Case Sixteen, Chapter Five: Unearthed
“Wish these maps weren’t so incomplete,” Red stated as he laid a large sheet onto his desk. “Then again, this is the Under we’re talking about. What makes you think that they’re down there anyway?”
“Soil samples from the getaway van from the bombing,” Phillip replied, studying the maps of the vast network of tunnels and rotten buildings that lay beneath Ponyville’s streets. “I didn’t recognize them at the time, but they came from the southern part of the Industrial District. More specifically, underneath the northern part of the Industrial District.”
“So the guys killing the changelings are hiding in the Under?” Red asked.
“No; I double-checked and there were some coat hairs in the sample that didn’t match any of our killers,” Phillip replied, not looking up from the map. “I believe that the soil was originally from Sweet Tart’s truck. When the changeling killers stole it, some of it was transferred onto them, then into the van.”
“And Sweet Tart got it from her companions who were stalking Dorata,” Red concluded. “But what were they doing down there?”
“When I went into Dorata’s basement, I tapped the floor. Heard a hollow noise beneath some sections,” Phillip continued.
Red stared for a moment, then chuckled. “Sweet Faust. They’re digging a tunnel beneath his house,” he declared, shaking his head. “That’s how they were planning on getting past all that security.”
“Right-o,” Phillip nodded, adjusting the map of Ponyville over the incomplete sketches of the northern Under. Compared to the thorough map of the city streets, the survey of the Under looked like a medieval sea chart: there were gaps in tunnels like missing puzzle pieces, large sections were blank, and lines meandered at seemingly random angles.
But it was all the police department had of the cavernous ruins.
Tearing flesh and mad laughter. Gunshots and screams. A shadow thrown against the stone wall, its shape--
Phillip paused and closed his eyes, allowing the memory to float before him for a moment as he took in a slow breath, mixing it with the fear that was threatening to burst through his chest. Then he slowly exhaled and allowed the memory to pass, taking the reflexive fear with it. Opening his eyes, he returned to his work.
“Hey, Phil!” Flash called, running in with a large grin on his face. “I got something for you!”
“It’s not my birthday, anklebiter,” Phillip replied with a smile.
“I figured it was a long shot, but I tried to figure out the route that Sweet Tart’s kidnappers took when they took her truck,” Flash said. “Took me a lot of cycling through surveillance crystal footage, but I caught some glimpses of them.”
“You find out where they stopped?” Red asked.
“Narrowed it down a bit,” Flash said, drawing a circle around a cloister of blocks in the southwestern section of the Everfree District. “But more importantly, I found this.”
He held up a clear plastic bag with some yellow-orange plastic pieces in it. “Turns out they bumped into a power pole on Dandelion. That truck should have some damage to the left headlight.”
Phillip grinned at the bag. “Ripper job, Flash.”
“Thanks, dad!” Flash beamed.
Red and Phillip both froze, staring wide-eyed at Flash. A moment later, the younger pegasus realized what he’d said and covered his mouth with both hooves, his face turning cherry red. “Oh, Mother,” he groaned. “I am so sorry, I--”
“It’s fine,” Phillip shrugged it off, turning back to the maps after shooting a glare at a snickering Red. He stared down at the charts, briefly wondering why it felt like his heart was dancing inside his chest.
“What’d we miss?” Daring grumbled, entering.
“Thought you were following Watershed,” Phillip asked, looking up in surprise.
“We lost him,” Daring replied. “If smoke-for-brains had kept a better eye on him--” She paused and took a slow breath. “Anyway, we followed him out of a hardware store, and then he shook us off,” Daring grunted. “Matchstick is trying to pick up his trail again. They search Blasting Cap’s place yet?”
“Yeah, Hound and Bird Dog checked already,” Red replied. “Turned up diddly-squat aside from some manifesto drafts about how all changelings and any who associate with them are traitors to Equestria and need to be exterminated, and a bunch of letters from his psychiatrist about missed appointments and not taking his medicine.”
“Damn,” Daring grumbled. “So what’s this about?”
Phil quickly brought her back up to speed. “So, an expedition into the Under, huh?” Daring said, studying the charts with a small grin. “Always liked spelunking.”
“Okay, here’s the closest to Dorata’s place,” Phil said, placing a hoof on a weaving tunnel. “And the closest entrance is...here.” He tapped a red triangle that lined up with an old, crumbling mansion on Moonrise.
“Looks like the fastest route is past the windmill cavern and Digger’s Pool,” Daring added, running a line between the two points. “Take us...fifteen minutes if we move carefully.”
“We’ll have to assemble some officers to go with, get clearance from the chief,” Red grunted, standing up.
Phil and Daring both glanced at each other, faces grim as they adjusted their hats. “Hey,” Flash said. “If we get this done quick, we can get back to finding the other bastards before they hurt anyone else.”
Phillip nodded. “Yeah,” he said, following the others out and down the line of cubicles where other detectives were hard at work. “It’ll be apples.”
“I’ve searched for lost doubloons in underwater caverns,” Daring commented, trying to convince herself as much as the other stallions. “This’ll be a cinch.”
Red snorted. “What?” Daring asked.
“It’s just, you two always do this,” Red replied, shaking his head.
“Do what?” Phillip pressed.
“Be all mysterious with those chiseled scowls and pulling your hats down over your eyes so you look cool,” Red replied, gesturing to his head.
Phil and Daring glanced at each other and simultaneously pushed their brims back. “We don’t do that,” Daring protested.
“Yes, you do,” Red and Flash chorused as one.
“So…Ocellus,” Sandbar said as he slowly walked up the sidewalk, staring at the water canna in his hoof, the crimson and gold petals blazing in the sun. “I found this, uh, flower. In the river. And I wanted to give it to you, because...it reminds me of you. It’s pretty...like y-you’re pretty, and I, I, er…” He sighed. “I’m doomed, aren’t I?”
“Well, no!” Silverstream replied, hovering over his head. “You just gotta work on the presentation. And the speech. And on smiling. And on not stuttering. And on…” She paused, looking down to meet a pair of green eyes glaring up at her.
“Look, just be yourself,” she said with an encouraging smile. “I keep telling you, I’m sure Ocellus knows how you feel by now; she is a changeling, after all.”
“Thanks for reminding me,” Sandbar groaned.
“Sandbar, trust me,” Silverstream said, patting the colt on the back. “You just have to be a bit more confident and you’d have mares eating out of your hoof! And maybe a few stallions, too if you’re into that. You’re good-looking, kind, you’ve got a great smile, and you know a lot about snorkeling and marine life.”
“I’m also a huge dork who passed high school on a C-plus average and has the most vanilla life ever,” Sandbar sighed, tucking the flower back inside his purple Ponyville High letterpony jacket. “Not like cousin Flash. Bet he has mares throwing themselves at him after he killed that zombie-raising monster.”
“Don’t be like that,” Silverstream chided him. “Ocellus isn’t Flash’s friend, you are! You’re the one who went to school with her, studied with her, took her wakeboarding!” She paused. “Then again, she wound up covered in egg yolks, so maybe that wasn’t as fun for her.”
“I’m just glad that she wasn’t mad at me,” Sandbar said with a small grin.
“Hey, we’re here!” Silverstream cheered, rounding the corner and spotting the cluster of single-story blue cottages nestled in a large lot. “I can’t wait to show Ocellus and Rose the new dance moves I learn--”
She turned around and frowned to see a green tail disappearing around the corner. “Get back here,” she snapped, grabbing Sandbar’s tail and pulling him back.
“Hey, not cool!” Sandbar protested, flailing as the mare dragged him along. “Lemme go!”
“You are talking to her if I have to drag you all the way over there!” Silverstream growled, using her wings to help propel them along.
“Uh...hey, guys.”
“Ocellus!” Silverstream cheered, dashing over to hug the arctic blue pegasus that was walking up the street, leaving Sandbar lying open-mouthed on the ground.
Ocellus grunted in surprise, her eyes bulging as Silverstream hugged her around the neck. “It’s...good to see you...too,” she said, trying to wriggle out of the hug. “What’re you doing here?”
“Ocellus, who--?” Blue Rose called, rounding the corner with more bags held in her magic. “Oh, hello, you two!” she chirped, smiling and relaxing once she saw Sandbar and Silverstream.
“Hi, Miss Rose!” Silverstream said, waving. “We just wanted to say hi! And Sandbar wanted to show you something!” She winked at Sandbar, who scowled at her.
“Is that so?” Rose said, giving Sandbar a knowing smile as she gathered up all of the bags. “I’ll bring these inside and set up some lunch for you all.” She proceeded towards the first cottage on the left, giving her daughter a wink. Ocellus replied with a brief glare, her cheeks coloring before she turned back to Sandbar.
The two stared at one another in silence for a bit, both shuffling in place. Ocellus cleared her throat, her cheeks returning to her normal color. “So…” she prompted.
“Er…” Sandbar stuttered. He glanced over at Silverstream, who nodded encouragingly and gestured at Ocellus. He gulped, then put what he hoped was a winning smile on his face as he approached. “I, uh, found this in the river that day, and uh…” He swallowed, his hoof hovering over his pocket, then proceeded forward, taking the water canna and holding it out. “H-here,” he said, his smile becoming more forced.
Ocellus blinked, looking from him to the flower and back. Sandbar remained frozen, his heart thumping against his chest so hard that he was sure that the girls could hear it, and he found himself wondering what nervousness and dorkiness smelled like to a changeling. The seconds stretched out in hours of silence.
Finally, a small smile stretched across Ocellus’ face as her cheeks colored. “Thank you, Sandbar,” she said, reaching out to take the flower. Her hoof brushed against Sandbar’s, warm and tingling like static electricity, and Sandbar felt the world spin as all the blood rushed to his head. Ocellus placed the flower in her mane, over her ear.
Silverstream squealed in delight, twirling in midair. “Finally! You have no idea how long I was waiting for you two to get together! Oooh, now there’s gonna be romantic dates and trips out onto the river--hopefully with no eggs this time!--and then the wedding, and--!”
“Uh, Silver, I think you’re getting a little ahead of yourself,” a red-faced Sandbar interrupted, rubbing the back of his head. A frozen, furiously blushing Ocellus was emitting a chorus of squeaks out of her gaping mouth.
“Oh, uh, right,” Silverstream chuckled.
“Ocellus! You gonna let your friends stay out in the cold?” Blue Rose called out the window of the cottage.
“Coming, mom!” Ocellus called, recollecting herself and beckoning her friends towards the house.
But as they approached the cottage, two other ponies approached from around the corner, adjusting the collars of their jackets. The green unicorn was frowning through his blonde beard, while the yellow earth pony was darting his head back and forth, white bangs waving with the motion.
“Excuse me,” the unicorn called to Ocellus.
Ocellus froze, staring at the two strangers. “Y-yes?” she asked, retreating a bit. Sandbar and Silverstream both instinctively stepped in front of her.
“Don’t be scared,” the stranger said with a smile that reminded Sandbar of a clown doll that his grandmother had posed on a chair facing the door in the upstairs hallway. He hadn’t mustered up the courage to go up there until he was eleven years old.
“We just wanna talk to your mom, kid,” the earth pony said, still looking around.
The door to the number one cottage opened and Blue Rose stalked out, glaring at the interlopers. “Kids, inside. Now,” she ordered.
The trio scrambled into the cottage, Ocellus slamming and locking the door behind them. Rushing through the sparsely decorated living room and past the small but overstuffed bookshelf, they crowded around the small window to watch the confrontation.
“Who are you?” Blue Rose hissed at the stallions, keeping her distance from the strangers.
“We’re not the guys who are out to kill changelings, so don’t worry about that,” the unicorn said. “You’re Blue Rose, right?”
“Guess. What do you want?” Rose hissed.
The white-maned stranger glanced around and his dark gray eyes fell upon the kids in the window. He glared at them and the three retreated from his gaze.
“We know...what you are,” the unicorn continued, his tone like false maple syrup: thin and far too sweet to be natural. “And we have a business proposition for you.”
“Not interested in whatever kinky shit you’ve got in mind,” Blue Rose replied. “I’m out of the prostitute business.”
“No, no, not that,” the stallion chuckled falsely through his beard. “It’s just that we...have a need for a changeling.”
“Fuck off,” Rose snarled, turning away.
“It’ll pay well,” the unicorn pressed. “Set you and your daughter up for years. You could send her to a great school, move out of--”
Blue Rose whirled around, fire blazing from her eyes. “Read my lips, asshole. Fuck. Off.”
“You’ll want to think carefully about that kid before you say no,” the earth pony cut in, scowling at her. “She and you--”
Green light illuminated the block and a moment later, a nine-foot grizzly bear was snarling at the two intruders, hatred burning out of her wide blue eyes. The stallions both yelped and darted away, disappearing from sight in an instant.
“And stay away from my daughter!” Blue Rose shouted as she transformed back to her pony form. With a huff, she turned and stalked back inside.
Ocellus transformed back as she hurried over and unlocked the door. “You okay, mom?” she asked, bustling her mother inside.
“I’m fine, honey,” Blue Rose said quietly, shifting to her normal changeling form.
“We should call the police!” Sandbar cried, heading for the phone on the wall.
Blue Rose opened her mouth to protest, then glanced at Ocellus, who was trembling like a leaf as she clung to her foreleg. Rose sighed and gently tucked Ocellus’ head to her chest, nodding to Sandbar.
Silverstream glared out the window for a few seconds in silence, then headed for the door. “Where are you going?” Ocellus asked.
“No one threatens my friend,” Silverstream declared coldly and stormed out. Ignoring her friends calling her back, she took to the sky, glaring around for her targets.
There! The bearded unicorn and scruffy earth pony were heading west on bicycles. They blazed right through an intersection, ignoring the blaring horns all around them.
“I’ve got you now, you sneaks!” Silverstream grinned, flapping after them. “Ooooh, this is so cool! I feel like Compass Rose! Or Detective Finder! Well, except that he doesn’t have wings and--oh, right!”
She continued to fly after the two strangers, darting from cloud to cloud, hiding behind buildings. The two ponies continued to bike across the city, heading southwest.
They finally stopped at a small park near Town Center: as they chained their bikes to a bike rack in the shade of an ancient oak, the bells from the City Hall clocktower a mere stone’s throw away rang out eleven o’clock.
Perching at the top of a birch tree, Silverstream looked down Bakery Street. The blue cottage with the swinging sign over the door looked like a toy from this far away.
“Maybe I could go get them…” she mused.
She glanced down and saw her targets heading for a brick building with boarded windows at the corner of the block. “It can wait,” Silverstream decided. “I need to know where they’re going first!”
She watched as the two stallions wandered around the perimeter of the long, narrow building, which looked like it had been a workshop or factory once upon a time. One part of the building, which was surrounded by a chain-link fence covered with wooden panels and plastered with Condemned signs, seemed to be slightly sunken into the cracked ground; apparently the leftovers of an earthquake. The yellow earth pony paused at the corner, head turning towards the birch tree.
“Whoop!” Silverstream yelped, taking off and flying in a different direction. She felt the cold, steely eyes upon her and kept flying, fighting the urge to turn and look. Don’t mind me, just an innocent hippogriff out for a fly…
She sighed in relief when she spotted a cloud. Dipping around it, she paused for a moment and peeked around the edge of the cumulus.
Her targets had gotten through the fence through a small hole in the chain. The unicorn was crouching next to the sunken part of the house, pulling aside a tarp covering a window that was half underground. The frame beneath was devoid of glass, and the two ponies wriggled through, one after another, replacing the tarp behind them.
Silver waited a beat, allowing a couple of cars to pass by, then swooped down and crouched next to the wrecked edifice. Pulling the frayed tarp aside a sliver, she peeked inside. Only a bit of light managed to penetrate the room; she just barely made out the shape of an overturned table and some wrecked chairs and other detritus. There was no sign of her quarries.
“Adventure!” Silverstream cheered, sliding through. She got stuck briefly partway through but managed to squeeze through and entered the dark workroom. The mold-eaten boards creaked beneath her steps.
A door squeaked up ahead. Silverstream stole forward across the uneven floor, stumbling over patches of dirt that poked through the rotten floor, and paused at a threshold, the door laying on the floor like a corpse.
“Hate going down here,” she heard the earth pony say from up ahead. As her avian eyes adjusted to the darkness, she spotted the two stallions heading through a doorframe a few yards ahead. Silverstream snuck ahead and peeked around the corner just in time to see them heading down a tunnel carved into the floor, swallowed up by the deep shadows.
Silverstream barely stifled an excited gasp. They’re going into the Under!
She waited until the sound of their hoofsteps had faded away, then quickly darted forward, carrying herself quietly on her wings. She proceeded down the sloping tunnel into the close, damp air that smelled of decay and sewage.
“What took you so long?” a gruff voice grunted from up ahead. Pressing her back against a wall, Silverstream peeked ahead to find the two stallions facing another figure in a heavy coat. The trio was lit by a small flare held by the new pony, a pale orange pegasus mare with a long, mangy blonde mane that cast most of her face in shadow.
“Things went a little...sideways,” the white-maned stallion grunted, reaching into his jacket and pulling out something wrapped in thin paper, which he handed to the dirty mare. She unwrapped it and Silverstream got a brief whiff of meat before she started devouring it messily, tearing at the meal like a starving wolf attacking its prey.
“There are other changelings in town,” the bearded unicorn said, continuing past the mare and deeper into the weaving tunnels. “And if we can’t get them to work with us, we can still go forward with the plan without it. Better to get something out of all this than nothing.”
“We’d better,” the mare with the flare said as she turned and followed the stallions, meat juice dripping from her lips. Silverstream noticed as she crept after them that the strange mare had some kind of large backpack strapped to her back and there were odd yellow lines running along her black jacket. “I’ve been waiting down here for so long, waiting on you to bring that old, fat fuck down here. You get great acoustics down here: I know, you should’ve heard the screams from some guy I chased off. Be a shame to let them go to waste without hearing some rich bourgeois screaming in pain while I roast his flesh.”
Silverstream shivered as she padded after them silently, ducking behind a loose boulder. Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea…
The two stallions exchanged a glance as they proceeded through the warped remnants of a cottage’s living room buried in the rubble. “O-kay,” the yellow earth pony said slowly. “How goes the tunnel?”
“Nearly done,” the mare with the backpack replied, hopping over the fossil of an ancient wagon sticking out of the mud. “Just need to chip away the last of the mortar and we’ll be through. You’d better get a changeling before then.”
“Maybe we could get the kid,” the unicorn mused out loud as they proceeded through the bones of an iron gateway, rusted rods sticking randomly out of the ground like spears left behind after an epic battle. “Force the mother to cooperate.”
“Or maybe we just abandon the whole deal,” his partner replied, skirting around the dark, rippling surface of an underwater pool, the sound of water dripping into the pool from the stalactites above echoing through the caverns.
Silverstream gulped. Okay. Definitely time to get out of here and get help.
She waited until the light from the flare was gone, then turned around and started to head back. Almost immediately, she stopped in place, her heart dropping into her stomach as she stared into the pitch blackness behind her.
How do I get back?
She took a step forward and something beneath her talon cracked, the sound echoing like a cannon shot in the dark tunnel. Looking down, she saw what she thought was a long, light brown stick beneath her talon.
Then she saw the bite marks and the stringy, charred clumps clinging to the charred bone, still faintly smelling of blood and barbeque, and froze for a moment, jaw gaping in horror.
“What was that?” she heard one of the stallions behind her.
“Meat,” the female growled, hunger and lust rumbling behind the word.
With a yelp, Silverstream dove into the pitch blackness, her heart thumping so loud she barely heard the hoofsteps charging after her. She hopped over the half-buried wagon, spreading her wings to bank through the darkness.
She felt wind from up ahead, brushing over the edges of her wings, and let out a desperate laugh of relief as she swooped towards the promise of escape.
Too late, she remembered the buried cottage.
“Ow!” she yelped as her wing smacked into the rotting door frame. She crashed to the uneven floor with a snap and a howl as pain raced across her left wing when she landed upon it.
“Come here, meat!” she heard the muffled voice of the mare behind her snarl, hoofsteps pounding like an angry, hungry bear chasing after its prey.
Yelping, gasping, Silverstream pulled herself up and sprinted away, diving through a different door frame. The tunnel twisted and turned around her, and though she could barely see anything, she realized to her horror that she was descending.
That can’t be right! I have to be going up by now! Did I go the wrong way?!
“You can’t run forever!”
Silverstream knew she was right, but she pushed herself further, panting, gasping, inarticulately crying out for help, praying to the gods that she could keep going for long enough to find some method of escape. Someone had to hear her...someone had to...
The crumbling mansion on Moonrise, the windows in the brown casements long smashed and the towers quickly crumbling to pieces, had been abandoned since its infamous smuggling owner was gunned down in the street after his lieutenant usurped him in 1926.
In the weed-strewn backyard was a crumbling stone well, the bucket long removed from the crank. The top of the well was covered by a metal grate secured by a padlock, the fresh construction of the metal contrasting against the old, faded bricks. A sign bolted to the grate warned in bright white lettering, “Danger! Do Not Enter!”
Seven figures, five of whom had shotguns or submachine guns slung over their backs, hopped the short stone fence that provided a token attempt to mark the property line and approached the well. Daring scoffed at the warning. “Eh, life’s too short to follow all the rules,” she commented, bending down and inserting a key into the padlock.
“You say as you unlock that with a key you got from the Chief of Police after filling out a set of paperwork,” Red replied with a smirk. Daring grinned back as she gave him the Flying Feather.
With a snap, the lock opened and Daring pulled the grate open with a squeak. “Okay, folks, tour’s heading this way,” she said, gesturing to the narrow opening. “Watch your step heading down.”
Phillip climbed in first, followed by Daring, then Flash, Red, and Bumblebee, all of them clipping flashlights to their shoulders and switching them on.
“Come on, rookie,” Prowl said to the last one as she slid into the opening and hung onto the ledge.
Gallus hovered nervously, staring at the well like he suspected it was full of snakes, then swallowed. “Coming, sarge,” he squeaked out, walking towards her and slowly climbing into the well with the motion and gravitas of a griffon headed for the executioner.
“You all right, Gallus?” Prowl asked as they descended the rusty ladder rungs set into the concrete wall.
Above her, the blue griffon gulped nervously as he laboriously dropped one paw to the next rung, gingerly pressing his weight against it as if he was expecting it to collapse. “I, uh...I don’t do well with tight spaces,” he admitted.
Prowl paused and looked back up at him, her yellow eyes glowing slightly in the dimness. “Gallus, if you can’t do this, I need to know now,” she said evenly. “If you’re too scared, you’ll be putting yourself in danger.”
Gallus paused and looked back up at the opening above him. The sunlight beaming through the narrow opening seemed so tempting, like the hoof of Fantisera reaching into the depths of the Dreaming Sea, offering to pull him out of the bottomless fathoms that he would otherwise be doomed to wander forever as penance for his sins.
But he took a slow, steady breath and forced his leg to descend to the next rung. The old metal creaked a little beneath his weight but held. “No, I’m all right,” he nodded.
“Gallus. No one’s gonna think worse of you if you need to stay back,” Prowl said, a gentler tone in her voice.
“No one but me,” Gallus replied, reaching up to brush a claw over the golden badge pinned to his chest. “I’m a cop now. I have a job to do.”
“Good lad,” Prowl nodded, continuing to descend. “Word of advice: try to keep your mind on something besides what’s scaring you.”
“Like what?” Gallus asked, continuing to take the descent one step at a time.
“Like wondering how Bumblebee managed to squeeze his way down here,” Prowl replied with a smirk as she reached the bottom of the ladder and joined the others at the end of a thin tunnel, the smooth walls illuminated by their torches.
Bumblebee stuck his tongue out at her. “For your information, Arc’s been helping me lose weight,” he stated.
“The bedroom isn’t as good as the gym, Bee,” Prowl smirked back.
“Ponies,” Phil scolded them, looking at the copy of the map he was now unfolding from his vest. “Okay...once we get to the end of this tunnel, there should be a T-intersection. We head left.”
“Faster we get this done, faster we can get out of here,” Red told the uniformed officers behind him, beckoning them onward with a jerk of his head.
“And not soon enough,” Flash said, shrugging to adjust the shotgun slung over his shoulder.
Phil and Daring both shared a look, the same memories flickering in each others’ eyes: gunshots and screams and wild laughter. Misshapen bodies of ash thrusting at them through the dark. A shape cast against the cavern wall by golden light.
Daring took a steady breath through her nostrils and let it out slowly, nodding to her partner. He nodded back and they led the party forward through the tunnel.
The tunnel was thankfully short and opened into a wider passageway; the light from their torches illuminated the contrast between the smooth walls of the smuggler’s passageway and the rough, time-worn shape of the older cavern. They proceeded left, keeping silent as their ears strained for any noises beneath the echoes of their hoofsteps, distant drips of water from the ceiling, and the squeaks and chitters of underground beasts.
Gallus brought up the rear of the group, licking his beak and forcing himself to take steady breaths as his eyes checked every shadow three times, one wing hovering close to the holster where his revolver lay waiting.
Prowl dropped back to walk beside him, placing a wing over his withers. He managed to smile briefly in gratitude and nodded to her, receiving a nod back.
“We should be coming up on a larger cavern,” Daring reported, swinging her flashlight back and forth across the ground.
Sure enough, they stepped through a tunnel propped up by makeshift wooden beams and their lights revealed a cave nearly the size of a city block before them, remnants of storefronts and houses sticking randomly out of the ground and the walls like it was some kind of twisted movie set. An underwater river ran across the west side of the cavern, entering and disappearing beneath the stone wall. Another tunnel to the north offered an exit; the crooked skeleton of a windmill stood post next to the tunnel.
“This used to be a shopping district,” Daring commented. “Got swallowed up by a sinkhole and paved over to build all those mansions around 1870.”
“Since when were you Twilight?” Red said.
“Just because you’ve never been to the library--” Daring started to reply.
“Contact, two o’clock,” Prowl snapped, one hoof going towards her pistol.
Everyone turned to face the lone contact, crouching on the front porch of what had once been a saloon. The mangy donkey with a lice-ridden beard was clad in a filthy coat, so thoroughly covered in dirt and mud that its original color was totally indiscernible. He blinked beneath the harsh lights of their flashlights, growling at the intruders through yellowed teeth. Clutched in his hooves was a rat. A rat with a donkey-sized bite in it.
“Meat,” the underdweller hissed with a small giggle, his beady eyes darting to the guns. “More meat for the cook.”
“Easy, lad,” Phillip said placatingly. “We’re just passing through.”
“She came down last winter, like a bear into the den of wolves,” the donkey continued, blood dripping from his teeth. “She remains here, walking these tunnels, feasting on those who cross her, bartering with the surface for money, food, and fuel.” He giggled. “She’s been bringing two ponies down here. We don’t hurt them, she doesn’t cook us…but we can find more meat elsewhere...”
“What’s he talking about?” Gallus asked nervously.
“Something tells me that our friend’s been down here for too long,” Bumblebee said with a slightly forced chuckle. “Let’s just move on.”
"Forget him," Daring said, proceeding to the tunnel. "Let's just keep going."
Prowl suddenly snapped her head up, her ears sticking straight up. She exhaled sharply, her tufted ears wiggling. “Two ponies are running this way," she declared, pointing towards the exit.
“Guns up,” Red ordered, swinging the Trotson off his shoulder and tucking the butt into his shoulder. The others spread out, raising their own weapons.
"Help!" a female voice shrieked from the darkness up ahead.
"Get back here!" a muffled voice bellowed.
Iron sights settled over the tunnel mouth. Trembling hooves and talons gripped the cold metal tightly.
A pink hippogriff sprinted into view, her aqua blue mane in disarray, blue eyes wide with terror as she stumbled into the cavern. Right behind her was a mare with a dirty blonde mane. The light from their torches caught the yellow stripes on her tattered, bloodstained turnout jacket and the fuel tank strapped to her back with fuel lines running to her forelegs. The mare looked up as she approached: the light reflected off the lenses of her gas mask, making her seem like a faceless beast with glowing eyes.
“Oh, shit,” Red gasped.
“FINDER!” the Scorcher roared as her eyes fell on Phillip. Skidding to a halt, she raised both forelegs. With a great roar and a blazing light that struck like a physical blow, flames burst from her gauntlets towards her targets.
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Oh shit....
10588566
You and Red are of the same mind!
I love it. So good. The references bring me such joy. Seeing crazy pony again brings happiness. Didn't expect to see her again. Great chapter.
Side Note: Flash mistakenly calling Philip dad is just the most adorable thing I've seen today.
10589250
Thank you! I’m glad that brought a smile!
And here I was expecting them to run into Silverstream, who is darned lucky that there was an underground pool when she decided to take matters into her own hooves and play at being Daring Do.
Ah... one of those flame obsessed ponies. Oh dear...