Evergreen Falls

by Meep the Changeling

19 - Antici…

Junebug - 19th of Harvestide (Nightmare Night), 4 EoH
CARE Armory No. 22 - Hackamore Valley

June couldn’t help but be a little confused. Despite being made a Mare-At-Arms for an emergency involving the possible escape of what sure as heck sounded like a fate and/or reality manipulating monster, they were not exactly ‘Loading for bear’ as they saying goes.

Firearms were offered, but nothing heavy. No rocket launchers or grenades (understandable given the underground environment), no spell staves or wands, at least not the military grade ones and no machine guns. June had been pretty sure that Raven or Luna had mentioned the ancient ruins had active defenses.

Of the five, Sam had selected the most weapons. A shotgun, an older model battle rifle, a pistol, and ‘any combat knife with a blade over sixteen centimeters’, which seemed to have gotten her a stick of glowing sharpened rebar somepony had smashed into a knife shape one afternoon. June’s best guess was she was recreating her old military kit.

The only other pony to accept the offer of a gun was, surprisingly enough, Fluttershy, who chimed in requesting a TAC-9. The quartermaster’s catalog included some. Fluttershy took eight magazines, “Because I know I can shoot it, and we’re expecting problems up top to pop up.” It was hard to dispute her logic or cute phrasing.

Fortunately for June and Violet, weapons less categorizable as ‘military hardware’ were also available. June had requested a pair of bottled clouds so she could conjure lightning as needed. Violet had discovered a set of weighted boots featuring kinetic amplification enchantments and fallen in love.

The weirdest thing, in June’s opinion, was the quartermaster had to personally go into the walled off section of the armory to get each of their requested weapons, while all of their other supplies were just… There, on shelves. To pick up.

Breaching charges, self-securing ropes, selective-visibility flares, a zipline launcher, chemical satchels that could dissolve rock, full air supply gas masks, everything a pony might want for working in a cave full of melted ancient rock.

At least the detonators are stored separately from those bombs and we’ve got good armor, June thought to content herself.

Indeed, the others’ armor was excellent. Violet, Sam, and Fluttershy were each issued a level IV spell-resistant vest to go under their ballistic vests, a set of grieves for leg protection, a flack skirt for flank coverage, and a nice sturdy looking helmet. The helmets were particularly nice, featuring all of the standard STF goodies like an integrated invisible lamp, integrated messenger stone, anti-hypnotic visors, and an illusion projection system to let the visor double as a display.

As Cadence had feared, June did not fit into the stock STF armor. Though her head did fit the helmet, after a little kinetic refactoring from Luna.

Which is great, since Princess Cadence’s old armor comes with the butchest Tiaria ever and I think that might be her actual crown and I’m pretty sure putting that on would be instant jail for me… June thought to herself while staring at the old armor harness and collection of neon pink plates. Entirely lost as to how to put any of it on.

Everypony else had gone into the other room to pick out miscellaneous supplies, having easily slipped into their modern armor without a care in the world. June picked up what she assumed to be part of the armor’s peytral, wondering why it was so much more articulated than any armor she’d ever studied in school.

She spent nearly a minute pondering the straps, buckles, links, and plates, trying to mentally piece things together before hearing Cadence clear her throat behind her.

“I’m sorry. I forgot you need a squire to put that old thing on. Newer ones put themselves on for you. Let me help,” the alicorn said more than offered as she moved to June’s side.

“Why is the harness so… Different?” June asked, blinded to the obvious by her education.

Cadence giggled. “Because that’s not an armor harness. That’s an old courting number I loved to wear into fights and had the royal smith find a way to make work as an armor harness for a stupid war I got into.”

Cadence lit her horn and began to pick up the various straps, connecting and buckling them without conscious thought until she’d assembled what was now quite obviously a dominatrix’s harness.

June’s face turned bright red. “O—Oh… I, uh. Uh—”

Cadence bent down just enough to whisper into June’s ear. “It’s okay, I know everything you’re into just by, well, being me. No judgment here. And if you’re worried about it being a little used, I made sure Mint cleaned it.”

June’s face continued to get increasingly red as she slipped into the old leather straps. Oh wow these are soft. This was really well cared for. I just wish it didn’t make me think about what she did besides fight in this.

Cadence snickered and cracked a grin. “Are you grossed out because I might have slept with a few stallions in that?”

June’s ears feel all the way back. “Is it possible for you to not read my mind?”

“No, sorry,” Cadence said with surprising sincerity. “I automatically know everypony’s heart’s desires and current distresses in a certain radius around me. Seriously all of them, all the time. It’s fine. I meant it when I said she cleaned it. Also I didn’t sleep with anypony in that one. It was just daily wear. Not remotely detachable enough for my standards at the time for slutty bedroom clothes. They were way higher back then.”

“Oh, so you meant cleaned as in, like, sweat and blood and mud and junk?” June asked, refusing to think about anything other than getting ready because now was so not the time to be focusing on things that would make her grab Enox and run for a bathroom.

“Yes.”

June sighed in relief. “Thank buck.”

“Ha! Not in this armor.” Cadence lit her horn again and started to clip each plate to the harness, fastening them to each other as well. “Nopony will know it’s using anything other than a normal harness underneath. That’s where the fun was for me with this whole thing. Well, that and the fighting. That was a fun war.”

June’s ears perked. “So, how much fighting have you done? Like, in this. How safe is it?”

“Pretty darn,” Cadence remarked offhoof before picking up one of the belly plates and showing it to June.

The plate had an odd off-color line across it, as if something had punctured it and it had then been repaired.

“I did die in this once,” Cadence reminisced. “But—”

June gave Cadence a deadpan look powerful enough to silence the 500 year old warrior-princess.

“The buck you did,” June said accusingly.

“Pardon?”

“You’re alive. So—”

Cadence laughed and shook her head. “I’ve died about ten times. Alicons have a way of coming back. We can be put down for good, especially lesser ones like me… But I have a deal with Dusk so I’m covered for one death per case of beer,” she elaborated.

June raised an eyebrow. “It’s that easy to get resurrected? You just have to promise Death some beers?”

“Yes,” Cadence answered instantly.

June’s skeptical eyebrow ascended ever higher.

Cadence rolled her eyes. “She’s almost literally a tired retail worker who happens to work in the afterlife. She wants beer, snacks, movie tickets, company, the occasional buck from a nice mare and really rarely a dommy twink, and sometimes furniture. Like, think about what would be a nice gift for any of your friends and she’ll totally take that in exchange for bringing you back to life.”

Cadence paused for a moment to emphasize the catch. “IF, she likes you enough to talk to you. If not, you’re just sorted with the rest of the files. So to speak.”

June nodded. That explains it… But why me?

“You’re gay, pink, cute, and have a cool degree,” Cadence answered, sensing June’s true and full desire to know why Dusk had spoken to her. “She has a type. Note how I’m bi, pink, used to be cute, and while degrees were not a thing when I was a filly, I was highly educated.”

“Ah,” June said with a nod, fully comprehending everything.

“Yeah,” Cadence said, smiling. “She also likes warriors of any kind, male or female or other. Nerds who would chill with her and watch her shows. Or anypony particularly interesting.”

June nodded, wondering for a moment why the plates being fastened to her didn’t seem to weigh anything. Her eyes brightened when she remembered the armor was magic, and ancient, and she was getting to use it!

“So um, what made that hole?” June asked as Cadence attached the mended plate to her belly.

“This hole here is from the first time I fought King Sombra. He came back briefly before the time Twilight killed him for good. I drove him back into his pocket realm, but he got me good with a fancy spear. Powerful sundering enchantment. Hit like a meteor! No other physical weapon has ever pierced these plates… Though plenty have found gaps after the wards were disrupted. And I regret the lack of a helmet. I’ve got some nice scars under these illusions thanks to that dumb idea.”

June found herself looking up at Cadence’s face while the older mare buckled her breastplate on. I don't’ see any scar—

Cadence’s ears drooped with embarrassment. “Oh! Hold on.”

She quickly canceled her spell, causing her entire body to ripple as an expertly crafted illusion fell away, revealing a more toned and fit build than the plain-jane mare-who-eats-right figure Cadence had possessed a moment before. More notably, she had plenty of scars, most visible as slight gaps in her fur, but some large enough to be a furless-pink streak of skin. Most notably the two across her barrel where a pair of axes had been embedded in her chest, and a thick scar across her right eye that ran down along her nose.

“Well damn,” June couldn’t help but whistle. “You look badflank! Why hide that?”

Cadence simply smiled and recast her illusion. “Because few mares think I’m sexy as I truly am,” she admitted. “I’m not just a warrior. I’m a woman too. I want to look pretty, and I can do so while keeping my reminders to not do that stupid horseapples ever again. Because boys tend to love discovering them under the glamor.”

Cadence finished assembling the breastplate and June looked down, biting her lip to hold in an excited squeal as she noticed the armor fit her exactly… and failed.

“Nheeeee! Oh, my, Cadence! It’s like a second skin!” June squealed, hopping hoof to hoof with joy for a moment, fluttering her wings.

Cadence snorted and began to strap the plot armor onto June. “You do know it’s weird to swear by somepony who's next to you, right?” Cadence teased.

June’s blush returned. “Oh. Um. Sorry…”

“It’s cool! Luna and I like it, actually. She finds it respectful of her due position, and I like feeling like I’m stealing worship from the old Gods. Though if you want to swear by my love, wrath, or courage, that will, like, actually empower me a bit. Just an FYI.”

June’s eyes widened. “Really? That works on alicorns?”

“Mhm… The others don’t believe me, but it does. See, they’re so insanely powerful, the difference a prayer makes is nothing to them. To little old me, even one pony truly believing in those aspects of mine can be the difference between life and death, sometimes.”

June nodded and filed that away for later. Cadence quickly finished with the plot plate and began to enclose the rest of June’s hindquarters, only to whinny in surprise. “Woah! Your tits are huge, but just squish right on in there, like mine were half your size when I wore this, and you’re not even flinching! Who's the badflank now?”

June elected not to mention that was all due to alien technology. “I uh… I don’t think that will remain true unless this armor has a codpiece.”

“It does, I needed one at the time,” Cadence answered completely causally. “I think this set is from when I first tried out having both. I’ve come to prefer it since it means I have something to offer everypony… But Shiny is, well, very gay. With an exception for me for whatever reason. Anyways, he was a bit squeamish about having to do anything with a pussy, so I just got rid of it for now. Not a big deal, it’s just for one lifetime.”

June flinched, shivering since the issue hit deep for her, given she’d grown up 'uncomfortable in her skin’.

“That’s… That’s not okay! You guys should talk about it.”

Cadence shook her head and shrugged her wings. “It’s genuinely fine. It's not a long time… Not for me, anyway. I’m happy that he’s happy, literally. Conventional psychology doesn't work for empaths. Besides, it’s also just not a long time for me. I’m old enough to have seen ten generations come and go. Heck, I’m so old and have had so many kids you have a two percent chance of being related to me.”

June frowned. “Wait, seriously?”

“Mhm!” Cadence said with a sharp nod. “I’ve had two hundred and fifty three. Most of them in my first three centuries.”

“Huh. Neat,” June mused. “Is it really two percent?”

“No, it’s like one point eight six three something,” Cadence said with a dismissive snort. “I plan on working up towards two with my next spouse, and beat my one true rival. Green eyes… Jokes aside, I had a scholar do the math of population growth and track family trees. I’ve got a book of all my living descendants back home. Haven't gotten to finish it though. Too many more important things… Even if I would like to plan the mother of all family reunions just to watch the logistics happen. There! Armor’s all on.”

June smiled and made use of a nearby polished metal locker to admire her reflection. The armor fit her like a glove, protecting everything of hers from the neck down while making her look more like a robot with a fur-covered head than a pony in a suit of armor. It was sleek, master crafted, form fitting, and shimmered with protective and stealth boosting enchantments even in the armory’s dim light.

I look a lot like Cadence in this, actually! June noted, her tail lifting in surprise.

Cadence grinned and walked around June, admiring her. “That’s better… This suit was meant to be used. I always feel bad when my old arms just languish in the armory. It suits you. Heck, the metal dye matches your fur perfectly. Did you pick out a fur dye from my collection intentionally?”

June blinked and shyly looked between her reflection and Cadence’s fur several times. “U— Um… No? I— I grabbed the only color on the shelf and my heart said ‘this is me’ when I looked at it. Brown was wrong. I used to be brown… Outside anyways. I’ve always wanted to be pink.”

Cadence nodded with satisfaction and fluttered her wingtips. “Well! She’s back on an adventurous tomboy heading into danger… You know what? You’re missing part of the ensemble. I’ll be right back!”

Before June could protest, Cadence vanished in a bright flash of light which made June instantly appreciate Luna’s preference for shadow stepping.

Cadence returned forty seconds later, blinding June again right as she’d managed to blink the last of the spots out of her eyes from the first teleport.

“Back! And I’ve got a new friend for you,” Cadence said as she levitated a small, delicate, but quite deadly looking battle axe towards June.

The axe blazed with an inner fire, radiant and warm. Without touching the seemingly ordinary looking weapon, June could feel the essence of love, hope, and courage infused in its form. Its simple wootz steel head shimmered with the warmth of a literal inner fire and the unyielding strength of a warrior's resolve. There was no mistaking that axe.

June swore her heart stopped. “B—But— but that’s Heartfire! It belongs in a museum!”

“It belongs on a young mare’s waist, or in her hoof splitting the skulls of monsters and cutting the malicious down to size,” Cadence countered, simply sticking the priceless Equestrian artifact onto June’s back where her armor’s smart magnets could grab hold of the weapon.

The moment it made contact, June could feel the weapon’s power. The uncountable years of attunement to Cadence herself infused within the weapon reached out, stroking June’s heart and whispering to her mind of the true joy and wonders of… Everything. Literally everything.

“But!” June objected, starting to stammer. “B— But— But I—”

Cadence bent down to look June in her eyes. “Junebug. Fate of the town. Maybe the world. I can’t go below with you. But I can send you down with an itty bitty piece of me… Okay not really, I forged her from the scales of a dragon I loved dearly. But she’s infused with—”

“You! I know, I can feel it!” June said, shivering slightly. “H— How can you stand being—”

“Turned on all the time? You get used to it.”

“No, interested in everything!” June lamented, her ears drooping. “I get being horny like, always. That’s just me. But I can feel what it’s like to enjoy playing sports and that is so tripping me out!”

Cadence blinked twice, smiled, and gently booped June’s nose. “Focus on the infinite passion for the things you like, it drowns the rest out.”

June closed her eyes and centered herself, focusing on learning, reading, sci-fi, fantasy, Enox—

The axe’s whispers became screams to go into the other room and tackle her marefriend.

June eeped and focused on archeology.

“Also, it helps if you think about the mission,” Cadence added as she remembered one of the reasons she had stopped using the old weapon.

June nodded and focused on the task at hoof. There was a cave to enter, a city to explore, a pedestal to find, and a dark power to stop.

The axe began to radiate an irrational joyful delight at the idea of going on an adventure. June could feel it trusted her implicitly to take it directly into danger so it could take her out of the danger. With extreme prejudice and hopefully some sick backflips.

June gulped and looked over her shoulder at the axe. “Is… Is this alive?”

Cadence coughed into her hoof then shyly whispered into June’s ear. “I grew up in Prance, so I’m not bothered by necromancy. My first wife wanted to stick with me after she died, so I put a fragment of her soul into it… That’s not really her, just a dim echo. Enough to have some of that old hellfire in it, and some opinions. Sometimes thoughts. It’s okay. Don’t worry about it. Just let her guide your swings.”

June took the axe off her back, held it and looked at it, focusing on it as much as she could. “Can I… Talk to her?”

Cadence shook her head. “No, but I can. Our kids could too, but there’s not enough of her in there to resonate with anyone else. Like I said, just a fragment. Its okay, I promise you she’d love to go on an adventure like—”

June nodded. “Yeah, she… Sort of said that.”

Cadence’s eyes widened. “I’m sorry?”

“Just, you know. I felt that with the rest of the youness she’s making me feel while I hold her,” June mentioned off hoof, a little too blown away by being decked out in legendary relics to put the pieces together.

Cadence’s face slowly filled with nothing less than pure joy.

A short unicorn stallion wearing a blue t-shirt with ‘quartermaster’ printed on it carrying a large bundle of firearms and saddle bags came up to June just as Cadence opened her mouth to speak.

“Doctor Junebug, here’s your cloud bottles and climbing kit,” he said, levitating the items in question onto June’s back for her since he had telekinesis and she didn’t.

“Thanks!” June said, with a happy smile before magnetizing the axe back onto her shoulder blade. “Thanks, Princess. I appreciate everything, and I’ll do my best to make sure we get things done.”

The quartermaster trotted into the other room to continue handing out the boomsticks and bangorbs.

Cadence smiled kindly. “Great, but—”

“June!” Sam called from the other room. “Luna’s back, we gotta go!”

June nodded and looked over to Cadence. “One sec, the Princess is trying to—”

Cadence pushed June towards the door to the other room at the speed of a mare who had upset one too many sargents. “Go! It’s fine! I’ll tell you later. I have a book to check first anyways.”

“Okay, but—” June began only to find herself scooped up and set down on a simple wooden bench in the adjoining store room next to several large dimensionality transcendent saddlebags filled with heaps of MREs and water bottles.

⁜ ⁜ ⁜

Ultra Violet - 19th of Harvestide (Nightmare Night), 4 EoH
CARE Armory No. 22 - Hackamore Valley

Violet found herself to be quite excited. Sure, there was danger ahead. Danger which meant going back into a dark underground cave made of suck and horribleness and hopefully less slime than the ruins she’d crawled out of… But everypony got to play cool dress up!

Armor is just better clothing. Why aren't all garments spell bolt rated? Violet mused as she played with the hem of her flack skirt.

Violet’s left ear twitched. She could hear Cadence and June having a conversation about the armor the princess was lending June. I hope old armor is just as cool as new armor.

Violet turned her attention to Fluttershy. The poor mare nervously sat on a simple wooden plank bench at the base of one of the storage shelves, tapping her hooves against the seat. She’d asked Princess Luna to fetch her laptop from her home, and the Princess had accommodated her request.

Violet stepped over to Shy’s side and sat down next to her blocky yellow machine. It looked a lot like the one Enox wore on her space suit, but slimmer, lighter, with Shy’s cutiemark on the lid, and bright yellow, instead of a distressing off-white-beige which made you think somepony had smoked 8 packs a day and exhaled exclusively on their computer.

“Sooo, when were you going to introduce me to your girlfriend?” Vi asked with what she hoped was a teasing smile.

Shy eeped, flushed brightly, started to sweat, then realized Violet ment her computer. “Oh! Um… Probably never? It’s private. I just, um, prefer to use my own hardware for important things.”

Violet nodded twice, then gave Shy a side hug. “By the way, thanks for being okay with… Me just being slow about everything… Relationshippy.”

Shy smiled politely. “It’s okay. F— For the record… If you’re just not into me, that’s fine. We’re good friends. Like what historians insist lesbians were but actually though, and that can be enough.”

Vi nodded once and sighed. “I promise I’ll figure things out as soon as I can. It’s… It's hard and I haven’t been online very long. Also June’s advice to just go bone was—”

“Bad.” Fluttershy summarized with perfect accuracy.

“Sorry…” Violet said, her ears drooping back.

“I know,” Shy said, smiling at Violet with as much kindness as she could muster.

“Thanks.”

“Violet,” Sam called from behind a stack of crates. “I can’t pack enough MREs. Too much weight. Can you split the water and food rations with me?”

Violet stood up and trotted over to Sam. “Sure! I’ve got my bags on, let me just…” Sam trailed off and frowned as she took in the three dozen gray plastic pouches. “Sam that’s like, three, four days of food. Will we need that much?”

Enox, who had been sitting down doing buck all after finishing placing her order from her home armory, snorted. “She thinks we’ll be trapped down there for days.”

Oh gosh… I hope not, Violet shivered.

Sam sighed, knowing full well how little Violet wanted to be underground. “We might not be. We might be down for a few hours, in and out, no problems. But we may be down there till a safer tunnel can be drilled. I don’t want to eat cave crickets and drink whatever’s coming down from the stalagmites.”

Violet began to rapidly and wordlessly stash the food in her saddlebags, then paused, frowning. “Um, you know that while I can eat, this isn’t enough energy density to do much for my repair systems, right?”

Sam blinked. “Each of these is ten thousand calories.”

“Have you not seen her chug a liter of full-synthetic?” Shy asked curiously. “Like, you know I top her up on sundaes with used motor oil and kerosene, right? And the ice cream isn’t really ice cream.”

Sam blinked. “I— I did not. Are you at least topped up on repair juice?”

Violet closed her eyes and checked her internal database. “Pretty much. Ninety-six point seven-two percent full. I had to fix my face after June gave me very bad advice for trying to make Shy happy.”

Sam didn’t even need an explanation, she simply snorted. “She told you to just walk up behind her and lick, didn’t she?”

Vi hung her head. “I thought she was trying to get me kicked…” She said, wincing at the memory of just how hard a terrified Fluttershy could smash her rear hoof into her face.

“No, she just grew up as a colt,” Shy said quietly. “They think a lot of things are sexy that just are not, and um… You wouldn’t have gotten kicked if you hadn't been totally silent. That move kind of works on a mare who likes you if she knows you’re coming.”

Sam nodded in agreement. “Yeah, that’s the short of it.”

“I know… Now,” Violet grumbled, returning to packing the food away.

Sam looked into her bags, then nodded in satisfaction. “Okay, that’s everything. Just waiting on the quartermaster.”

“Timing!” A stallion’s voice called from the doorway as the quartermaster arrived with their secured gear and began handing it out.

Violet flicked her tail happily as she was handed her impact gauntlets, then went to sit down next to Shy, waiting for Luna to come back and say it was go time. She didn’t have to wait long. Several minutes later, Luna stepped out of the shadows and nodded to the group.

“He’s clean, the drill’s made it halfway to the city. Let’s move out.” The princess ordered.

Sam looked across the room, nodded to herself, then trotted to the door leading to the next room

“June!” Sam called. “Luna’s back, we gotta go!”

“One sec, the Princess is trying to—”

Luna took hold of June as she was pushed into the room in the warm blue glow of Cadence’s magic. Spotting the axe, she paused for a single moment, then looked at Cadence. “Are you sure?”

Cadence nodded. “Yes.”

Luna nodded and displaying an urgency she had not yet shown, she pushed June into the shadow she’d arrived from, then gestured for everypony to get in line.

What was that about? Violet pondered as she stood up to have her turn at the shadow door.

It took a matter of seconds for Violet, June, Sam, Enox, and Fluttershy to be deposited at the bottom of an ancient mining pit. The Blackstone Basalt Quarry had once been one of Evergreen Falls' few profitable ventures unrelated to CARE. The quarry operated for centuries during the half-forgotten times when Equestria was but a few united tribes in the wilderness.

Its stone, while seemingly ordinary basalt on the surface, proved to be a natural, albeit weak, thaumic amplifier. Many an ancient altar, ritual circle, or conjurer’s dais had been fashioned from the quarry’s dark stone.

Those glory days were long gone. Now the pit sat like a wound in the earth. Its black stone walls were natural hexagonal pillars, its floor almost resembled tiles covered by scattered mounds of ancient offcut slabs. Cracks between the stones kept the pit free of water, preventing the old quarry from becoming a lake and strangely, from earth and soil from having washed into the great hole.

It remained a black scar on the mountainside. Moreso in the modern era where some ponies had taken to burning their paper and wooden trash within the pit, creating blotchy ‘rivers’ of sooty darkness that ran up the basalt walls.

The pit was also presently home to the SkyTech Expeditionary Base Camp. It was a simple encampment with several large expedition tents laid out in neat rows. Nearly enough for fifty ponies to sleep comfortably with room for a few work areas and a kitchen. The tents were arranged in a simple square block at the base of a cedar stairwell which connected the pit to the outside world, and used a small cinder block shed as its foundation.

Not too far from the camp was the expedition’s primary tool for this first phase; a massive four-legged industrial slab of yellow painted mining equipment.

It looks like somepony took a drill press, put legs on it, then swapped the bit for a— Violet frowned, squinting and zooming her vision on the tunnelbore’s business end. Is that a particle beam emitter? Could be magical, maybe…but that looks a lot like a particle beam.

The tunnel bore had already made some progress in burning a tunnel into the city. The air shimmered around a large hole at its base where it was burning straight down into the rock. The beam was currently off, but judging by the heat ripples coming off the central tower section, the drill was probably in the middle of a brief cooling cycle.

Luna stretched her wings as Cadence arrived with an overly bright teleport flash. The two alicorns nodded to each other, silently ready for their part in the operation. Though Cadence’s face fell slightly.

“One moment,” she said to Luna before turning her attention to Sam and the others. “We mentioned this briefly while Raven was talking, but I want to repeat it. Luna, Raven, and I are certain the entity below will attempt to escape when the blood moon rises in…”

Cadence trailed off to look up at the sky then hummed. “Half an hour? Soon at any rate. Hence, neither of us will accompany you, and, if the tunnel collapses behind you, we won’t be able to come to your aid.”

Violet nodded. “Yes, because the city blocks teleports and burning in can cause… Counter fire? Drones?”

“Yes,” Luna answered like a mathematician. “When inside the palace, within the throne room, you should find controls for the teleport interdiction ward. Bring it down, and then we can help you. Assuming the threat up here has been handled or is not a two alicorn job, as we fear.”

Everypony winced at the idea of anything taking two alicorns to fight and having to be nearby.

Luna nodded to Cadence. “They know their duty. Let’s start flying the perimeter.”

Cadence nodded and wordlessly took to the air. Luna lingered a moment longer to reach into her own shadow and retrieve the Astrolabe from its secure vault. She trotted to June and held it out to her. “You’re the one who can read it, you should carry it. Keep it safe… And don’t tell Raven I can do that. She wouldn’t sleep for a week.”

“Okay,” June said, opening her saddlebags to secure the device away.

Luna spread her wings and took to the air after Cadence, catching up with her quickly and then almost disappearing into the sky to begin their patrol.

“We could have gone by your house and picked everything up,” Violet said, flicking her tail idly. It’s not too far from here. Surely she could have walked her beepboop over.

It would have delayed this a little… I really don’t want to go underground. At least, not into a ruin. Here’s hoping it won't be as bad as last time I was stuck in a crumbling old place time forgot.

“Yea, but that would be less cool,” Enox objected, tipping her head back to look up in the vain hope of an early drone flyover.

The familiar forms of Sky Trigger and Trixie approached the group from one of the work tents.

“So you’re the poor idiots they’re sending through the death hole?” Sky called in lieu of greeting.

Violet flinched. “It’s not that bad is it?” She asked, turning her head in the stallion’s direction.

Sam sighed and nodded. “We’re burning a hole down through, what, forty meters of rock? In less than an hour. With something hot. There is going to be so much stress cracking… Also, hi Trix. Haven't seen you in a bit.”

Trixie nodded and mouthed a quick apology consisting of ‘field work’.

“YEP!” Sky said, rocking back on his hooves and flexing his wings. “We’re probably going to have to burn a new tunnel to get you back out.”

“Is that why you said it would take weeks? In my lab the other day, I mean.” June asked, adjusting her rifle strap to hold it more comfortably to her back.

The pegasus nodded. “Mhm! The plan was to burn a little, add some bracing, and put in some concrete, then burn more. We were going to cut a nice, stable, permanent, equipment scale tunnel. Probably still will. We’ve been pulling what I call suicide burning for about an hour now. Your Princesses popped in and got us cooking a while back. I hope you’ve been prepping?”

Sam shook her head immediately. “No. We just got briefed and loaded. We do have an expert on xenology, and I’m a retired soldier. Violet’s a bit of a questionmark but I’ve seen her lift two tons so she’s an asset. Fluttershy’s here to guide us along using your survey maps. Would have been nice to have a little prep time though.”

Sky nodded, frowning as he took note of Enox. The SkyTech team had not been given the talismans needed to see through the town’s illusion, and Sky himself wasn’t an exception. Consequently, he saw Enox as a tiny mare with green fur, a black mane, and blue eyes.

“What about the mini-mare?” Sky asked Sam with genuine worry. “What’s she bringing to your table?”

Enox snorted, rolled her eyes, then adopted a casual and dismissive pose to say. “I’m an unstoppable death machine, you know,” with a notably odd inflection.

Violet frowned. That’s a reference to something I know… Enox’s statement and pose had pinged all kinds of stuff in her database, but unfortunately she had no idea which of the five things it could be a reference to. Darn it! This will bug me, so much!

Sky raised an eyebrow at Enox’s statement, “I’m sure you are, you tiny terror,” he said to her sarcastically before turning to the others. “Anywho, we’re waiting on a cooling cycle. We can keep drilling in five minutes, and we’re probably three burns from getting through. I’ve got a Plascrete cannon ready to drop a platform down for you to land on. It should protect you from the fall. It’s designed to foam up on impact.”

Enox’s ears perked up. “Rock and stone?”

Sky nodded like a proud father. “For rock and stone.”

June shook her head at their random antics. “Okay. Molten stone sides. Looks like I’ll just fly down.”

“Ohhh! Nonononono!” Sky exclaimed, wincing and flailing his hooves. “That bore works by vaporizing rock, and then using a tractor beam to extract the gasified stone and uh… Dispose of it in a way that’s normally ecologically responsible, but not in this emergency situation… Try not to breathe close to its exhaust ports, okay? Okay. Point being, the sides of that tunnel are melting basalt temperature, so about twelve-hundred degrees. The tunnel is smaller than your wingspan, so you’ll melt off your wings. Drop straight down it like a rock, snap those girls open once you get into the bigass cavern, and glide on down.”

Violet shivered. “Good thing I worked out how to slow my falls…”

Sky arched an eyebrow, seeing Violet as a normal gray earthpony mare. “Parachute?”

Vi thought for a moment then nodded. “Sort of.”

“Well, however you do it… Good luck. I’m going back to the bore controls. It should be almost ready to fire again. Three, four more rounds should break through. Brace yourselves. No idea what might crawl out of the hole,” Sky warned as he began to walk away.

Sam watched as Sky began to recede into the distance. She turned to look at Luna and ask, “I understand we want to be here to drop immediately, but I would like to have given them a briefing before we go in.”

June tilted her head. “Um, but Raven already did that?”

“That was a strategic briefing. What to do, not how to do it,” Sam said, sounding oddly firm.

“What’s the difference?” Violet asked genuinely curious.

Shy looked around for a moment then spotted a simple wooden plank on two cinder blocks bench resting next to the shed wall and pointed to it. “Girls? I’m going to sit there and listen to her. Because she’s going to tell us how to do what Raven told us to do… Which sounds really micromanagy but, um, this isn’t sweeping the floors at a Hayburger, so… Listen, maybe?”

“Good point,” June and Violet chorused.

The group nodded, sat down on the bench, and just as Sam opened her mouth to speak the tunnel bore fired up. The beam ignited with a deafening roar, like that of a machine the size of a small apartment building accelerating hundreds of grams of hydrogen per second to almost the speed of light to smash against stone and ablate it at the atomic level.

The bore’s beam cast bright white light across the pit. The light stung slightly, like especially tense sunlight on a hot day. Violet checked for radiation the moment it turned on. There was a little bit more than the cosmic background, not enough to do any harm, but enough to spot.

That thing doesn't buck around… If an alicorn burning into one of these turns on their defenses, this will too. Violet concluded.

Sam looked at the bore for a second, looked back at the mares facing her and consequently the terrifying death beam which was starting to create a pyroclastic cloud, and cleared her throat. “Uh, let’s… Move the bench behind one of the tents.”

“Yeah.” Everypony agreed, quickly relocating the bench to have its back against one of the tents so nopony had to stare into the Cataract Maker 9000.

Sam trotted over to a spot in front of the bench, cleared her throat, took a breath to focus, then reared up to look taller while she made her speech.

She seems a little tense. Maybe I should try one of those backrubs I was reading about? Violet mused.

June moved next to Violet, giving her a good look at her sister’s borrowed armor for the first time, since Vi’s attention had been previously mostly occupied.

Oh wow! That armor has awesome structural integrity. She should just keep that on all the time… Or at least upgrade her skin to a ferro-fibrous weave so she stops getting paper cuts. Violet nodded to June, respecting her shiny metal shell as only a robot could.

“Alright, boys,” Sam began.

“But… We’re all girls?” Shy interrupted, frowning sharply. “Wait… Um, is June FtM? Do I have it backwards? I’m so sorry, June!”

“No, I’m a girl,” June answered, not remotely annoyed because of just how confusing Sam’s statement was. “What the buck, Sam? Is that an army thing?”

“It’s an army thing,” Enox confirmed. “Just be happy she doesn't have to start this off with ‘Alright, /b/’.”

Shy snorted. “Oh goodness…”

Everypony else frowned, not having a single idea what Enox’s joke was.

Sam gave them a blank look. “Okay, full disclosure, I don’t know why, but we traditionally call soldiers boys. Minos calls them ladies. Military traditions are weird, just, pay the buck attention!”

Everypony nodded and refocused on Sam.

Sam cleared her throat loudly. “Listen! We’re about to climb— Fall down an unstable laser hole, deep into the bowels of the earth to explore an ancient city filled with magic our species hasn’t seen since a golden age collapsed at the end of a war which conspiracy nuts insist caused us all to stop being alicorns!”

June perked up. “Oh! That’s got some good evidence to back it up! Nothing concrete or conclusive… But we know that they had a large number of alicorns. I actually did my Master’s Dissertation on the differences between Clover the Clever’s Ascension process and the theoretical industrial system the First Kingdom used to create alicorns.”

Violet’s ears perked. Really?! If that’s true maybe I could find some wings down there and get them integrated. Then I could go with Sam and June when they have their evening flights.

“Exactly. That kind of horseapples is why, frankly, we can’t plan for this,” Sam said adamantly. “There is no way to predict what we will encounter. Even simply assuming the worst could prove insufficient, or make us so paranoid we trip every trap and stumble over every hurdle anyways.”

She began to pace because that’s what her sergeant did during these briefings. “What we need to do is keep our heads in the game, and remember our assets. June is the only one of us who can read the local language. Everypony, keep June safe. June, you’ll be responsible for making sure we’re going where we need to go and making sure nopony presses a button that summons flaming tentacles of flesh rending doom or the like.”

Sam turned to Fluttershy. “Shy, your job isn’t as easy as you think it will be. You’ll be looking at a map, remembering where we are, trying to figure out where we should be going, and telling us how to get there. You’re navigating us, blind. Can you handle that?”

Shy nodded a little too quickly. “Yes. I have experience with that kind of thing.”

Sam raised an eyebrow. June turned to look at her clinically. Violet cleared her throat.

“Shy… It’s an emergency. You should tell us what you can do,” Vi insisted.

Fluttershy sank onto the bench. “My lawyer says I should not confirm or deny—”

Sam nodded and simply continued. “Enox… Like, what are you even doing? You have your own equipment. You’re getting a robot to drop it off at the quarry. I get that. What are you bringing? Big guns? Special equipment?”

Enox cleared her throat, rose from the bench, and launched into a dramatized statement in an overly serious voice that her vox made sound insanely stupid. “I own a Stalking Spider for home defense, because that’s what legal loopholes permitted.”

Sam gave her a blank look. “Okay, and that’s a…” She said, giving her the go on gesture.

Enox shrugged, and continued. “Okay, but you asked for it… This one time, four timberwolves broke into my hanger. I hopped into my armchair and hit the go button. Dropped into the cockpit, fired the PPC and blew a Cadence sized hole through the first wolf. It was dead on the spot. Fired the pulse laser at the second one, missed entirely because I’d forgotten the realign the servo mount and vaporized Apple Brandy’s new car—”

“Good,” Sam said instinctively as her face scrunched with irritation at the continued interruptions. “But what exactly is—”

Unfortunately, Enox could not be stopped in the middle of her bit. “— I had to resort to the SRM racks loaded with BEES. Swarm rockets take out two of the wolves and the blast sets off every maintenance alarm in town—”

Sam’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “That. Was. YOU!?”

“Yeah,” Enox nodded and continued. “Charged the last one and kicked it to death with the leg mounted talons. It would have bled out if timberwolves had blood, cuz several hundred wounds from a clawed quad-mec can’t be stitched up before they run out of red… Just as Cloud Cobra intended… Wow that one is hard to rephrase for your own life. Sorry!”

Sam took a deep breath to recenter herself and forgive Enox for that time she had to reset over eight hundred individual alarm systems. Manually.

“Okay… So you have a heavy weapons platform. Have you considered using something less—”

Violet cleared her throat. “Um, I think she’s referring to an armored cavalry vehicle.”

The pants-darkening-roar of the tunnel bore morphed into a physically distressing whine as the beam switched off and the cooling pumps kicked in to circulate liquid oxygen and hydrogen around the poor abused machine’s internals to prevent it from turning itself into lava along with the stone it was cutting.

So that’s the next cooling cycle… Violet mused.

Enox turned her head to acknowledge the bore switching off, then turned back to Sam and nodded. “Yes! A that. I’m bringing us some armored warfare. Thanks, Violet. I didn’t know the word.”

Sam paused for a long moment. “Why? This isn’t a military op… Okay it is. But this isn’t a battle! It’s a dangerous delve into an ancient ruin. It’s not my wheelhouse, but it’s certainly not something we need a tank for.”

“Or is it?” Enox countered with a quizzical smile, presumably mentally playing back the V-Sauce music. “Don’t you think the odds of running into an ancient guardian construct are, well, high? Do you want to fight a giant fighting robot without a giant fighting robot? Okay well, a two-Celestia sized fighting robot. Also, mares dig giant robots. Right girls?”

“Yes,” Flutterhsy said, but nopony else agreed.

Sam raised a hoof to object, then lowered it. “Fair enough. Enox has the big gun. Violet, you’re… Well you’re strong. You’ll be responsible for opening things we need opened and shifting shit we need shifted. Can you do that?”

Violet gulped nervously, her eye twitching as she remembered practically throwing a certain door through a certain bulkhead. “Uh, yes? But last time I did something like that I caused a cave in.”

Sam gave her a brief comforting look then turned to Fluttershy. “Shy, also keep an eye on structural stability. Sonar maps should highlight that.”

Shy nodded. “Yes, ma’am!”

Oh! That will help a lot. She’ll totally warn me if a wall shouldn’t be punched down.

“Those are the basic roles,” Sam concluded nodding to the group. “I’ll be on fire support. There could be monsters. There will be traps. Anything we can prevent with a gun, I’ll prevent. As for general hazards… I have no confidence in the stability of a rapid-bored tunnel. Violet, you’re strong as a horse. You’ll be carrying a few days of food and water for us in case we’re trapped.”

June eeped. “Um, is it likely we’ll be trapped for days?”

“I second that general emotion,” Violet added with a nervous whinny.

Sam shrugged. “No idea. But we’re going to be prepared for that. Just like we need to be prepared to operate in total darkness. Keep a lantern on your saddlebags, keep your helmet lamp on. There is nothing more hostile than darkness with monsters lurking about. Are there monsters? We don’t know. Let's make sure we find out without losing anypony.”

Violet focused on the idea of monsters to not have to think about possibly collapsing a wall. What if the monsters are friendly? Oh! I know! I still packed food for myself even though it’s dumb. I’ll give friendly monsters snacks. That should make them stay friendly, right?

Sam turned around to face the wall. “This kind of op isn’t my wheelhouse… But I have more experience leading missions than anypony here… Except maybe Fluttershy. Depending on exactly why she keeps insisting her lawyers don't want her talking about whatever she did, even though the world could be at risk and we just want to know what she can do.”

Shy squirmed in her seat.

Cadence cleared her throat from where she was hovering overhead, having finished one lap of the perimeter and casually dropping a scroll on the ground next to Shy. “Oh hey! Look! A royal pardon! Just laying around without a name on it. Where did this come from?”

Shy’s ears perked. “Oh! Um… I organized several hundred small raids, like, real life ones, after digitally infiltrating a um… River Rock’s foal trafficking ring. It wasn’t um… You know? Hard. I just had to defraud a bank, take control of several ISPs for a few days, inflate the apparent profits of a bakery in Fillydelphia, get /pol/ to agree to do something and then actually do it, and remotely access the Trottingham Mage’s Library. The leaders got away, but I helped take down all of their followers. And deleted all their porn.”

Cadence nodded in satisfaction. “So you’re the ‘informant’ Celestia mentioned! Don’t worry, Shy. I got the leaders. And a cool scar!” Cadence turned to Sam. “She’s good. It won't matter here, but from what I read, she can make any computer anywhere do anything she wants.”

Shy kicked her hooves shly. “N— Not anything… I can’t make them into animals, or people. I’ve tried. I wanted a cat that didn’t make a mess… Um… I also don’t know how to use FR Office or Picturestore. Like, um, any of it… Please don’t tell anypony though. I try to make ponies think I don’t know how to computer. Otherwise they always ask me to do things I really shouldn’t.”

“Okay!” Sam said loudly, thoroughly impressed. “If we make it out of this, Shy, I would love some help getting some reimbursements approved.”

“See?” Shy said to June with puppy dog eyes.

A look of pure terror suddenly filled Enox’s face as she processed something Fluttershy had said. She turned to the yellow mare and begged “Please use that actual bucking super power for good… And like not on me. Please.”

Shy blinked, frowned, then nodded, understanding what the space mare meant. “Only good. And fun. I promise!” She said with a wink.

“Oh no…” Enox gulped, remaining unsettled.

Violet, wanting to make sure her sister’s marefriend was happy, reached into her saddlebags for a piece of paper and pen, and scribbled ‘OP, plz nerf’ onto the note, then sneakily stuck it onto Shy’s saddlebag strap while giving her a hug.

Enox nodded in approval. The Tunnel bore blazed back to life, its hideous scratch louder and more erratic than before. The machine was clearly not meant to be used this way, and even the least technical amongst the group could feel its anger at this abuse.

“Right,” Sam announced, clearing her throat sharply. “In short, we should expect to be trapped below. We should expect to fight through all kinds of active city defenses. We should expect all kinds of Daring Doo level bullshit traps. We should expect magic of all kinds, especially curses. Do anything June says to do without question. Keep your lights on. If you spot anything living that looks like it’s stalking us, call it out so I can shoot it. If Shy says jump, you say how high after you have already left the ground. Got it?”

“Got it,” everypony chorused.

“Great,” Sam said as she sat down on the bench. “Let’s wait for the hole to finish.”

Violet sat patiently waiting, both eager for an adventure and dreading being trapped in a slimy cave. She could tell the others were not as optimistic. Sam kept looking towards the tunnel bore, her face becoming more and more nervous with each turn of her head. June impatiently tapped her hoof against the ground, starting to fidget with her wings after a moment.

A couple minutes passed quietly, then Sam cleared her throat. “Enox, do you have an ETA on your robot?”

Enox checked her wrist computer. “Tee-minus three to delivery,” she promised. “I don’t have a Darius or an Argo, so it takes a bit to change loadouts and transport stuff.”

“A what?” Violet asked, tilting her head. “Aren’t those people’s names?”

Enox blinked and looked up to Violet. “Yes. Yes they are. How do you know that?”

Violet tapped her head. “When I first booted up a very old computer gave me a database of old data. It’s mostly culture stuff and maps of places that don’t exist. Those names are in the database as ‘traditional names’.”

Enox blinked several times. “We’re going to have to take a look at that together sometime.”

“Sure!” Violet said with a happy smile.

The tunnel bore shuddered, making the earth tremble and disturbing the bottom of the ash-cloud it had created. It sounded a long low alarm, warning its operators that an extended cooling cycle would be necessary.

Sky rushed out of the control tent, calling out to his workers. “Coolant’s shot, guys! Flush it and swap out the canisters. Make sure your hazmat is heat rated for this kind of work. Better yet, make sure it’s rated for a reactor meltdown.”

A frenzy of activity exploded as two dozen workers began to start a manual emergency coolant flush and replacement in order to keep digging rather than wait several hours. Sky trotted over to the group, noting it lacked the Princesses.

“Damn,” he said with an irritable huff. “I was going to tell your Princesses that we’re going to have to replace this tunnel bore after digging you girls out… Or at least do some critical repairs. So you know, they’ll have to pay for it.”

June shivered violently. “Cadence’s Coolness… I don’t even want to think about what that thing costs.”

“Like six,” Sky commented off hoof.

“Six… What?” Violet asked, tilting her head.

“Billion,” Sky answered, arching an eyebrow. “Obviously.”

Sam whistled. “Pricey. But it’s burning through what, three meters of rock every few minutes?”

“Yeah, when we’ve got it set to Max Power and Full Beans,” Sky laughed like a stallion hemorrhaging money. “It’s normally a lot slower. But hey, you want a meter and a half hole in the rock, you got it.”

Sam blinked twice. “Wait. Wait. WAIT! Enox… The hole’s a meter and a half. How will we get your robot down?

“Robot?” Sky asked, frowning in that way nerds do when their interest has been piqued but they are confused as to how the conversation got to one of their points of interest.

“She owns a Stalking Spider for home defense,” Violet supplied helpfully.

“Why? Cuz that’s what the founding earth ponies intended?” Sky asked, his face scrunching in confusion.

Violet tilted her head. What even are these two?

Enox’s computer chirped. “Oh hey! The Prime-X Delivery protocol worked! Stand back, please.”

A shadow fell across the group as something stopped overhead. Sam looked up, spotted Enox’s flying saucer hovering overhead, prepped to drop something from the opening cargo bay, yelped, and snapped her wings open to move as far back as she could.

This was enough for everypony to also step well back.

The hovering delivery drone released the cargo clamps, dropping a large, chunky, industrial, hard-lined, vaguely spider shaped four legged mech to the ground with a mighty thud. As the machine thundered to the earth, offcast rocks trembled. The mech’s purple, maroon, and silver paint glistened in the sun as it lowered its main body to the ground like a spider squatting to pounce. Its cockpit hissed open, stopping just shy of the back mounted cannon and rocket pod tips, revealing not a pilot’s seat but a familiar overstuffed brown armchair wedged between the controls.

Enox climbed up onto the mech’s nose and took a seat in the chair, “There we go! One large X-Pulse laser, SRM tubes loaded with Streak rounds, some small laser arrays for good measure, and a Fire Support Beacon in case we want my ship to shoot at something. Good enough for you, Sam?”

Sam blinked, shook her head, and pointed at the hole. “That’s like, two Celestias tall and two Cadence’s wide. Not counting the legs. It’s not fitting through the hole.”

“What?” Enox said as she turned to look at the hole which was maybe a meter and a half wide. “Oh, shit…”

Sky’s eyes lit up at the sight of the armored mech. “It’s got chicken legs!”

Violet frowned. They really were more like an insect or aracnid’s legs. “No?”

“Chicken legs!” Sky insisted.

“Yesss…” Enox agreed. “Chicken Legs.”

Everypony stared at the two mystified.

Sky looked the mech over and nodded approvingly. “Does it cloak?”

“It, yes. The stuff in it? No.”

Sky cracked a grin, then laughed and shook his head. Enox snickered. “Best part? It’s done that, like, from the factory. I didn’t do it!”

The pair laughed harder, then came to a stop and shared a nod of everlasting brotherhood, leaving the rest of the group entirely baffled while Sky simply cleared his throat and gestured towards the tunnel bore.

“Right so… That thing is a particle beam drill. Yes we can widen the beam, no we can’t cut a bigger hole that deep in the time or remaining coolen’t we’ve got. So sadly, the Quad-Megadoomer can’t go below.”

Enox’s ears drooped. “Yeah… I feel super extra dumb. Sorry. I can get something else delivered. Maybe some pulse rifles?”

“Or,” Trixie said, butting into the conversation for the first time. “You can swap with me. I’m here to keep the workers safe in case the Princesses get too busy and Old Oily strikes. But if we’re worried about something taking two alicorns to hold back, maybe trading up to a walking tank is a good idea.”

Violet nodded in agreement. “I vote we do that.” I don’t want to know what those rocket pods would do to the cavern…

“I’d feel safer up here with her in that,” Shy agreed, nodding approvingly.

“It literally wont fit down the hole,” June pointed out. “Which we just learned can’t be widened.”

Sam sighed, reached up to the side of her head and pressed her helmet's radio transmission switch. “Princess Luna, this is Sam. Come in, over.”

Sam’s ear twitched as the helmet’s speaker played Luna’s reply quietly. “Enox’s armament won’t fit down the hole. We’re fine swapping her with Trixie, leaving you with an armored alien vehicle to help protect the digging equipment.”

Sam waited again then nodded to Trixie and let her hoof down. “You’re in. Enox, pass her your climbing equipment and supplies, please.”

Enox nodded and slipped off her saddlebags, tossing them to Trixie who caught them with her magic and levitated them onto her back, stopping suddenly. “Wait, why do you use normal sized saddlebags? Why not get foal sized?”

“Because it makes me look smaller and more adorable?” Enox said as if everypony should just know that.

“Coolent’s swapped boss!” A changeling called out from the bore’s minimum safe distance.

Sky looked over his shoulder, squinted, then nodded. “Fire her up!” He called before turning back to the girls. “This should be it. Take your fraidy pees now, and remember. Don’t touch the sides. The walls are literally lava.”

Sam winced and nodded. “Right… Thanks, Sky.”

He turned to walk away, shrugging his wings. “Meh. What’s a hero of the realm to do? Let the mysterious evil escape? Not while I have a Particle Bore to burn.”

“Hero of the realm?” Violet asked. “How did he get that title?”

The bore creaked, groaned, emitted a loud buzzing sound, then crackled to its thunderous life, burning into the earth once more.

Fluttershy cleared her throat, sparing a glance in the machine’s direction. “He, um… He stopped a malfunctioning portal Celestia had made from collapsing our reality onto another one.”

Sam nodded. “Yeah. I thought he was just, you know, some big shot who got famous for fixing a thing to save his own hide… But here he is, literally burning six billion bits—”

“He’s Zebrican,” June interrupted, wincing. “He means six billion nefer. Which is, you know, like twenty four billion bits. To save a town, and maybe the world.”

“Luna’s blood…” Sam swore, shaking her head as she literally couldn’t fathom that much money.

“Let’s hope his wallet can cash the checks his ego is writing,” Enox commented idly.

Trixie cleared her throat. “So… I’m subbing for Enox. What’s my role in this?”

“Big gun,” Sam commented. “What are you carrying there?”

Trixie rolled her eyes. “It's an auto-pistol. But I’m a battlemage. I am the big gun.”

Sam nodded, satisfied with the explanation. “Cool. It will be nice to see you fight outside of that Grape Vine SNABU.”

“Snabu?” Vi asked, frowning sharply. “That’s not in my dictionary. Is that Zebrican?”

“Its soldier for Situation Normal; All Bucked Up,” Trixie answered instantly.

Trixie took a seat with the group, and the mares proceeded to wait for the raging particle storm to die down for the last time. After a few minutes a young zebra stallion trotted up and told Fluttershy she should get to the shed and get her system hooked in. She naturally stood up and followed him in.

A few moments later Enox closed her cockpit and started to walk the pit’s perimeter, leaving the other mares to sit and nervously glance over their shoulders. Waiting for the city below to object to their presence and send unknowable horrors their way… Or for the shadow to strike however it’s sinister soul fancied.

Violet looked towards the shed Fluttershy had vanished into and sighed.

I wish I could stay up here with her, a little, Violet thought to herself as she looked towards the hole. But they need me down there, and it can’t be that bad, right?

The fifth burn ended with a loud buzzing alarm from the drill. Everypony leapt to their hooves, weapons ready to fire.

“Woah! Cool it!” Sky called from the entrance to the command tent. “That’s just the all done buzzer. I suggest you move it! Rock looks pretty stressed from all that heat.”

“Right, move out!” Sam called, jogging to the fresh hole, digging in her saddlebags for her climbing kit to set up a rappel for the ponies who couldn’t fly.

Violet made it to the edge of the hole just after Sam and peeked down. She could see the perfectly smooth hole cut through the basalt, its lower edges glowing a dim red from the fresh cut. The distressed stone audibly cracked and groaned.

Oh. Oh that’s going to collapse soon. She winced and looked at Sam. “The hole’s got yellow-glowing rock at the bottom. Rappelling is a bad idea. We should try out—”

“Force of habit,” Sam admitted, concealing her bundle of nerves as best she could while storing the climbing equipment back in its bag.

Sky ran up alongside Violet wearing a contraption that looked something like a pressure washer backpack mounted to a leaf blower. He aimed it down the hole and fired three times, sending a series of bright yellow blobs flying down the hole.

“Just jump. Hit the blobs.” Sky said, firing a few more balls of plasticine-concrete solution. “I’ve coated the walls as much as I can from this angle. Go fast before those patches heat up.”

Sam flinched. I can feel the heat coming out of that… At least I’ll shoot past it real quick. “I— I forgot how hot molten rock is… Trixie, Vi, you good jumping?”

Violet closed her eyes and found her core. She drew on her magic, following the recorded steps she’d made the time she had managed to slow her fall, and got ready to jump. A pale blue aura surrounded her, more like vapor than the usual pale flames of a unicorn’s aura.

You can do this. You did it before. Just start slowing after you’re past the kinda-sorta-lava.

She nodded. “I can do this.”

Trixie nodded and shapeshifted, turning herself into a pegasus and immediately diving down into the hole. “Come on! Before whatever’s down there wakes up.”

⁜ ⁜ ⁜

The central construct-mind of Limited Perfection awoke. A minor energy beam had crossed its wards. Molten stone dripped onto the streets of Little Ascension. It turned its attention to the ceiling, perplexed as to the existence of the stone barrier, but noting the hole burnt through it.

Something was entering the city airspace. Illegally.

It activated ancient scrying units, searching the other side of the mysterious stone ceiling and found… <Shards detected. Assessing…>

There were many of them. None of which it recognised as parts of any of its former citizens. However, one did bear a self-replicating proton lattice in its chest, another was a synthetic organism, one carried the weapon of an Ascended One, and—

<Changeling detected. Assessing hive relation… Error: Unknown hive. Assessing caste… Protoqueen identified. Status: Accompanying Shards. Presumed friendly. Shards carrying weather manipulation and repair equipment. Recreational weapons detected. Alert: City property detected! Assessment: Shards returning missing property. Access granted.>

The construct-mind added the Shards and Protoqueen to the visitors registry, noticed the tourist services were offline, and began activating them.

<Repair units to all guest lodgings. Security units, resume laboratory containment efforts,> it ordered.

Protocall demanded the guests be catered to with only the most premium fleecing and snootiness.

⁜ ⁜ ⁜

Violet fell through the hole, nearly hitting Trixie as she plunged past the diving pegasus. She had just enough time to think, Thank buck I didn’t overtake her in the tunnel! Before she had to push down with her magic.

“Hover-hooves, on!” Violet called out, just to have a little fun to push the fear aside.

Her aura blazed to life, slowing her fall until she touched gracefully down on the plascrete pad Sky had made. It stretched out over a dozen meters, covering a street made from diamond paving stones.

Wait, what? Violet thought, frowning as she looked around her, using the limited light from her lantern and headlamp to take in the neatly grown crystal buildings surrounding her, each of which resembled organic shapes like trees, bushes, or living organisms, yet at the same time still bore the distinct shapes of homes, shops and businesses. Everything was made from some sort of gemstone, rubies, diamonds, sapphires, emeralds.

“Holy…” Violet said slowly, her jaw dropping as she started to take everything in.

Trixie landed, her eyes wide. “Woah… This is what the Crystal Empire was trying to look like!”

Sam and June touched down a moment later, looking equally stunned.

“Did you girls see the bridge made of bloodstone?” June asked, grinning ear to ear. “I’ve never even heard of one of these being all gem-construction! Usually just the key buildings are like this. This is awesome! I wish I’d brought a camera.”

“I’m recording,” Violet said, activating her advanced camera functions. “I have literal cameras for eyes. I’m always recording.”

“Thanks, sis,” June sighed.

“Okay,” Sam said hesitantly. “I don’t like how we’re not being attacked. But let’s get away from the shaft before it—”

The shaft cracked. Stone rained down from the ceiling. The ponies bolted as the bore hole collapsed in on itself, both sealing shut and sending a small avalanche crashing into the street, burying their landing pad and most of the street in several meters of jagged rocks.

Violet dove and rolled, narrowly avoiding being crushed by jagged shards of basalt twice her size. She came to a stop, eyes wide, core burning hot with terror. Exactly what she feared was happen—

No! No it stopped we’re ok— Violet suddenly noticed Trixie, biting down on her foreleg to hold in a scream. She hadn’t made it clear. A— Oh… oh no!

Violet sat, too terrified to make a sound as Trixie crawled out from under the rock pile, minus her left hindleg.

“Everypony, sound off!” Sam ordered as she pushed herself up from the street, having dove to get just that much more distance.

“I’m fine,” June called from Violet’s left.

“I’m here,” Trixie groaned, closing her eyes tightly to focus. “My flank got hit. I can shapeshift to fix…”

A flash of green light engulfed Trixie as the changeling quickly assumed June’s form, growing a new leg in the process.

There’s no need to panic everypony. She solved it. I’m glad she can self repair too. Violet let out a sigh of relief, then frowned in confusion. “Wait, why not go back to your own body to do that?”

Trixie smiled and shrugged. “I’m so rarely my natural self it’s easier to copy a pony I can see. Didn’t think I could do you, and Sam asked me not to do her, so…”

“Violet?” Sam asked.

“I— I’m okay. I was watching Trixie,” Violet answered.

“Good,” Sam sighed in relief. “Let's get moving. Before—”

The dark cavern suddenly shone with the light of the sun as every lamp post self-illuminated. Bright neon illusory signs flickered to life, listing the names of stores, streets, and even traffic flow indicators. The smell of a spring day overwhelmed the street. Pleasant but strange music began to fill the air, seemingly demanding merriment and wonder from the group of mares with each note.

Everypony squeaked and huddled together, getting back to back.

Sam turned on her radio. “Shy! Shy, what's happening?!”

The sound of spellfire and the crack of guns came through Fluttershy’s radio. “I— I don’t know! We’re under attack!”

Comments

[smolbep]

I feel like the section with the city's administrative AI should be letting me put more pieces together than it is. Maybe I'll have more thoughts when I'm better-rested?

I do wonder what happened to bury an entire city underground so quickly. Is there something I missed in an earlier chapter?