Legends Of Ponyville

by mechafone

22 - Encounters In The Caves Part Two

Spark Storm frowned as he felt his team draw into itself, drawing closer into itself for protection. Of course his teammates were drawing into a defensive position; most of them had never been in a fight where their lives were on the line. Spark took a quick glance at his comrades. Emerald Skies, who had been with him to Neippon, had only seen a brief moment of action. With his great flying skills, he had escaped an attack that would have severed his left wing, but he wasn't a fighter.

Laser Reflex had given Spark the run-around just a day or two before in the sky, drawing out a battle in a near stalemate, but from what Spark had seen, he wasn't up to a messy battle like this. Anorax was a wild card in this situation. While Spark was sure that the halfling had some battle instinct, he had lived most of his life in Ponyville as a pony. He had no idea if these three were up to this challenge. He wasn't sure if he was up to this.

Spark began to feel that he'd made a terrible mistake. What was he thinking, bringing along civilians into this fight? It was suicide coming in here so unprepared! A light touch on his back sought his attention. When he turned, he came nearly nose to nose with Rarity, whose bright blue eyes stared into his before she brought her forehead down against his. The warm contact had a calming effect, and Spark felt his breath come back down to normal levels.

When she saw the intended effect take hold, Rarity smiled and brought some space between them. "Spark Storm, have faith in your team. Have faith in me. I would follow you to Tartarus and back, if the situation so called for such madness."

Spark Storm stared in awe at his childhood friend. How was she so calm, so sure? He looked to his other teammates, and saw that they all had the same assuring smiles as Rarity, save for Ampelus. Her gaze was different, though no less reassuring. It was almost expectant, as if waiting for him to do the things she knew he was capable of. Even the elder nymph's gaze gave him strength. It almost made him forget that he and his team were surrounded by a goddess-controlled hoard of angry changelings. Almost.

He turned to face the dense light given off by the dozens of eyes agleam with telepathic light, then raised his gaze, beyond the puppets, to the puppeteer in back. While Spark gave her his most intimidating glare, the mad princess merely smiled pleasantly, a disturbingly calm gaze which was mirrored in the faces of all her controlled changelings. It was a look that seemed to say Go ahead and say your goodbyes, I've got time.

Spark Storm's wings immediately rose in the air. He fanned them out on either side of his body, the long feathers nearly as wide as his entire team standing in a circle. When he snapped them back to his sides, he turned to his teammates and said, "Emerald, Laser, I want you two in the air. Make as much chaos as you can and keep the changelings busy. Kecnik, Madalah, you two know the layout of this place. I want you two to find Russet Hearts, and cause as much damage as you can on your way. Anorax, go with them."

Spark gave the halfling a chance to object. When he received none but a compliant glare from Anorax, Spark continued as he cast Ampelus an amused smirk. "Ampelus," he began, his smirk widening just a little as the tall nymph stiffened. "I want you to cause as much damage in as many directions as you can. Leave no stone unturned, leave no changeling undamaged. Uh, you know, besides our comrades," he said, tilting his head at Kecnik and Madalah. The nymph just rolled her eyes and gave him a shrug of her shoulders.

"No promises on the last bit. I'll show no mercy to any unfortunate enough to get in my way."

Spark figured that was the best offer he was going to get from the nymph, then smiled down at Rarity. "Rarity, you're with me. You and I are going for Shimmering Oasis. If we can make her back off, she'll probably lose hold of her control like she did in her fight with Shadow Heart and me. Uh - long story. Just throw everything you've got at her." Rarity smiled at this as she notched an arrow into her magic bow and turned to the hoards of changelings.

Spark turned once more to face the changelings. As the princess had been so kind as to let him organize his group, he was ready. He raised his wings once more, intending to bring them down as the signal to attack. Before he could, however, Shimmering Oasis let out a shrill laugh and launched herself into the air, as did every last changeling under her command. In a flurry of black shapes and lights gleaming everywhere, the sound of buzzing wings filled the air for a brief moment, and then silence. The alicorn and the soldiers under her control had fled the room.

Spark Storm and his entire team stood alone in the room, shocked and confused looks on all their faces. Spark frowned and shook himself in an attempt to pull his wits together. Shimmering Oasis was a tricky one, and now that she didn't have to pretend in front of others about her true intentions, she was pulling out all the mind games. He should've known there would be no easy, direct confrontation with the alicorn.

Emerald Skies was the first to speak up. "Uh, Spark, what now?"

"Keep your guard up, do not let this confuse you. Shimmering Oasis is playing games with us, trying to confuse us and lower our guard. Ampelus?" Spark turned to the nymph, the others following. She was now the only one in the group that could sense the other changelings. Suddenly sensing that the next move was up to her, Ampelus frowned and tried not to feel the others' gaze on her.

"They're still here," she said, her eyes raising to the ceiling far above, then along the walls and down at the floor. "They're not all here, they're vastly spread out among the caves. Some are ready to ambush us, others...digging."

"Digging? What in the world-" Rarity began, but was cut off as the floor beneath her hooves gave way. Her frightened scream echoed as she fell into the darkness, turning into a series of grunts and yelps as her fall curved, the unicorn meeting a slope as she rolled and bumped further into the darkness.

Spark didn't think out his next action. The whole plan had been shot to Tartarus, and he knew it the instant Shimmering Oasis left. There was nothing to do now but wing it as he went, there was no time to think. He dove headfirst after Rarity. The others could only look on in shocked horror as Ampelus, not wanting to be left without Spark Storm in her presence, made to follow. Her speed was not nearly enough to escape her back leg being crushed and then severed as the hole was quickly shut, leaving behind a small pool of thick green blood, a useless stump and the sound of the nymph's scream echoing through the chamber.

Emerald Skies, Laser Reflex, the changelings and Anorax stared at each other in horror. Things had just gone from bad to worse, and showed no signs of getting better. The silence between the six spoke volumes; they weren't ready for something so terrible, so daunting. They especially weren't ready as more holes opened in the ground, some directly under them, some beside them. All had wings, though, and all took flight.

It wasn't for long, though as changeling soldiers came up from the holes and grabbed at their prey. Kecnik was caught, but it was a short catch as he fought his kidnapper and broke free. Madalah wasn't so lucky as two changelings grabbed her and bore her down into the darkness. Like Spark Storm, Anorax left little to thought or chance as he sprung forward and down into the darkness, just making it without getting any body parts caught as the hole was cut off.

With just the three left in the air, the three males looked around in panic. "Oh Celestia, oh Celestia, this is not...this is not what was supposed to happen!" Emerald Skies said, his breathing coming in and out in panicked spurts. Emerald was too busy panicking to pay attention. He was too busy panicking to notice the changeling buzzing towards him from the side. He did, however, notice as Laser Reflex was suddenly passing in front of him.

There was a loud, unsettling crack as the changeling fell to the ground. Even Kecnik flinched as the body fell in an unnatural pose upon the ground. He and Emerald Skies stared in wide-eyed wonder as the blue pegasus turned to face his comrades, a look of determined fury in his eyes. "No. We do not fall apart here. Russet Hearts and now the rest of our friends and comrades are in trouble. We've got work to do."

---

Sohl had stopped flying and had taken to running, her clawed toes curled inwards as she ran on the hard knuckles of her feet. She'd been aware of the path behind her closing. She'd been aware of the panicked voices she'd left behind. It didn't matter, they were all big ponies. They could take care of themselves. What worried her were the feelings of terror and then shame coming from Orea back in the cave. Why oh why hadn't she been paying attention and noticed that the little nymph had trailed behind?

Because she was too immersed in her own despair and self pity, that was why. She had to remind herself that while her encounter with Amacia had opened her eyes to the fact that she couldn't stay with her friends forever, she still wasn't done with her business here. Spark Storm needed her to be at the top of her game to help their friends, and...

Sohl came to a complete stop as the very pegasus she'd been thinking of stepped from the shadows ahead of her. He stood, watching her, a scowl on his face. The wall that Sohl had put up before outside of the cave went up again. She couldn't give to him the same closeness and affection that she'd given him since they'd gotten close. This was a time for closing her heart and preparing to say goodbye.

"Spark, come on. Orea's in trouble," she said off-handed as she passed him. Something was bugging her about him. He seemed strangely quiet, usually he had something to say. It was unsettling. She turned back to him as she walked, a suspicious glare in her eyes. "Did you hear me? Orea needs our help, now move!"

"So when were you going to tell me?" he finally said, stopping Sohl in her tracks. She slowly turned to face the pegasus, her eyes hard. She crossed her arms as she stepped towards him, hoping the aggressive stance she was taking would hide the fact that she had begun to tremble.

"Tell you what?"

"You know damn well what I'm talking about. What, did you think you were just going to walk right out of my life without telling me? Did I really mean that little to you?!"

Spark's tone, not so much his words, struck Sohl hard in her heart. The harpy tensed as a disgusted look in Spark's eyes drove Sohl to her knees before him."Sp...Spark, I...I didn't, I just didn't..." she said, her voice barely above a whisper. She reached out a clawed hand to the pegasus. She gasped as he immediately swatted her hand away with a hoof.

"Don't be so pathetic, Sohl. Don't your kind look down on weakness?"

Sohl's eyes widened with shock. The pegasus that she had come to hold in such high regards, the pegasus that she had come to love, had never spoken to her in such cruel tones. Though she had been preparing to close her heart off to him in order to return to her home, she only felt more emotion as her chest tightened painfully, her eyes threatening to fill with tears.

"You're a pretender, Sohl. You talk tough, you walk the tough walk, but you're just a big softy pretending to be hard. And you were just pretending to care for me, weren't you? Pretending to care for Orea when you were just going to ditch us when things got tougher than you!"

"That's not true, Spark, and you know it!"

"Then prove it," Spark said, stepping closer, then disgusted look in his eyes more evident as he moved in. "Oh, come on, Sohl, what are you willing to do to prove that you love me?" Sohl leaned away from him, a confused look in her eyes. She knew that in the beginning of their friendship, she had flirted with him. Innocently enough, she'd pointed out many times that he was nowhere near old enough for her tastes. In the back of her mind, many alarms began going off in her head, and it felt like she wasn't the only one in there.

Spark Storm was almost upon her when she lashed out, her closed fist connecting with Spark's jaw hard enough to knock him several feet from her. When he landed on his hooves, he raised his wings and the tunnel lit up with angry light. However, the light wasn't coming from his wings. It was coming from his forehead. That was all the evidence she needed. Sohl stood to her full height, spread her own wings to brace herself, and let out a deafening scream.

The whole tunnel shook with the echo of the harpy's death scream. 'Spark' braced himself, trying to stand against the horrible palpable force of the scream, but he quickly found himself buckling, his fur falling from his body as the close proximity to the harpy began to take it's toll. Finally, unable to take anymore, the pegasus flew backwards and fell into a bloody heap on the tunnel floor, no longer an image of a destroyed pony, but revealed as the treacherous changeling it had been from the beginning.

In the silent aftermath of the horrible, fatal scream, Sohl stood there, her hardened eyes staring at the corpse. She stood there for a long time, then finally brought a trembling hand up to her eyes. She brought her other hand up to cover her face, and stood there in the darkness, alone again.

---

Rarity's whining voice grew closer and closer as Spark Storm met the sloping ground. He slid against the coarse dirt and finally flipped head-over-hooves and fell on something soft and loud.

"Oh-oh, get off! Get off of me this instant!" Rarity shrieked, pushing herself to her hooves with a great amount of effort and actually managed to shrug Spark Storm onto his side with a pained groan. The unicorn backed away from him long enough to bring light to the room. Upon realizing it was her friend and not a changeling that'd fallen on her, she knelt down to Spark's side. "Oh, Spark, I do apologize for throwing you, dear. Now quickly, get up and help me ascertain our surroundings."

"I didn't think you could throw me like that, Rarity," Spark muttered as the unicorn helped him to his hooves. He raised his wings and brought his feathers to life with dancing light, illuminating the room to reveal a long, closed-in space that resembled a rocky corridor. A thick, foggy mist littered the ground that never strayed above the ponies' knees.

Spark Storm frowned as the last few moments began to circulate in his mind. Things had gone so wrong so fast. He'd just pulled himself together, made a solid plan, and then lost that and so much more in just under twenty seconds. That was a new record for him. His quickly souring mood was not lost on Rarity. With a roll of her eyes she reached up and pulled his head to look at her. "Now don't you start this again, Spark Storm. You simply cannot blame yourself for-"

"I know, I know," Spark cut her off and pulled away from his friend. The last thing he wanted right now was to be talked down to. Some part of him knew she was just trying to help, but with the way he was feeling, it just felt condescending. The two stood there unhappily for a moment until a quiet dripping noise made itself known. Spark and Rarity glanced at each other, their ears tilting, trying to get a fix on the sound. Finally, their attention was drawn to the vertical tunnel they'd just slid down.

Some greenish liquid was slowly puddling at the bottom of the tunnel. Unsure of what to make of it, Spark Storm leaned in to get a closer look. Quite suddenly a large body fell, dropping heavily with a loud squelching sound, along with a terrible scream of pain. Spark Storm gasped and stepped closer, resting a hoof on Ampelus' shoulder. The nymph, in pain and reacting on survival instinct, immediately whipped her left foreleg around, catching Spark in the face. The connection resounded in the chamber as a sharp blow, sending Spark tumbling several pony-lengths back.

Rarity was livid. "How dare you! He was only trying to help, you mangy-"

"Rarity, wait!" Spark yelled urgently. After getting back on his hooves and ignoring the blood seeping from a wound on the left side of his cheek, he approached slowly as Ampelus glared at him, the vines around her body now displayed with sharp thorns. She was reacting in self defense, as most wild animals did when injured. Rarity frowned angrily as she watched the two. She hadn't trusted Ampelus, not at all, from the beginning. The nymph was violent and vulgar, and perhaps a little too familiar with Spark Storm for her tastes. Not that she had a say in the matter, but still.

"Ampelus, take it easy. It's me, Spark Storm," the pegasus said, stepping closer. He kept his wings folded tight down against his back, lest the nymph take his wing's natural position as a threatening gesture. Ampelus's vines rattled loudly, the desperately angry look in her eyes intensifying.

"Stay away, Spark Storm," Rarity cautioned. "You may have faith in her, but she's injured. She has no sense right now."

Spark Storm frowned. He took a closer look at Ampelus' body, noticing that she indeed had lost a leg. Thinking on how to approach the nymph without getting his flesh torn to bits, an idea came to him, and he started speaking to her again. "Ampelus, that looks really bad," he said, sitting down on his haunches slowly. "How long do you think it'll take you to heal?"

There was no change in Ampelus' mood for a moment. In fact, it seemed that his speaking to her only made her angrier. After an intense three minutes of staring at each other, the nymph's position began to change. Her stare became softer, the rattling became quieter, and finally the thorns disappeared, retracted into their hiding spots.

"Ampelus?"

"What."

Spark tried to keep the smirk off his face. The nymph was back to her ornery self. He stepped close again, earning a glare from Ameplus, but she made no move to stop him as he eased himself gently under her and helped her up to her hooves. The two argued for a moment about who was stepping down onto the foggy ground first, until Spark relented and let her move first. As calmed as the situation had become, Rarity was determined to get the nymph to apologize to Spark.

"Excuse me, but what do you have to say for yourself for hitting Spark Storm when he was just trying to help?"

Spark Storm rolled his eyes exasperatedly, but he said nothing. Frankly, he was a little curious to see what Ameplus would say. He wasn't too terribly surprised when the nymph raised her chin and looked down her muzzle at the unicorn. "He should have known better."

Rarity's indignant gasp amused Spark for a moment, but the fact remained that this was not a place to be laughing. Spark Storm frowned as he looked down the hall ahead of himself and his comrades. It was long, narrow and dark, and something told him that walking down that way wasn't going to be as simple as it looked. "Ampelus, do you see the changelings down here?"

Ampelus closed her eyes, the vines around her body writhing and twitching for a moment. "...No. They must have fled this place, because it's empty. No, wait...there are three here, not far beyond this place. I can't make them out well, but they're not changelings. If they were, I'd be able to see them clearly. And no, they're not from your team." Spark frowned deeper and glanced at Ampelus. She opened her eyes and returned the look with a serious glare. "I'd know if it was them, I'm familiar with them by now."

Spark glared down the hallway. Had they found Russet Hearts? And why were there three, if not two? Had more than Russet Hearts been brought down here? There would be time for questions later. He tilted his head towards the hallway to his comrades, and slowly all three began making their way towards the end of the hallway, which seemed to open up into a large chamber, which was giving off a bright, luminous green light.

The trio was halfway through when Ampelus suddenly stopped moving, causing Spark to halt as well. The nymph reached over and grabbed Rarity, pulling her back forcefully, an action that was not taken kindly to. "I-I beg your pardon, release me at once!" the unicorn nearly yelled, squirming until she broke free. "Just what is your game?"

"Shut up and I'll tell you," Ampelus retorted with a disgusted glare. "Don't move from that spot." Rarity pouted angrily, but a look from Spark Storm made the unicorn sigh and resign herself to standing still. Ampelus snorted and looked down at the foggy ground. Something about it was bothering her, something she could just barely make out. She leaned down and blew at the fog. Nothing. She drew in a breath again, and much more forcefully blew again, revealing a steel cord pulled tight between the walls near the floor. A trap.

Rarity's glance at Spark Storm told him all he needed to know. She stepped closer and offered her side to Amepelus, who looked at Spark in confusion. "Go on, let her support you. I need my wings." The nymph gave Spark a suspicious glare, even as she shifted weight to lean against Rarity, who had to adjust her own balance to support the much heavier Ampelus.

With Spark's left wing free, he raised both slightly and concentrated. The familiar tingling feeling danced along his back until his feathers ignited with tiny little threads of electricity. He carefully branched them out into the open air, causing Ampelus to gasp and push against Rarity. "Oh...oh! Stop panicking! This isn't going to hurt you...I think," Rarity grumbled, struggling to support Ampelus.

"It won't," Spark muttered, still concentrating as his electric web spread out, crawling along the walls towards the open chamber. Almost immediately, the electric web began finding hidden chains and cords. They were anchored everywhere. By the time the web had spread out through half the chamber, he'd found at least thirty hidden tripwires. Spark, Rarity and Ampelus stared in wide-eyed wonder as the webs settled, leaving their mark so as to avoid running into them.

"Nice. Very nice, very smart, such a useful tool."

A small, feminine figure dropped from the ceiling in the center of the open chamber. She was too far away to make out many details, but Spark Storm knew who it was. The lithe form, the mane style, the way she stood. He'd seen her but once, when she was brought back from the battlefield in Neippon. Fire Lotus. "I suppose I'll have to come up with a more clever way of hiding my traps. Why don't you all come in here and help me brainstorm?"

Spark Storm's fur and feathers bristled. He made to move forward, stepping over the cord, but Rarity brought him to a halt, tugging on his tail with a magical pull. "Just a minute, Spark Storm! Don't go rushing into this haphazardly! Think it through. These traps, they're all very well-thought out. You need a plan, dear, you need tactical maneuvers." Fire Lotus interrupted, calling a well-placed taunt out to the trio.

"You should listen to her, kiddo, she's a mare. And what's more, she's a fancy mare. Obviously she has the answers for everything. Heh, little miss perfect prissy pony knows what a stallion needs."

As Spark went beet red, Rarity sputtered with fury. "I-what-you-you how dare you!" Ampelus, however, erupted into laughter, her body shaking so hard that she had to sit down, ignoring the searing pain in her severed leg long enough to collapse onto her side. This sudden absence of weight was just what Rarity needed; an excuse to engage in a furious cat-fight.

Rarity bolted forward, past the traps that Spark had found, still barely lit with little marks of electricity. Fire Lotus merely smirked and stood her ground, eagerly awaiting a fresh victim. As Rarity ran, her horn lit up, though what she was preparing went unseen. When she was close enough, Fire Lotus sprang into action. She lunged forward. But as her body left the space she had just been occupying, the no-longer depressed area sprang up behind the earth pony, who ducked and watched as a thick wooden spike thrust itself at the unicorn.

Rarity had been expecting something like this, though. At the last second a sharpened arrow-head met the tip of the wooden spike. Her magically propelled arrow split the spike in half. The two halves were caught in Rarity's magic, then brought down tip first in an attempt to skewer Fire Lotus, who rolled out of the way. The earth pony had a look of surprised excitement on her face. She was facing a very smart opponent, one who expected traps and knew where to look for them.

She had no time to appreciate the new opponent when the unicorn brought the spike halves up, and instead of aiming them at the earth pony, the halves were flung expertly in two different directions. They connected with metal cords, springing their traps. Fire Lotus's eyes widened with shock as the very traps she'd set up for her enemies were now unleashed on her. She leapt out of the way as one log swung length-wise at her, then landed and immediately leapt again to avoid the other. She could not, however, avoid a fierce kick to her chest as she'd leapt directly in Rarity's direction, who had spun to connect with the earth pony using a backwards buck.

Fire Lotus flew backwards from the unicorn and landed on her hooves, skidding backwards slightly from the force of the kick. The earth pony smiled approvingly, a hoof rubbing at her chest. "My, my, you're no pushover. You've got quite an eye for detail."

Rarity allowed herself a small smirk at the praise, a pair of arrows raising to horn level in her magical grasp. "I sew, dear."

"Oh, pinpoint accuracy?" Fire Lotus smiled and reached down under her chest, producing a short, sharp knife. She struck it down against the rock floor tip first and rested her weight against it starting with a bent hoof. "You sound like you'd make a great surgeon. I'm a little skilled in that area, as well, but unlike you, sweetheart, I've actually seen what makes a pony tick. Have you heard of pressure points? There are actually quite a few on a unicorn's body. Do you know them?"

Rarity frowned and braced herself. The earth pony was playing mind games, trying to psyche her out and make a mistake. The unicorn had in fact heard of pressure points, and she knew a good few of them. She resisted the urge to swallow before responding. "I know quite a few. They're not so different from earth pony pressure points, if I'm not mistaken."

"You're not mistaken," Fire Lotus said with a sweet smile, her hoof absently pushing the tip of her knife into the ground in a slow, almost seductive grinding motion into the the hard, rocky floor. "But there is one key difference: You have one more than me. You have a horn, and I've seen harder unicorns than you break when I've cut into the very tip. There's a very sensitive nerve just under the bone; very painful, or so I gather from the screams. You seem like an intelligent unicorn...why don't you come help me experiment with new ways to make a unicorn scream?"

Rarity tried to find the right words to reply with. At the moment, she was scared. This earth pony was far more intense with bloodlust than she'd ever seen in any creature. Her confidence, her body language, the mind games...right then and there she knew she couldn't win. And if she lost, there would be torture, horrible, mind-numbing torture, and then death. The unicorn could feel her very core tremble, and a single bead of sweat ran down her cheek and fell to the ground.

"Well, I think we've wasted enough time with chit-chat, or at least your frightened silence seems to indicate. Why don't we get started?" Fire Lotus smiled to herself. While her bantering had given her the edge in confidence, everything she'd said had been true. Bluffing would have been excessive. She raised her hoof, the knife following into the air. She twisted her hoof to grab it, but a sudden bolt of light knocked the knife away from her grasp and behind her into the darkness.

Rarity released a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding, then turned to look at Spark Storm by her side gratefully. He held his wings outstretched, displaying the wide berth of his wingspan, all alight with furious electricity. Fire Lotus smiled happily as she pulled the second hidden kunai from under her chest. "Wonderful. I was hoping I'd be able to play with two at once. Let's dance, kiddies!"