13 - Spelunking, Part 2
Despite having no idea what foe he was about to face, Dominus Tusk cannily moved to the side of the chamber’s entrance and clutched his mace tightly with both hands. Nightmare Moon stood directly in front of the entrance, light spilling out from the tip of her horn.
A changeling popped out of the hole and barely had time to gawp at Nightmare Moon before Tusk’s mace came down on it. From behind came a shrill screech of alarm as another changeling retreated up the passageway.
“We can’t let them trap us in here,” Nightmare Moon declared. “We have to fight our way out quickly before they block the tunnel.”
Tusk dragged the clobbered changeling out of the opening and tossed it aside, then started into the tunnel himself — or tried to. He struggled for a moment, grunting with effort and twisting his head and broad shoulders. “Uhh… I’m not sure I can fit through here.”
“I’d forgotten how big you are,” Nightmare admitted. A blue glow surrounded him as she tried to shove him forward into the tunnel.
“Agh! No no! That’s not working.” His legs flailed helplessly.
She stopped trying to force him. “Hmm… Maybe I can shrink you.”
“I don’t want to shrink!”
Her horn glowed again. “Just a little.”
“I don’t want to be little!” he bellowed, but the magic was already working, and in a moment he was reduced to a size more like Nightmare Moon — thus, still much bigger than a typical changeling. Luckily, the magic scaled down his armor and weapon to match.
“It’s only temporary, but you wouldn’t have made it far in these tunnels as you were,” she explained. Grumbling, but accepting the all-too-evident truth, he went into the tunnel. Even at this reduced size he still had to be careful of his horns. She called after him, “Hold the intersection and buy me a few minutes! I have more spells to cast before I join you there.”
Since she’d been free her magic was beginning to recover, for the reserves of an alicorn are deep. She concentrated and cast a spell to summon her armor — difficult without knowing where it was, but after a few moments she locked onto it. As she donned the armor, her mane and tail went etherial again, and the dirt of the caverns fell away from her body. She smiled; it felt good.
Next she went to the heap of refuse she’d seen when she first found this place. She rummaged with her magic and lifted up a broken jawbone. The canine teeth confirmed what she’d suspected, that this was not the remnant of a pony. With her magic she plucked teeth from the bone and tucked them away in her mane. She tossed the jawbone aside and followed Dominus Tusk into the tunnel.
Sounds came to her ears, of changelings chittering and screeching, their cries weirdly distorted as they echoed through the tunnel system. She found Tusk gamely holding off a pair of the hissing creatures with threatening jabs of his mace. Her own altered appearance brought barely a second glance, as he had more important concerns. “What are these things?” he asked.
She answered, “Their queen called them changelings, but I know little more than that. I think they feed on the vital essence of ponies.”
One of them cast a spell from its horn, but Tusk deflected the green bolt with his mace, sparks spanging off its solid head, then he lunged with a counterstrike and forced the changelings to retreat. He laughed, “They don’t seem so dangerous, and they sure don’t like the taste of cold iron!”
“Don’t get cocky!” she admonished. “There could be thousands of them. We must find our way out of here before they mass against us. Take the lead while I hold these back!”
He nodded and dived into the tunnel. Nightmare Moon fired a magical bolt toward the huddled, hissing changelings as a warning shot to make them stay back, then she followed her friend. A skittering from behind told her the changelings were following, even if they kept their distance for the moment. Tusk moved slower than she had hoped, and she had to fire a few warning shots from her horn, harmless fireworks really, to keep their pursuers from getting too close. Then she heard a strangled cry from ahead. She rushed forward to find the minotaur stuck in a web of green goo that had been stretched across the tunnel. He strained to pull free, but a changeling was spraying green magic from its horn, which materialized into more goo to reinforce the web. Another quickly joined and added its own stream.
Nightmare Moon fired back with her own magic, a blue beam that dissolved the green goo instantly. Dominus Tusk fell back, while Nightmare picked up the two changelings with her aura and flung them back into the darkness. A flicker of green light came from behind, and she spun to see Tusk slam yet another changeling with his mace. His armor had been splashed with more green goo, which she quickly removed. She told him, “We need to move faster.”
“I can hardly tell where I’m going. I can’t see in the dark.”
Nightmare cursed under her breath and cast a spell, and Tusk flinched from the sudden light in his eyes. “Now you can!” she said. “Go!”
He blinked a couple of times, waved his free hand in front of his face, and then nodded and dived into the tunnel again, now moving with far greater confidence. Soon they encountered another blockage of hardened green material, but Nightmare Moon’s magic made short work of it, and they dashed through. Beyond it the corridor opened up to form a wide space with a natural bridge of stone reaching across and dark drop-offs to either side.
They paused only for a moment, eyes scanning left and right, ears perked up. Then, “Across!” Nightmare Moon said, and they dashed onto the span. As soon as they moved, glints of blue eyes peppered the dark ceiling of the cavern, and more than a dozen changelings dropped onto them.
Nightmare Moon whinnied and reared up; her powerful wings opened reflexively and knocked some changelings aside. Tusk tried to twist around and get a changeling off his back, but found himself slipping off the narrow bridge. The changelings had no such difficulty, hovering easily and darting in to deliver kicks. He clung to the bridge while changelings pelted him with painful blows to his arms and legs. One tried to kick him in the head, but a toss of his head nailed it with a horn and sent it spinning away. Lightning crackled nearby, as Nightmare struck back at the swarm with her magic.
Tusk tried to get to his feet, but a changeling shot a stream of magic that congealed into green slime — slippery slime rather than the sticky goo he’d encountered before. He felt himself sliding over the edge. “I can’t hold on!” he yelled.
Nightmare Moon saw him and yelled, “Tusk!” Her blue aura started to form around him, but just then a changeling bucked the back of her head, its hind feet clanging on her helmet, and she lost her grip. There was never a feeling of helplessness worse than the one in the pit of Dominus Tusk’s belly as he tumbled into the darkness expecting nothing more than to be broken at the bottom of a pit.
A couple of heartbeats later that doom was denied with a cold splash. He thrashed his limbs in the dark pool, utterly disoriented, pain shooting through one of his horns that had struck a rock in the water. A dim light filtered through the water to his magically enhanced eyes, just enough to guess which way was up. Weighted by his armor, and by the mace which he still retained by its wrist strap, he struggled to reach air. For a moment he feared he’d have to drop his weapon, but then his hand caught upon stone, and he began to pull himself up. He caught a glimpse of something swimming around him, something with lots of sharp teeth, and he began to pull himself up faster.
Finding air, he coughed and gasped, and he hastily swatted away the toothy fish and scrambled out of the water, onto the rocks. He flopped onto his back, coughing more and trying to catch his breath. Far above flickered green, blue and white lights accompanied by the sounds of continuing battle. He reached to feel his horn; it was cracked and bleeding, but not broken outright.
A loud splash startled him as a stunned changeling tumbled into the water. He looked upward to see another spiraling downward, out of control. He scrambled out of the way, pressing himself under an overhang of rock. The changeling impacted the ground with a gruesome thud, then slid into the pool.
Nightmare Moon, after failing to catch Tusk when he fell, battled her way across the bridge, using her wings to keep herself balanced and upright while the changelings tried to trip her or knock her off the stone arch. Several times she released lightning to stun her assailants, but the constant drain on her magic took a toll. After getting off the bridge and onto firm ground, she spun around, reared up and neighed a loud challenge. Somewhat to her surprise, they backed off, intimidated. She tossed her head and pawed at the dirt with a hoof to drive the message home, and the changelings backed further away.
An arm reached up from the pit, and the familiar form of a minotaur climbed over the edge. Relief flooded through Nightmare Moon. “Dominus Tusk! I thought I’d lost you. Are you able to fight?” He nodded dumbly, looking dazed and missing his weapon. Nightmare added, “Then let us make with our escape!” She turned to follow the passage into darkness, but she’d hardly begun to move when she was tackled from behind. Tusk locked her neck in an iron grip and twisted violently, throwing her to the ground. She whinnied and flailed her legs, trying to find something to strike out against. A buzz of insectile wings filled the air as the changelings swarmed forward to spray streams of green magic at her.
Nightmare Moon’s horn glowed and she hurled the changelings away with brute telekinetic power, slamming them against the rock walls and ceiling. Another spell targeted the minotaur, which shrieked unnaturally as green flames washed over it, and it shrank to the form of another changeling and slumped unconscious. Shaken, Nightmare Moon picked herself up, then prodded the creature. “I guess that’s why they’re called changelings,” she muttered to herself. Then her eyes swiveled to look up at her horn, from which smoke was rising. “Oh. That can’t be good.” She hobbled away into the rough corridor before more changelings could arrive.
Dominus Tusk stumbled through a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. In the darkness so black that even his enchanted eyesight showed little, he feared he might be pounced upon by a grue or a wumpus or one of the many other underground-dwelling monsters he’d heard tales of. He tried to pick paths leading upward whenever he could, but it was hard to be sure. He muttered to himself, “A maze… Why did it have to be a maze?”
He found an opening to a higher level and climbed into a dry chamber with smooth walls like he’d seen before. Immediately a pair of changelings moved to confront him, hissing and spitting, baring their fangs and shaking their wings aggressively. Behind them others scrambled to gather oblong white objects and carry them away. Tusk blinked in confusion. Were those eggs and grubs? Did they think he wanted to attack their children? He felt a momentary pang of remorse at having incited such fear. He wasn’t that kind of monster, but he supposed the changelings couldn’t know that.
He held up his left hand in a defensive gesture, feeling a measure of respect for the changelings as they tried to ward him away — a futile gesture if he’d truly wished to fight past them. A tense standoff prevailed for a few moments as he sought a way out. He glanced upward. The ceiling was very high, and indeed there seemed to be yet another cavern level above. Making his choice, he slung his mace at his side and began to climb. The changelings took flight and made threatening dives toward him, but they were only feints, and they did not follow as he climbed out of the nursery.
The higher cave level in which he emerged glittered. Dim light came from a few scattered crystals that the changelings had enchanted to glow emerald green, but jewel-like reflections sparkled everywhere. There must have been countless tons of calcite crystal embedded in the walls and the rocky debris that partially filled the large room. Somewhere in the distance changeling alarm calls still echoed; he guessed those from the nursery were alerting the rest of the hive to his movements. He picked his way around and over crystal-studded boulders, not expecting to find a foot path since the room was large enough for changelings to fly through. All the time he moved toward the end of the room that sloped upward, hoping a path would lead further up from there.
A light appeared ahead, giving him pause, but then he could see the outline of a large pony, and a familiar, female voice called out, “Over here!” A raven-black wing waved to beckon him on.
He hurried forward, chuckling with relief. “Princess! I thought I’d never find you again.”
She tossed her head, pointing with her horn, and said, “Follow me, quickly!” If he noticed her mane and tail had gone solid again and her horn sparkled with emerald light instead of the usual blue, what of it? The ways of magic were a deep mystery to him. He moved quickly to keep up, following where she led.
They went into a much darker chamber. If not for the enchantment on his eyes, he would have been blind. As it was, he spotted sinister outlines, and he realized with horror that changelings had positioned themselves in front of each of the glow-crystals in the room, blocking the light. “IT’S A TRAP!” he yelled, at which the changelings launched themselves into the air to attack.
As soon as they moved, the light from the crystals revealed another sparkling wasteland of calcite crystals. These the changelings used as weapons, levitating chunks of crystal with their magic and hurling them at the minotaur. Some impacted his armor, but his head and limbs were exposed, and his natural hide, tough as it may be, was vulnerable to the jagged edges of crystal. Bellowing in pain, he swung his mace wildly, but the changelings easily stated out of reach. Desperately he tried to block some of the projectiles while he retreated. However, his mace sparkled with green light as a magical force grabbed it. “You won’t be needing that!” Nightmare Moon snarled, her horn glowing brightly as she pulled.
“What!? Let go, let go!” Confused and hurting, he waged tug-of-war with Nightmare Moon while the jagged crystals continued to pelt him. A particularly painful one hit his elbow, and his grip on the mace slipped. The strap burned as it slipped past his wrist, and the mace went flying. Caught by surprise, Nightmare Moon was smacked in the face and knocked to the ground. A green flare engulfed her, and a changeling was revealed in her place.
“A TRICK!” Enraged, Dominus Tusk picked up a large chunk of calcite with both hands and hurled it at one of the hovering changelings, knocking it for a loop. He grabbed another stone and chucked it, catching a changeling with a glancing blow. The remainder of them retreated back into the shadows and crawled out of sight.
Panting, bloodied and bruised, he went to retrieve his weapon. The one that had tried to take it from him was crawling away, injured. “I guess that’s why they’re called changelings,” Tusk muttered.
Further on, Dominus Tusk found an opening sealed with green resin. He bashed through it with his mace and entered what proved to be a storage room with dozens of green pods hanging from the ceiling. He peered closely to see that each had a pony suspended inside. He cursed under his breath, “Noi j’etat! Such evil!” Any sympathy he’d felt earlier for the changelings now dissolved.
He perked his ears when something moved outside the chamber, and he ducked behind a pod. Peering around it, he glimpsed a dark shape and a flash of deep midnight blue haze studded with stars. “In here!” he called out.
The shape froze in place for a moment, then shifted, and Nightmare Moon’s luminous draconic eyes peered into the room. “Dominus Tusk? Is that really you?”
He stepped out from behind the pod, warily clutching his mace. “I could ask the same question.”
She frowned, then her horn glowed and Tusk felt a prickly feeling wash over him, like thousands of tiny sparks of static electricity. She said, “You seem to be the real thing. A changeling disguised itself as you, but it did not have your weapon.”
He nodded. “Aye. One of them pretended to be you as well, and it fooled me for a minute. But I don’t think it could mimic your mane. Maybe they won’t be able to trick us that way again.”
“Let us hope not! They will have less opportunity to confuse us if we can stay together.” A rare look of contrition flickered across her features. “I… err… regret that I was unable to catch you when you fell.”
“Think nothing of it! It’ll take more than a tumble to end Dominus Tusk. But look at these pods! Those are ponies trapped inside. Maybe we can free them?”
Nightmare Moon quirked an eyebrow. “How would that aid our escape?”
Tusk blinked. “uhh… Don’t you want to help them?”
“That would only slow us down. Every moment we spend in these caves gives the changelings more opportunities to box us in and recapture us. Come along, let us find our way out!”
He glanced at the nearest pod again, and then back to her, and he began to open his mouth as if to speak. As he met her gaze, though, and took the measure of her countenance and her demeanor, something told him there was nothing to gain by arguing the point. Instead he merely said, in a subdued tone, “As you wish… Princess.” She nodded curtly and turned to leave the chamber. He followed, but not without a troubled backward glance at those he was leaving behind.
Stats
Page generated in 0.021 seconds
Total duration
1,005 users online
381,107 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Despite depending on others' help so much to stay alive and fulfill her plans, Nightmare is rather callous, even to the ones she considers friends. Looks like she hasn't learned anything since her encounter with the Elements. If she doesn't shape up soon, she'll find herself right where she was before: alone and surrounded by enemies. And I don't think she'll get another extra chance.
She also doesn't seem to consider how hurtful her own actions can be to others. Nightmare was clearly horrified by Cain's actions both times he went after Abel, but thought nothing of striking Abel herself when she was upset. The same with Celestia and Equestria. Early on, she thought of how her subjects might be 'suffering' under her 'abusive sister,' but she was quick to try and control the dreaming ponies with force and violence, and her own pleasant dreams had her getting a pony thrown into a Fiery Pit for bringing forth a proposal she didn't like. Not to mention the implications of what kind of country would have a Fiery Pit. Nightmare needs a wake-up call (no pun intended), or she might lose what little she still has.
4105602 I agree, kinda want to see if the author has plans for something like that and if so what
4105602
4109670
The only bit of really consistent feedback that I've been getting on this story seems to be a desire for Nightmare Moon to not really be so bad, or for her to experience some epiphany so that she sees the error of her ways. And I just want you to know, I can understand where you guys are coming from.
However... As I think some of you already know, this story is intended as a prequel to another that has already been written, and it's one in which NMM is still a Bad Pony. Thus, I cannot alter her personality without breaking that continuity. Furthermore, the outline is written, and I'm pretty determined to stick with it.
You all have got me second-guessing myself, though. Maybe I should at least put a "Tragedy" tag on this story? According to my dictionary, a tragedy is, "a play dealing with tragic events and having an unhappy ending, esp. one concerning the downfall of the main character". That seems to hit pretty close to home.
It's not entirely bleak, though. Something good will come of all this. It just may not be the something that you all are looking for, or happen the way you expect.
4109990 The thing is, I realize that this is a Past Sins prequel and have read that story, but having this story end with Nightmare using the ritual to return to Equestria and stopping where Past Sins begins seems like an obvious ending, and what I've come to expect from plot twists makes me unwilling to believe that it will be that simple. We know that enough of Nightmare's energies made it through to Equestria to form a new body, but her mind didn't, which leaves a lot of options for endings. I was thinking that maybe somehow the Nemesis managed to get itself summoned instead of her, or that because the ritual gets interrupted only a portion of her power goes to Equestria while most of her stays in the Dreaming, weakened like Luna was after the pilot episode but otherwise whole.
The way in which Past Sins starts, and how only parts of the ritual are fully elaborated on even in the sequels, leaves plenty of ambiguity for how this story could connect to it. There are plenty of inventive options if you look for them, and personally, I would be disappointed if this intriguing crossover ended in such a simple and predictable fashion, especially as what little I know about Sandman characters tells me that they wouldn't just ignore Nightmare's actions, even if they decide not to punish her. Particularly since Morpheus is supposed to be both meticulously devoted to the rules and has high pride.
A tragedy would have an unhappy ending, although it doesn't need to be sad or grim leading up to it. If you decide that it will definitely have a bad or bittersweet end, though, you should definitely add the tag as some people really do not like reading tragedies.
I really hope you're going to do something unexpected with this plot line, even if Nightmare doesn't decide to reform herself, or at least have someone point out how hypocritical Nightmare's beliefs are to her actions.
Oooooooh.
Ling for changeling!
I get it now!
4109990
why i don't like prequels. Because you already know how it all ended, which significantly reduces interest in history. It's like watching a movie about the beginning of World War II and watching the tragic victims of the characters hope that everything will end well.