My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic: Heart of Friendship

by ShadowDurza

Chapter 14: As Below, So Way-Below

“Grand District. End of the line. Or the beginning, depending on how you want to think about it.”

Twilight stepped forward from the trolley, at first with an expression of finality. Then, she turned back to her friends with a warm smile. “Everypony ready?”

Rainbow Dash flew forward and clopped her hooves together. “You know it!”

Applejack straightened her hat. “Always, friend!”

Rarity elegantly flipped her mane. “We’ve come this far, we might as well go all the way, darling.”

Pinkie Pie giggled as she stepped forward. “Absolutely!”

Fluttershy smiled and nodded.

Twilight nodded herself and turned towards the terminal’s exit and trotted outside followed by her friends.

This sector was radically different from the rest. The lights were so plentiful that it was easy to mistake them for real daylight. Marble fineries decorated the land in all directions, between which was covered in a grass-like moss. In the distance, countless mansions dotted the landscape for miles around.

Rarity’s eyes sparkled at the sight of it all. “They weren’t kidding when they named it the Grand District! It’s all so… so… grand!”

Fluttershy, on the other hand, frowned at the sight of it all. “You’d think if they have enough to build all this, they could afford to share some with the less fortunate.”

Suddenly, Applejack’s eyes grew wide as she spotted something coming down the road. “Don’t look now darlins, but I think we’ve got company!”

They all turned to look down the stone-slab way as they spotted eight figures marching towards them in an orderly fashion. As the ponies braced themselves, they got a better look as they came to a halt in front of them. They each wore dark suits with mirrored sunglasses and a gold badge with the image of an obelisk-like tower surrounded by five rings on the ground inscribed onto them. Each of them also carried an arrowgun holstered onto their side and a long dagger strapped across their lower backs.

One of them stepped forward. “Princess Twilight Sparkle, you have been recognized as an official diplomatic agent of the surface world. We agents represent the Central Administration of the city-state of Core Metro. We regret to inform you that at this late hour, all facilities are closed for the night. However, we shall offer you all rooms at our city’s finest hotel to rest for the night and grant you the opportunity to meet with our most noble High Director in the morning.

Applejack looked away as she held her hoof to her chin. “Is it night already? Honestly, it's hard to tell down here.”

Rainbow Dash held her head low, bags below her eyes. “With all the action we’ve seen today, time just flew by.”

Pinkie Pie bounced in place with an excited look. “Well, even after all that, I don’t feel tired at-” However, she immediately stopped in a crouched position and loudly yawned.

Twilight giggled and trotted up to the agents. “That sounds lovely, we accept your accommodations!”

The agent adjusted his glasses and started turning around. “Excellent. Follow us please.”

The ponies followed the lead agent as the rest of them moved to encircle them.

***

“Goodnight Fluttershy, goodnight Rarity, goodnight Pinkie, Goodnight Rainbow Dash, Goodning Applejack.”

The other ponies each sounded off as they entered their rooms. Twilight floated her plastic card up to the door handle, which unlocked with a click. She opened it with her magic and trotted in, laying herself upon the bed and draping the covers over her body. With a tap of the hooves, the lights went out and she closed her eyes.

However, not long after the lights went out, an inky black shadow started flowing from the window. It slithered across the floor moving and warping to surround Twilight’s bed. Soon it started moving up the sides and enveloping her whole body. Her eyes shot open and she soon started struggling to free herself from her entrapments, but she could barely move at all, she could barely even breathe. Soon, everything went black…

…Twilight gasped as she was suddenly freed from whatever force had previously bound her. She looked around and found that all of her friends had seemingly shared her fate.

She rushed up to her disoriented friends. “Girls! Are you all okay?”

Applejack was the first to get her bearings. “That was worse than getting covered in mud trying to give a feverish hog his medicine!”

Fluttershy was clearly panicking. “I thought… I was… going to…”

However, Rainbow Dash and Rarity moved to either side of her to offer comfort. “I don’t know what that was, but a better question is, where are we now?”

Rarity looked around with a look of concern. “One thing’s for sure, we definitely aren’t in the Grand District anymore.”

The buildings surrounding them were run down and crumbling. The lights were scarce and gave an impression of things hiding in the shadows looking at them. However, down the crack and pothole-filled road was slithering a patch of somehow even darker darkness.

Twilight pointed down the way with her hoof. “Follow that shadow!”

The ponies took off, galloping down the shabby path. Along their way, they occasionally passed humans, some lying by the side of the road, some with crying children, and some gathered around a fire, roasting meager victuals. What they all had in common was that they were wearing what Rarity would politely call, “Extremely second-hoof clothes.”

At the end of the road, they came to a very large building with a pair of big doors providing the only entrance. The mass of shadow slithered up to the base of the doors and started swirling in place, causing the party of ponies to stop in place. Soon, a human with tan skin, bright orange eyes, and long silver hair emerged from the swirling shadow. He was clearly dressed in underworlder attire, but unlike the Grunts or even the Administrators, his armor was painted solid black.

He looked at the ponies with an indiscernible expression, then gave them a polite bow. “Welcome, Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Fluttershy, and Rarity. We’ve been expecting you.”

Rainbow Dash flew ahead and pointed her hoof at the human with a harsh expression. “No formalities! Who are you and why did you bring us here?”

The underworlder raised from his bow and gestured to the doors. “My name is Durza and you have been summoned to meet with the Boss of the Underworlders.”

Twilight trotted forward, extended her wings, and lit up her horn. “And if we refuse?”

Durza held up his fingers. “I’m afraid you don't have a say in the matter.” Durza snapped his fingers. Emerging from the shadowy corners surrounding them was the group’s least favorite humans in order: Mort hefting his scythes with an insincere smile, Katrina brandishing her lance and flipping her curly ponytail, Crazy Joe menacingly swinging around his spiked ball from its chain, and Mummy maniacally laughing as he revved his circular saw.

Each of the ponies raised their guards, but all had uneasy looks on their faces. Durza meanwhile, extended his hands and in them appeared a long, dark blue scythe in a flash of blue and black light. “Come along, my little ponies, we’d best not keep the Boss waiting for each of our own sakes.”

Durza turned and opened the doors, walking in. Twilight turned to her friends as he lowered her wings and snuffed the glow from her horn. “Come on girls, it seems the only way out is through.” She turned back around and cantered through the doors with the other ponies anxiously following along surrounded by the Underworlder Administrators.

As they passed through the starly bright halls, they noticed many Underworlder Grunts lining the walls that looked upon them with contempt and suspicion, many of which appeared to be nursing injuries.

Eventually, they made it to a very large room with several large rugs covering the concrete. When they made it to the center, they noticed that at the back, a large figure was lounging with their back to them on a patched and fraying couch listening to music with heavy bass from some speakers as a light on a table emitted multiple colors as it spun.

Suddenly, Durza slowly swung his scythe around and pointed it at the ponies, causing them to slightly rear back. “You lot stay here.”

He walked up to the figure and made his weapon disappear. “Boss, I’ve brought you the ponies, as you’ve requested.”

The figure raised a remote control and turned off the music. Then he rose up from his seat. As he approached them, Twilight a pressure in the air similar to when she first faced formidable foes from the past. He was wearing some of the finest armor even Rarity had ever seen, pure black with an intricate gold trim that fit his form almost unnaturally well. His helmet had no eye holes or visor, but in the center of the forehead emerged two golden horns that curled back and around his head like a ram’s. From his shoulders hung a cape of the darkest black fabric that artistically tattered at the other end.

After an uncomfortably long silence, he raised his hand and made a beckoning gesture. “Well, come on, don’t you have anything to say for yourselves?”

Twilight stepped forward with a determined look and raised her head and wings high. “I am Princess Twilight Sparkle of Equestria, and I swear to you that no matter what you intend to do to us, we will refuse any demands you make! And if you want a fight, we’ll give you one you’ll never forget, one we intend to win at all costs!”

There was another pause, then the Underworlder Boss started laughing, first only slightly, then it progressively grew louder and heartier. Pinkie Pie was an expert on laughter, and what weirded her out was that this kind of laugher was the complete opposite from what she expected from this kind of person. Unlike the cruel, maniacal mirth that came from the countless villains they faced before, this was the hearty, jolly laughter of one who loved life and lived to love. Even Durza and the Administrators looked awkward and somewhat embarrassed at this display.

Once this laughter ceased, he gave out a satisfied sigh and made a gesture with his fingers, causing the group of couches at the end of the room to be covered in an undulating darkness and get dragged to surround the group.

The Underworlder Boss was the first to take a seat. “That’s not what I meant at all! Come on! Sit down and tell me about yourselves! What you do, who you know, and most of all: What life on the surface is like!”

When the ponies were struck dumb by this statement, frozen in place, the Underworlder Boss snapped his fingers. “I’m afraid that wasn’t a request.” The Administrators and Durza brandished their weapons and their magic at the ponies. Several squads worth of Grunts suddenly started flooding the room, doing the same.

The ponies quickly zipped to different seats and sat down. Twilight soon cleared her throat. “Well, we all come from a place called Ponyville…”

Over the next couple of hours, Twilight and the others began sharing their lives’ stories with the Underworlder Boss. Each of her friends chiming in to offer their perspectives and any parts of their history they had the best experience with. The Underworlder Boss only interrupted to either ask a question, or to ask them to describe in heavy detail about natural phenomena absent from the Heart of the World.

“...and then Starswirl showed us the Drum of Mending, and the next morning we used it. That’s how we ended up in this cavern.”

The Underworlder Boss bent forward and placed his chin above his clasped fingers. “And you really have no idea what drove our ancestors so far underground?”

Twilight sighed. “I came down here thinking your people would know. I guess it’s just going to be another one of history’s mysteries.”

There was an awkwardly long pause, then the Underworlder Boss leaned back on his seat. “Well, since you’ve told me so much, I guess you deserve to hear a bit about my little organization and where you are.” The Underworlder boss then sat straight up. “The cavern is a very dangerous place, so we built that wall to keep the danger out. But that made expanding the city problematic. So instead of building outward, we decided to build on top of the older, run-down buildings. This resulted in the creation of this underground Lost District.

“Anyone that this city casts aside tends to wind up here, and about ten years ago, I came down here and claimed this District as my own. After the people started accepting me as their leader, I had little choice but to use the many passageways to the Districts above to forcefully take enough food, water, and other essentials to make sure the poor people living down here could go on another day.

“Soon after that, the few down here capable of fighting began to recognize my strength and started following my example, and eventually an entire organization formed around me. I took the most promising among them and trained them up as strong as I could.” He then pointed at Durza. “But so far, only he’s managed to reach the Top-Class.”

Twilight momentarily showed a look of concern. Then she scowled at the Underworlder Boss. “I can understand why you do what you do, but that doesn’t justify hurting innocents!”

Many of the underworlders around her started aggressively pointing their weapons at her, but the Boss merely chuckled. “I ain’t gonna lie, you’re right about that. It’s a cruel world, but that doesn’t mean my actions can be pardonable. It’s just that most people would rather be alive than be right, the only difference is the lies we tell ourselves.”

Twilight leaned back with a confused look. “Well, I guess that’s good to hear. If that’s all you wanted, then may we please be returned to where we came from?”

After yet another pause, the Underworlder Boss got up from his seat. “I’m afraid not, Princess.”

Twilight looked around as the Underworlders started backing away. “What?”

The Underworlder Boss sighed. “You see, even after everything you’ve told me, I still can’t believe you’d come down here and try to get all of us to follow you back to the surface just for friendship’s sake. But that’s probably on me. Y’see, among humans, we have a legend that warriors are able to exchange their feelings in the truest, purest way by exchanging blows. And when you’re a warrior as battle-hardened as I am, it becomes the only way you can truly understand others.”

With a gesture, Durza’s shadow extended across the floor and encircled the furniture, causing it all to sink into nowhere, forcing the Ponies back on their hooves. Twilight gritted her teeth and extended her head forward. “You really can’t expect us to fight you for no reason!”

The Underworlder Boss extended his hand and in a glimmer of darkness appeared a sheathed sword. He placed the sheath to his hip and drew the blade with his other hand, revealing a solid-black katana. “Well, we’re not going to let you escape, and I’m going to start attacking without hesitation. If you don’t fight back, that’s on you. But to give you a handicap, we’ll do it League-style. First to ten points wins, and I’ll even let you all attack me at once and count even a touch with a hoof as a clean hit.”

Seeing no other options, the Ponies braced themselves for battle as the Underworlder Boss took his sword in both hands, pointing it outward.