Fallout Equestria: Blue Destiny

by MagnetBolt

Chapter 88: Mare in the Mirror

“Looks like we all made it down safely!” Zonda said, pleased. He and Emma had taken one of the two Vertibucks that were powering down in the clearing along with half the recruits, and I’d gone with Midnight in the other transport.

The ones getting off my transport looked mildly traumatized. It was their own fault. They’d asked a lot of questions and were regretting some of the answers. I might have been a little too descriptive about some of the things I’d seen, and bringing up Stable 83 was definitely a mistake, but Midnight had wanted all the details on the tar-covered undead and I hadn’t noticed how quiet and pale the recruits had gone until I was already talking about endless screams and burning flesh.

“This isn’t at all like the briefing,” one of the other, less traumatized recruits said. He put a hoof on one of the tall trees, giving it a gentle push. Snow fell from the bright green palm fronds above us. “The materials said plant life was rare, but this is…”

“It’s a jungle,” I agreed. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised it’s still here. The trees are all as tough as I am.”

“I’m not detecting much activity on the near-field transmitter,” Destiny noted. “It looks like killing the Green’s SIVA core did have an effect!”

“I hope it means my mom isn’t around here,” I said quietly.

“If it helps, I’m pretty sure that’s exactly the case,” Destiny replied. “Last time you two were face-to-face the readings were off the charts. Literally! I had to make new charts! Do you want to see them? No? Your loss.”

“This place kinda sucks,” Midnight said, looking around. We’d set down in a clearing, but there were snow squalls rolling through the area and we hadn’t gotten much of a look at the place from above. We could have been on top of the Cosmodrome or miles off course. “Why didn’t we come here at night? I’m at like, half-strength at best without a good day’s rest.”

“Going into unfamiliar territory at night is a good way to get killed,” Emma retorted. “Not all of us have night vision.”

“Ma’am?” one of the recruits spoke up. “We do all have night vision. It’s built into the armor.”

“It’s a metaphor,” Emma sighed.

“It didn’t sound like--”

“Recruit, I am your superior officer and I’m telling you it was a metaphor!”

“Yes, Ma’am!”

“Anyway, monsters are always more active at night,” Emma said. “In fact, I’d say your average monster is -- what did you say, Midnight? At half-strength during the day?”

“I’m an above-average monster,” Midi said haughtily.

“I don’t think there’s going to be anything worse than raiders around here,” I said. “A bear couldn’t get through the jungle and the windigos I saw were all flying pretty far up. If we stay pretty low we won’t run into them.”

“Assuming the raiders are even alive,” Destiny added. “They were all pretty dependent on SIVA for life support. I wouldn’t be shocked if a lot of them just fell apart after you destroyed the Green Dragon.”

“Dragon? Is there anything we should know?” Zonda asked. I looked over at him. He shrugged. “I didn’t mean to listen in, but it sounds like you’ve been here before. I know you can take care of yourself, but it’s my responsibility to get these kids back home safe after their field trip.”

“You’re right,” I sighed. “Okay, everypony! Listen up!” I clapped my hooves, getting the attention of the half-dozen ponies that were examining the edge of the jungle clearing with a mixture of awe and fear.

“Form up!” Zonda called out, and the young ponies ran over to get in line, saluting. I knew they weren’t that much younger than I was but I couldn’t help thinking of them as a bunch of foals.

Emma walked along the line and stopped at about the middle of the formation. “You don’t have to salute,” Emma called out. “We’re in the field.”

“Sorry, Ma’am!” the recruit next to her yelled, dropping his hoof.

“Chamomile, you’re the expert,” Emma said, looking over at me.

“Right,” I said. “Okay. So the details aren’t important, but this whole place is basically a pre-war experiment gone wrong. It might not seem like it, but the plants can be dangerous.”

“Dangerous how?” Zonda asked.

“Glad you asked,” I said. I stepped over to the edge of the field and grabbed a leaf from a plant growing out of the ground. It was almost as long as my forehoof, and I think it was a yucca plant, but I’d never been all that great at identifying random shrubs, and SIVA had made a few changes too. “You’ll notice the edge on this leaf is silver, and the whole thing is sort of stiff.”

I ran the leaf over the rest of the shrub and it produced a sound like scissor blades and windchimes.

“It’s sharp enough that if you get caught outside of your power armor, it can and will cut you down to the bone,” I explained. “All the plant life here is… infected. Don’t mess around with it. Don’t touch anything you don’t have to, don’t ever eat anything. If you do get infected there’s no cure.”

That wasn’t entirely true. We had a cure, but there was no telling if it would work with these micromachines. The one we’d deployed in Seaquestria only worked because they were specifically from me and I had their command codes. I wasn’t confident the same codes would work on this batch.

“That’s the kind of thing that’s important to know,” Zonda nodded. “Thank you, Warrant Officer. Recruits, no wandering off into the woods!”

“Yes, sir!” they said in unison.

“Chamomile, I’ve got a bearing on where the mirror should be,” Destiny said. “Assuming it hasn’t been moved, destroyed, or generally lost.”

“Good, we can get out of the sun,” Midnight said.

I looked up at the clouds covering the sky from horizon to horizon.

“It’s a metaphor,” Midi said.

“Yes, Ma’am!” I echoed.

---

We flew low over the treetops. It wouldn’t have been impossible to cut a path through the jungle, but it would have been slow and loud and exhausted everypony involved. That probably would have made it really good training for the recruits if not for the constant danger of being sliced to pieces by the infected foliage.

I looked over at DRACO’s screen where it was mapping the area around us, and the computer-controlled rifle chirped a warning half a second after I felt a spark of danger pulse through me. I dove to the side, and tracer fire cracked past me lighting up a streak of high-speed lead from below.

Another shot hit my chest and deflected away. I looked down, spotting something moving on the forest floor through the leaves and snow, ragged irregular pony shapes with enough spikes they might have been going to a porcupine convention.

“Raiders!” I yelled. I pulled my wings in and just dropped like a rock. Bullets whizzed over my head, and I adjusted my trajectory a tiny bit as I entered the trees, slamming through the fronds of a palm tree and coming down right on top of a raider holding a big club and looking very confused in those last moments before he turned into paste.

“Did you get hit?” Emma called out.

“I’m fine!” I said. “Just getting the drop on them! Get it? Because--”

“I got it, thanks!” Emma yelled back, firing beams down into the jungle. In the flashes of light I caught sight of another raider, this one carrying an improvised gatling gun that looked like it had been made by welding four rifles together.

I lined up a shot with DRACO and turned him into paste, my own poor aim augmented by a computer that knew more than I ever would about ballistics. I charged forward and grabbed the four-barreled gun, turning to the forest and opening up.

With the trigger held down, the gun blasted a wide cone of fire, the barrels jiggling around thanks to the loose grip of metal straps and zip-ties holding the arrangement together. I turned slowly, fanning the woods until all four barrels clicked empty.

Everything fell into sudden silence.

“I kinda like this thing,” I said, examining the improvised, janky weapon.

“It’s amazing it didn’t tear itself apart,” Destiny said. “It’s literally trash, Chamomile.”

I made a sad sound, and the ghost sighed.

“Fine, I’ll put it in storage. Just please don’t ever use it again. Hang it up on a wall or something.”

It vanished out of my hooves. DRACO beeped an alert, and I followed its prompting to find a raider leaning against a tree, one hoof over a wound.

“You have no idea who you’re messing with,” the raider groaned, the stallion’s lower jaw made of steel. One of his forehooves ended in a bulky metal talon that was more fit for a griffon than a pony, and patchwork metal armor studded with spikes and painted in bright colors covered his shoulders and chest, though it hadn’t done much to stop him getting a hole in the side.

“Are you guys still working out of the wreck of the Exodus Green?” I asked. His eyes widened in surprise. “I’m just asking because after I killed Fornax and the Green Dragon, you might have decided to relocate.”

“You-- it doesn’t matter!” he snapped. “Our new great leader, the High Warlord Borot is stronger than ever!”

“Can we leave?” Midnight asked from above. I looked up. She was hanging from a tree branch by her tail, somehow. She dropped what she was holding, and about half of a raider landed between me and the stallion I’d been talking to. “These guys are as lame as a one-legged duck, Chamomile.”

“I know,” I said. “They weren’t very impressive last time I was here either.”

“And can we please find someone to drink that isn’t awful?” Midi whined. “I tried getting a quick snack and all these raiders taste terrible! If you’re bitter and inedible, they’re like trying to suck sludge through a straw! Their blood has this awful texture and I couldn’t keep any of it down.”

“That’s probably for the best. They’re all infected with SIVA,” Destiny said. “Some of these enhancements seem surgical, though.”

“By the way, you barely hit anything,” Midi advised me. “You did keep them busy finding cover though! So good work!”

“Thanks,” I sighed.

“When the Warlord gets here, you’ll all be sorry,” the raider groaned. “He’s the biggest, strongest pony there is! He’ll flatten you and make you pay for what you did!”

“Cool,” I said. I gave the stallion a pat on the head. “Next time you see him, ask him how that played out.”

I trotted away, and Midnight dropped down to follow me. I looked up and tried to find a good path back up above the treeline through the thick jungle leaves.

“Are you just going to leave him?” Midnight asked. “That’s how you get ponies swearing revenge and coming back with torches and pitchforks and a whole town full of jerks who were perfectly happy with the arrangement before but get all worked up just because you stole the wrong mare.”

“That’s an incredibly specific observation,” Destiny noted.

“You’d be surprised how often it comes up,” Midnight replied with a shrug. She spread her wings and zipped into the sky with speed I couldn’t match, my own takeoff positively sluggish in comparison.

---

“We’re not the first ones to get here,” Destiny sighed. “I should have known everything would go wrong.”

The BrayTech building didn’t have a sign, not even the company logo. It was squat and close to the ground, and it looked like there’d been trees growing next to it even before the war. It had been built like they didn’t want ponies to notice it. I could imagine ponies going to work or to see a launch at the cosmodrome and passing by the place without even thinking twice about it. It took me a few moments to realize there wasn’t even an obvious front to the building. Every side felt like it was facing away from you and you’d have to go around.

The door Destiny had led us to had the distinct appearance of a back entrance or fire escape. It was also pried open. The recruits were covering the rear so they could, in theory, learn from us. In practice it was so they wouldn’t immediately walk into something that would get them killed.

“That’s just our luck,” I said. “Plus it’s been almost two hundred years since you were here, it can’t be that surprising that somepony would look around.”

“I don’t have to like it,” Destiny grumbled.

Midnight walked ahead of us and stopped in the open doorway. “Would you feel better if I told you there were a bunch of dead ponies in here?”

“Old or…?” Emma asked.

Midnight sniffed the air. “Fresh. Very fresh. The place is covered in blood and most of it hasn’t dried yet.” She gagged. “And it smells rank! These raiders didn’t just roll around in garbage, they’re made out of it!”

“I’ll go first,” I offered. Destiny cast a light spell ahead of us, and I walked into a slaughterhouse. There were probably a dozen raiders here, but I’d have to fit parts together like a big wet stinking puzzle if I wanted to be sure.

“Stars…” one of the recruits whispered. “They got torn apart by some kind of monster!”

“I was hoping we could avoid this kind of thing,” Zonda sighed. “I’m sorry, recruits. This is the harsh truth of life on the surface. Brutal, unpleasant, and often short.”

“Sir?” another recruit asked. “What kind of monster did this?”

“I’m not sure,” Zonda said. He stepped up next to me, looking around. “Not feral ghouls. I don’t think there are any hellhounds this far north?” He looked to me for confirmation. I shrugged.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen a hellhound,” I admitted.

“They’re huge, mutated canines,” Zonda explained. “Thankfully rare, but they can tear through any kind of armor like it wasn’t even there.”

“Neat,” I said.

“Less neat, and more terrifying,” Zonda chuckled. “I’ve seen what they can do to ponies.”

I walked over to the wall. There was something there, a tear in the metal from some kind of huge claw. I put my hoof up against it, gauging the size. “I think I know what did this,” I mumbled. I wasn’t sure if I was happy about it or not. In other circumstances, sure, but with the Enclave troops behind me…

“Oh,” Destiny said, realizing what I was thinking. “You’re right, Chamomile. Maybe we should have the others…?” she trailed off.

“I didn’t think you cared that much about them,” I joked.

“I told you, I’m not tribalist! It was just very soon for me. Once I got to know them, I changed my mind about them.”

“What is it?” Emma asked.

“I need to take point,” I said. “This is all so fresh they’re probably still here, and as long as I’m in front and they see me first, we’ll be good.”

“Who are you talking about?” Emma asked, confused.

“Uh, I think she’s talking about them.” Midi pointed into the gloom. She sounded like she was holding her breath to avoid the stink of the foul blood. I followed where she was looking and something massive stepped out of the dark, a mountain of fur and muscles and teeth and rage.

“What is that thing?!” a recruit shrieked.

“Don’t shoot!” I warned. “It’s okay!”

“How is that okay?!” another one yelled.

I rolled my eyes and stepped in front of the twisted bear. Destiny moved the light so it was shining on me to make sure the monster could see me properly in the dark. “Hey there!”

The monster froze for a moment, then stepped closer slowly and leaned down to sniff at me. It squinted at me, then roared and pulled me into a big hug, powerful arms closing around me in a vice-grip. I heard the other ponies gasp.

“Don’t worry, it’s okay,” I gasped, the beast strong enough that even my reconstructed bones couldn’t stop my breath from being squeezed out of me.

It shifted and started changing shape, muscles and bones twisting and popping. It took only a few moments, and suddenly it wasn’t a half-bear monster holding me and squeezing me tight enough that a normal pony might have ribs broken. It was a zebra, and she was still squeezing hard enough to seriously injure somepony.

“Chamomile!” she yelled happily. “You’re still alive!”

“It’s good to see you to, Two-Bears,” I said. “Everypony, uh, this is Two-Bears. She’s a native, and a friend.”

“And the greatest warrior you know,” she reminded me, letting me go.

“And the greatest warrior I know,” I agreed. “I’m guessing all this is your work?”

“Eh,” she shrugged. “These raiders, they are more annoying than radroaches, aff? They need to be fought. Otherwise, they would get too strong, and this place…” she looked back over her shoulder. “This is a place of darkness. They could not be allowed here.”

“That doesn’t sound good,” I mumbled.

“It is not good,” Two-Bears agreed. “There are things here I cannot touch. I was going to go to the elders to ask for advice, but you have appeared! This is a sign.”

“I’m happy to help,” I said. “I guess I’d better introduce you around. Just be gentle, most of them are new recruits and they’re still learning.”

“Training the next generation of warriors?” Two-Bear smiled. “Perhaps you can help them be less useless than the average pony, aff?”

“I’m Emerald Gleam,” Emma said, offering a hoof to shake. “Chamomile mentioned you. I didn’t expect you to live up to the description.”

“Ah, my legend has even grown beyond the valley,” Two-Bears said with approval, carefully shaking Emma’s hoof. I heard the armor creak from the strain.

Midi leaned in and sniffed Two-Bears. “Hmm…” she considered.

Two-Bears frowned and leaned closer, narrowing her eyes at Midnight.

“Hmmm…” Midi rubbed her chin. “Is this a bad time to say you smell good?”

“You smell like old blood and death,” Two-Bears replied.

“Yeah, I do!” Midnight agreed.

“Chamomile, you know this one is cursed by the old stars of madness and death, aff?” Two-Bears asked. “It is a monster that preys on ponies.”

I nodded. “Yep!”

Two-Bears shrugged. “You keep strange company.”

“I am strange company,” I joked.

“Warrant Officer Chamomile,” Zonda said firmly. “Since you know this zebra, I assume this is the real reason you didn’t want me or my squad investigating the area.”

I turned back to him. Was this going to end in a fight? “What if it is?”

Zonda gave me a stern look. “Then I must salute you. You are a cultured pony and I respect your taste in mares. There is nothing more noble than fighting for those you care about!”

A blush spread across my cheeks. “W-well, I--”

Two-Bears laughed and gave Zonda a slap on the back. “This one is wiser than you, Chamomile! He has a good warrior’s heart!”

“Don’t worry,” Zonda said. “I’ll keep your secret. I understand why you didn’t want to speak about it. Some of the more old-fashioned ponies back home wouldn’t understand.”

“Thanks, I think?” I mumbled, too embarrassed to even think properly.

“If there is a darkness here, it is the Enclave’s job to bring the light of old Equestria and flush it out!” Zonda declared. He knelt down in front of Two-Bears. “My lady, may I ask you to keep my recruits safe while we experienced officers investigate?”

Two-Bears giggled. She actually giggled, like a filly. “I can keep these foals from danger. Perhaps I will teach them a bit so they do not get soft and lazy while you are gone.”

“I would be indebted to you,” Zonda said.

“Make sure Chamomile does not do anything too stupid, aff?” Two-Bears asked. “She is strong, but not wise. If there is danger here, she will find its heart and throw herself at it. It is the way of things.”

“That’s definitely her style,” Emma agreed.

“I don’t need foalsitters,” I grumbled.

“Neg, you are a big, strong pony who needs to be prodded along like a barely-tamed beast,” Two-Bears said. She broke out into a wide grin, showing fangs. “That is what I like about you! When you come back, we will share mead and tales of what you’ve done since you left. I can tell you have seen many battles, and I would hear the tales of them.”

---

I took a careful step into the dark. DRACO actually had a map of the place, so we weren’t going in totally blind, but the gloom was more than just oppressive. There was total darkness that swallowed any light that entered, and even the strongest light was little more than a dim torch in the night.

“Does this remind you of anything?” I asked.

“Winterhoof,” Destiny said. “Hold on.” The Dimension Pliers appeared in a flash of light on my side, opposite DRACO. The forked prongs on the tip vibrated, letting out a soft tone and glow as the tool probed the dark.

“Anything?” I asked.

“Heavy sterile thaum readings,” Destiny confirmed. “Space-time is also becoming non-standard. I think it’s a type of nilmanifold geometry--”

“What does that mean in Equestrian?” Midnight asked. She was staring into the dark, though I was sure she couldn’t see any better than I could.

“There’s literally no easy way to explain it,” Destiny said. “You know how adding one and two is the same as adding two and one?”

“I’m vaguely aware,” Midnight confirmed.

“That’s not true here. In normal space, walking one step forward and two steps left is the same as two steps left and one step forward. In a space twisted into a nilmanifold, they can take you to completely different locations.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Emma said.

“We’ve seen it before,” I said. “There was a powerful force of darkness in Winterhoof and it turned the whole inside of the college into a labyrinth to keep ponies out. If you went in, you’d only get so far and then you’d be ejected from another door back outside.”

“The Dimension Pliers can flatten the space-time around us to keep us from getting lost, but you need to stay relatively close,” Destiny added.

Zonda and Emma shuffled a step closer to me.

“What about the lighting?” Zonda asked.

“Think about it,” Midnight said. “We see things because light bounces back to our eyes, right? If trying to retrace a path means you end up in a different place, it means the rays of light don’t come back.”

“That’s right,” Destiny confirmed. “Good deduction!”

“Sonar isn’t working either,” Midnight sniffled. “I mean, it sort of works, but it’s like white noise and glimpses of things that aren’t really there.”

“Since you’ve encountered this before, how did you--?” Zonda asked. He turned around suddenly before I could answer. “What was-- I thought I heard something back there.”

“I didn’t hear anything, and my ears are way better than yours,” Midnight said. “No offense.”

“None taken,” Zonda said, still looking into the gloom. I stopped so he wouldn’t get too far away.

“It could be in your head,” Emma suggested.

“Unfortunately true,” Destiny agreed. “The Darkness has a way of getting into your mind. It’s psychoactive and extremely dangerous. Star Swirl considered it the enemy of all life.”

“At least I’m in good company,” Zonda said gamely. He straightened up and brushed an imaginary spot of dust off his armor, turning back around. “I apologize if I seem jumpy. I can see why you’re in special forces.”

“You’re doing fine,” I assured him.

“You’re going to die,” the darkness whispered at the same time, a twisted echo of my voice. I saw Emma jump, and I knew it wasn’t just in my head.

“The sterile thaum radiation still isn’t as heavy as it was back at Winterhoof,” Destiny assured me.

I nodded slowly. “That’s good, since I’m pretty sure we almost ended the world that time.”

“Do we turn back?” Zonda asked.

“No,” I decided. “We should get a look at whatever’s causing this, but I think I already know.”

“It would make sense that an extradimensional threat would have some kind of interaction with a dimensional portal,” Destiny agreed. “Don’t worry, everypony. We closed the rift last time and conditions were much worse!”

“I’d find that more encouraging if I didn’t know you,” Emma mumbled. She flicked her ears back at a sound I couldn’t hear.

“Stop,” Midnight whispered, grabbing my wing and tugging. She was staring intently right ahead and I could see it too. There was a shadow there, a patch of darkness that the light wasn’t peeling away, cast by something that wasn’t there.

“What do we do?” Emma hissed.

“It’s either a harmless illusion, or… not,” I explained.

“Right.” Emma fired at it, the beams of her rifles lancing through it and vanishing into the dark, the shadow dissipating around the bright light. “Oh! That worked! I thought I’d just make it angry and it would try to kill Chamomile!”

“Why would it try to kill me if you’re the one shooting it?”

Emma shrugged. “It’s what usually happens.”

“Consider it a compliment,” Midnight said, starting to calm down a little. “If they’re coming after you first, it means they’re afraid of you!”

If my sixth sense had an alarm, it would have blared right at that moment, but the sound of the sterile thaum counter ticking over to the limit would have to do. Something lunged out of the dark, swimming through the air and ejecting clouds of inky blackness around it.

The thing slammed into me with fins that turned into armored talons, shoving me against a wall and snarling. Something that wasn’t quite light, like the bright spot in the middle of a shadow, pulsed down its form, showing seams between hexagonal, armored plates. A scarred beak snarled in my face with eyes that opened into pits of even deeper darkness.

“Chamomile…” Shore Leave’s shade growled. He was even stronger now than he had been in life, his talons managing to pin my hooves back against the wall.

“You’re pretty spry for a dead guy,” I joked, trying to fight out of his grip, but he had leverage and, more importantly, he was some kind of psychic projection and didn’t need to obey laws of physics.

“Hah!” Midnight called out, swiping through his form with a blade made of something like glass hosting a tangle of red veins of light, somewhere between a circuit and a circulatory system. The shade’s flesh parted around it, sliding back together around the wound, unharmed. “Okay, that’s a little weird.”

“I got this one!” Destiny called out. Magic surged through my spine and made me shiver, a bolt of hot light launching from the armor’s horn and blasting Shore Leave’s head off. The body fragmented, falling apart into ashes that seemed to sink through the floor instead of landing on it.

“See? They go right for her,” Emma said.

“It’s not fair that I have to worry about enemies I already killed once,” I grumbled, shaking my left hoof to try and get feeling back into it. Shore Leave had squeezed it pretty hard, and it felt like the armor hadn’t stopped him. Cold radiated from where he’d touched me.

“It seems like whatever that was, a magic attack worked against it,” Zonda noted.

“Beam rifles should work okay,” I said.

“But not my sword,” Midnight said, annoyed. She looked at her glass weapon and sighed, sheathing it in a concealed nook under her folded wing. “I never liked using guns.”

“Because they’re unrefined, and swords are a weapon from a more elegant age?” Zonda asked.

“Nah. They’re just a hassle. You spend some time finding one you like and a century later when you need to use it, it’s all jammed up and rusty and no one makes ammunition for it any more!”

“Proper maintenance is important,” Zonda agreed. “I drill it into all of my recruits. Beam weapons use rechargeable spark batteries, but nothing lasts forever. Components wear out, batteries overheat and lose capacity.”

“That’s why magic knives made of ursa major bones are the way to go,” Midnight said smugly. “They never even need sharpening. Just leave them out under the stars and they repair themselves.”

“We can compare knives later,” I said. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

There was a security door in the wall that looked like it should have been protecting a vault full of gold bars and gems.

“Alicorn-proof,” Destiny explained. “Sunset was worried that, ah, somepony might come looking for her. You’d never get through without me.”

Her magic danced over the pad next to the door. It flashed an error.

“What?” she asked, annoyed. “Come on!”

Destiny entered her codes again, and it errored out.

“Didn’t this happen in the other base too?” Emma asked. “Maybe you should have updated your password.”

“You’d better hope my codes work, because otherwise we can’t get in,” Destiny grumbled, trying a third time. “Locked out for fifteen minutes?! What?!”

“Maybe there’s another way through,” I suggested. “Can we blast the walls?”

“No. They’re even stronger. There’s no point in a security door if the walls aren’t just as strong,” Destiny mumbled, deep in thought.

“We could try being polite and knocking,” Zonda joked, rapping on the door with a hoof. The sound echoed strangely, and the vault door swung open on silent hinges. All of us stepped back, a surge of fear washing through us.

“It’s not supposed to do that, is it?” Midnight whispered.

“No, it shouldn’t even be possible,” Destiny whispered back.

“Did I ever mention how much I love going on adventures with you, Chamomile?” Emma asked. “Because I really shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Sorry,” I mumbled.

“Let’s just go,” Midnight said. “We wanted in, we’re going in, right?”

“Right,” I agreed. “So who wants to go first?”

---

“This is it,” Destiny said, as we walked across the wide room. “Looks like we were right. The mirror is the source.”

The circle of light around us had gotten visibly smaller, but there was a kind of un-light in the room, less like really seeing and more like there was a texture on the absolute blackness. You know when you close your eyes and you can sort of see shapes and shimmering in the dark? It was like that, but coming into focus. Directly ahead of us, I could see a tall rectangle in the dark, casting its own dim glow.

“Are we going to destroy the mirror?” Zonda asked.

“No,” I said. “That would be way too easy. We need to go through to the other side.”

“I hate to be the one to say this, but it’s entirely possible the location has changed,” Destiny said. “The mirror never did this before. It had some strange properties, but most of them were intentional. The last time we saw this kind of… what did Star Swirl call it? A paracausal ontopathogenic force? Last time, we were in Limbo, and that seemed like the source. It might lead there, now.”

“Could that happen?” I asked, watching the unsteady glow ahead of us.

“I have no idea. We never tried to get the mirror to go anywhere else, but it’s a magical artifact. Two centuries sitting alone wouldn’t do anything, but interacting with radiation from nearby megaspell detonations? I can’t even guess. Sunset had some way to probe what was going on on the other side, but I never learned the spell.”

“You’d better decide what we’re doing fast,” Emma said. “I don’t think we’re welcome here.”

Groaning came from the dark, and shambling shapes lumbered closer. Half-molten things like skeletons burning with black fire wearing dripping tar instead of skin. The things from Stable 83. Maybe the Darkness had heard me spooking the recruits with the story.

“I didn’t come here to give up,” Midnight said. “I’m going through the portal.”

“I think I’d rather take my chances on the other side than fight my way out,” Emma agreed. “Zonda, you don’t have any obligation to help. If you run for it, you can probably make it out to get the recruits and leave.”

“I wouldn’t leave you ladies in the lurch,” Zonda said. “I came to set an example for my recruits, and running with my tail between my legs isn’t what I want to teach them. We’re all stronger together than we are apart!”

“It’s settled, then,” Destiny said. “We’ll make a run for it. I never went through myself, but I’ve heard from experience that it’s extremely disorienting on the other side because of some… local conditions.”

“Don’t I get a say?” I asked.

“You’d never turn down an opportunity to get in more trouble,” Destiny joked. “I already know you want to take a chance on the portal.”

“I hate you’re right,” I replied with a grin. “Everypony follow me!”

I bolted for the portal, and since everypony else was faster than I was, none of them lagged behind. The unnamed undead horrors lunged for us, but we broke through, ducking around and over them. It wasn’t until later that I realized they closed up behind us and herded us towards the portal on purpose.

I jumped for the dimensional rift, and wasn’t prepared for what happened next.

Comments

[Thought Prism]

Oh boy, do we get to see the human world? Also, eyyy, Two-Bears is back!

[star1wars3]

Human Chamomile, Human Chamomile, Human Chamomile!

[Reese]

I continue to enjoy this story; thank you for writing. :)