in itself. The temple itself was inscribed in hieroglyphs, easily thousands of years old. How long it took to carve them into the walls was impossible to guess. “First, we encounter a giant sized version of a Torii Gate and now this… That temple, it looks Neighgyptian in design! I… I was right! This lends credence to my theory that all of ancient civilization as we know it stems right down from Neighlantis!”

“By Celestia’s holy white wings…” Fancy whispered breathlessly, unable to believe the sight he was seeing himself. He then turned to his niece.

“About how deep are we?” He asked. Twilight checked one of the gauges of the sub-pod and her eyes widened in shock. She checked, then double checked. Heck, she even triple checked! She rubbed her glasses to make sure she wasn’t seeing things, but the gauges didn’t lie.

“We’re… We’re 20,000 metres down! That’s about double the known depth of the Marianas Trench in the Pacific Ocean!” Twilight exclaimed in shock. “No… Nopony’s ever been down this deep before!”

“This entire bloody journey's turning into something out of one of Jules Verne's novels!” Fancy thought to himself as the two climbed out of the subpod and Twilight magically teleported her books into the back of a supplies truck.

Fancy walked up to another truck, and pulled out some candles and plates. He, with a golden aura of magic levitated the plates and candles to the water. With great poise and delicacy, he began placing the candles atop the plates and lit them one by one. Each flame lit was for each member of the crew lost in the Kraken’s massacre and the escape from the gigantic sea beast. Privately, Fancy lit one of these candles in respect for the monster, as it was something that gave up a good fight despite the terror it wrought. Then, he turned to Grape.

“I believe it is only fitting you light the last candle for Rainbow Blaze. He was your adopted father after all.” Fancy asked.

“Ah… Ah’m sorry, but Ah can’t,” Grape said, his southern accent coming out due to his emotional state, letting everypony hear it for the first time. “Ah just can’t.”

Sudoku pulled the younger pony into a hug with his feathered wings.

“His death… It wasn’t your fault,” Sudoku tried to reassure, talking in an emotionally detached tone of voice. It wasn’t all that dissimilar to how a professional coroner might talk to a corpse. “His pride, his anger and lust for revenge… That’s what killed him in the end.”

“But Ah was the one who fired the final shots that did him in!” Grape half shouted, half sobbed. “And for Gawd’s sake, Sudoku, stop talking about my father like you’re his undertaker or somethin’!”

“But-”

“Let me ask ya one thing, and one thing alone.” Grape snarled.

“Go ahead.” Sudoku replied.

“If ya were responsible for doing in yer own father, his murder, would ya have the strength to light up a candle in respect for him?” Grape roared before he broke down, his voice choking up. Sudoku tightened his hug, but he had no answer to give. Even as he cried, Grape flashed back to one of the last conversations, possibly the last he ever had with the late Rainbow Blaze.

A few days before, somewhere in the Bermuda Triangle:

It was late one night, atop the hull of the Moby Dick. The only sounds that could be heard were the gentle lapping of the waves and the metal thudding of hoof-steps as Grape Vine pulled out a telescope and looked skywards. The night sky was clear, no clouds of any type to speak of allowing every star in the night sky to be seen in all of their beauty. Grape could count off and name the constellations he could see from his position in his head. Ursa Major, Ursa Minor, Canes Venacti, Sagittarius, Leo Minor, and Camelopardalis just to name a few.

“Up late again?” Rainbow Blaze’s voice asked from behind him. Grape nearly jumped from fright.
“Yeah… I suppose.” Grape said. Rainbow sighed to himself.

“You can drop the act you know, drop everything. It’s just you and me out here.” The Captain of the Moby Dick replied.

Grape gave out a sigh of his own, and with a shimmering of purple colored magic, his Cutie Mark of a sextant faded away. It found itself replaced with the real one beneath it, a pair of double eighth notes.

“You know, you can’t keep hiding this forever, you’re going to have to give up the truth someday.”

“Why though…?” Grape asked him. “Better the crew think Ah’m actually of some use as a navigator, then let them know the truth that Ah’m of no use to anypony… Least not here.”

“And yet they’ll get suspicious eventually when they see you barely do any of what you claim to be,” Rainbow pointed out. “Tartarus, they probably already have. They’re not stupid after all. And you’re wrong. I appointed you personally as the ship’s morale officer for a reason. That’s your job, that’s what makes you useful.”

“Least give me this… A few more days of peace and serenity before Ah drop things entirely, or ya force me to.” Grape replied to him.

Rainbow sighed before a few minutes later he finally gave his answer.

“...Alright. A few more days, and that’s it. I love you son, you know that right?"

"Ah know. Ah love you too. "

Now:

"Ah... I just wish Ah could have told him one last time..." Grape thought.

Fancy, as he lit up the last candle in a flame of many colors as one last tribute to Rainbow, turned back to the crew. It was a small bunch, consisting of less than thirty.

“We started out on this expedition with a crew of 200 ponies, Griffins and others. Now… All of you who I see before me… You’re all that’s left. But, as I mentioned before I couldn’t ask for a finer crew and I doubt Rainbow Blaze would have either. Now… We’re stuck down here, possibly forever but I intend to continue this journey. After all… What else can we do? And maybe, just maybe, perhaps we’ll find Neighlantis and a way out of here,” Fancy said before his gaze turned to Twilight and her father’s diary.

“All of our hopes rest with you, Twilight.”

Mister Gallants shouted “Advance!” with the power of a battle tested military commander and the whole convoy started into the gigantic temple entrance. As she looked upwards into the carvings, Twilight swallowed nervously and thought to herself.

“So, no pressure huh?”