Forbidden Deeper

by SaltyJustice

Chapter 11

Hanging off the ceiling was an enormous black snake-like creature, except it wasn't moving. It was, if anything, more like a cocoon, twisted at ninety degree angles and corkscrewing down towards the ground. It just hung over us, and I didn't have any time to figure out if it was going to attack or not.

Luna drew her bow and created three arrows of pure magic, which hung on the string and sent out their own pale light in front of us. I lifted my sword to match, but the creatures standing opposed to us did not move. We had as much time as they did, so I was content to let them make the first move, and counter it.

The pony creature saw me rear up and draw my sword, so it reared up as well, matching my pose. It cocked its head to the side and waited.

"Amoria, what is happening?" Luna whispered to me.

"I don't know," I whispered back.

The pony creature turned to its companion and made a gesture with its forelegs, throwing them up in the air and looking like it was embellishing something in a speech. It was mocking me. Copying my behaviors for some reason. I took a step forward, and after a beat, the creature opposite me did the same.

"Enough of this," I muttered, dashing forward and bringing my blade up to slice off one of its forelegs. Luna took my hint and launched her arrows, which pierced and stuck within the body of the creature opposite her. A moment later, I saw more arrows arc and stick into the body of the creature, as she filled it up like her own personal pincushion. It did not react.

I brought my blade up to slice off the other foreleg and stepped back to avoid a counterattack, but it didn't come. The pony creature seemed to be examining its two brand-new stumps and took a step back of its own, before two new legs exploded out of the old sockets. It took the pose I had taken as I held my sword up, and cocked its head to the side again.

I decided it might be a good idea to lop that stupid head off, so I shot forward and beheaded the ugly thing. The head splattered against the ground, sending the black tar in every direction, and the creature waited until I had backed up before erupting a new head out of its body. It clutched at its core and made the distinct appearance of laughing at me, holding its sides, except no sound came out. Perhaps it could make no sound, but the message was clear.

Luna, with her spear drawn, charged at the creature she had been perforating for the past minute. She struck with a wide arc, not contacting the creature but rather dashing her spear across the arrows still stuck in it. Everywhere her spear touched, the arrows around it burned brighter, until she had touched them all and backed up. The arrows began to glow brighter and then burst, like popcorn, splattering the thick mud everywhere. I had to duck to avoid a splash of tar, and darted behind the corner of one of the buildings to avoid the rest.

"Very subtle," I said.

She just winked at me. The creature had been reduced utterly to pieces, but I was not sure why they weren't resisting. I sliced another part off the pony creature and it simply created a new limb to replace it, now it cocked its head back as if to laugh even harder.

It stopped laughing at once, snapping itself back to a reared up pose, and then pointed at me using a hoof. I stepped back and Luna stood to my side, wondering as much as I was what was going on.

The creature pointed up at the ceiling, and the both of us looked up at the cocoon creature to see it extend downwards. It continued to extend until it hung just above the head of the pony creature, and it began to swell up until it was much like a bloated sack, or maybe a balloon, hanging above us.

"Should we shoot it?" Luna asked me.

"I don't know," I said, not for the first time.

It suddenly occurred to me that this was probably a huge mistake. The Los Pegasus incident had demonstrated that some of these faceless ones were capable of thought, to some extent, and had learned what my own patterns were in order to best them. I was going to find out very soon if I had been a fool, as the pony creature leaped up and punched the bloated sack.

It burst, and a thousand tiny green marbles rolled all over the ground, running everywhere.

"Luna, don't touch them!" I shouted, darting in front of her and placing my sword horizontally on the ground. The marbles rolled and collided with the sword, and Luna hesitated for only a second before leaping into the air.

"What is this? What is happening?" she asked, startled, as she drew her bow again.

I recognized the green color of the marbles instantly.

"Ziristone," I said.

I was still immune, but I did not want to chance what had happened last time, with Celestia. She had told me of the strange feeling it gave anypony that touched it, how it made them appear gray, and I had connected it with General's plan only after the fact. Luna may be able to resist it, but it was best not to even come into contact with these things.

The pony creature was nodding its head, but in a mocking gesture, as if to say, "Oh, you finally get it!". It bent down to the ground and took great interest in one of the splashes of its tar body, a leg I had cut off, as the marbles came into contact with it. It had started to bubble, then it swirled and absorbed some of the rock floor into itself and began to assemble into a new faceless creature.

In front of us, the same scene repeated a hundred times, with the marbles touching pieces that we had torn off and assembling new creatures from them, crafted from the living rock.

"This is not good," I heard Luna mutter. I had to think, had to think of a way to deal with all of these creatures before they overwhelmed us, but cutting them apart would not work. It would only compound the problem.

I felt a great surge next to me as Luna was preparing a spell. I turned to her and tried to shout, but the spell began to create a storm of fire around her and my words were drowned out.

Desperate, I leaped in front of her and threw up my legs, and only then did she relent. I had foolishly turned my back to the assembling creatures and, this time, there would be no mockery. They had already accomplished what they had set out to do, and something hit the back of my head extremely hard.

I pitched forward, dropping my sword and plowing my mouth into the dirt. I didn't try to stand up, instead I pulled my head just far enough up to leap forward, narrowly evading something else that slammed into the ground behind me, inches away. I lost my balance but tucked into a roll and turned around to see the horde of creatures advancing on us, my sword lost in the swarm.

"What do we do? Will my magic not work?" Luna asked, hovering near me.

"It'll just break them up again, and then we'll have even more to deal with," I said, and I spit out some of the blood that had pooled in my mouth. At least none of my teeth were loose, but I'd be making an appointment with a dentist if I survived this.

I began backing up instinctively, and Luna hovered to the side, wary of touching the ground lest a marble roll under her. We had precious little space as the creatures bore down on us, but I reasoned they likely did not know of our sleeping companions in the office behind us.

Last time, I had destroyed the Ziristone with an explosive, Minty's rocket rigged with who knows how many fireworks. Other than that, I didn't even know how to damage the rock, it seemed extremely hard when I had touched it and I now lacked the tools or time to experiment. But I did have an idea.

I took a breath and concentrated as hard as I could. It was difficult to bring up the othersight, in this situation I had to fight the urge to panic, which was ever present. Still, I kept it going long enough to see what I was dealing with.

The marbles had aggregated like little atomic nuclei inside the creatures, and you can thank Squeaky for teaching me what an atom was. Pulling the marbles out would disable the creature, but it would not be long before a spatter of tar was reanimated by another marble. Still, I had an idea and it was worth a shot.

"Luna, your spear," I said, and she passed it over to me as I reared up.

"This will do us no good," she hissed.

"I will mark a spot. When I do, use your magic to cut it from the body of the creature, and place it on the roof of the building to my left. Do you understand?" I said.

"I will trust you," she said. She hovered higher as I surged forward, striking straight at the ball of marbles in the nearest creature. I did not slice it, rather, I poked it just enough that Luna could see where, and as soon as I withdrew a gust of wind blew past me. The wind became solid as it contacted the creature and sliced a square through its body, suspending the marbles in the air in front of me as the rest of its body dissolved completely and became a lump on the ground. I saw the balls float up as Luna levitated them atop the wooden structure nearest us, and I prepared to strike again.

Again I punctured the nearest creature just enough to indicate where the core was, and again the wind spell cut past me and neatly, surgically, removed the corrupt core, destroying the creature.

It seems they had possibly anticipated this, or had a plan, because after disabling the first few creatures, the balls began to dissociate and took up positions throughout the bodies of the creatures. Unfortunately for them, they had failed to understand the level of harmony between myself and my sister. Our minds were as one, we were effectively the same pony as she read my body language in time to see the wind spell strike the target immediately as I punctured it. So they had split their cores, it only meant I had to do three or four smaller strikes instead of one big one. The creatures advanced at us and we hacked them up, their bodies melting into nothing as we tore out their souls.

At last, the final creature charged me and I waited as Luna neatly sliced its core out and deposited it with the rest of them, safely, inertly, atop the wooden house. Had it been rock we placed it on, I could not be certain what would happen, but the wood was something the faceless could not manipulate. It was over, and we had won. I recovered my sword, laying off to one side of the path, and shook my head as the sight left me. Luna was overjoyed, smiling broadly at me as I strode to rejoin her.

"Such a rush! It has been so long since I had felt that kind of excitement, we really must do this more often," she said.

"Was that a joke?" I asked her, and she giggled.

"It is rare to see you at your peak. How long has it been?" she asked.

"I'd rather not have to be at any sort of peak, thank you. What do we do with these marbles?" I asked. Luna flew up to examine them more closely in the dim light of her spell.

"Ziristone, you said? But how?" she asked.

"It can absorb magic, and I think the faceless ones are animated by such magic. It's like a control unit," I observed.

"Hm, very clever of them. I trust General was the one who did this?" she said.

I paused. I had not told her of General, nor had Celestia, to my knowledge.

"How did you know that name?" I asked.

She sent a dour look at me. "I am not sure. Who is that? It seems familiar, but I am not certain where we met," she said.

"Luna, General was the leader of the faceless when they attacked Los Pegasus. I briefed you on it, remember?" I said.

This had taken a rather disturbing turn. Luna hopped off the roof and landed next to me, her stern expression a total departure from the jocularity only moments before.

"I knew her, him, it, very well. I am certain of that, but I know none of the details," she said.

"Anything you can remember would be a great help. How – no, I'll let you figure it out on your own," I said.

We walked back to the office door after Luna had piled some timber atop the marbles and collected a few strays that had scattered during the fight. My senses had gone quiet, though that could mean they were now hiding instead of openly stalking us. I could not relax, yet.

General had been dead before Luna had been freed, but there had been some sort of contact between them. What's more, had they been friends? Was that possible? Why would they have needed to contact one another?

It was all mysteries, and only Luna could puzzle the truth out of her foggy head. I'd just have to wait until she could recall what had happened, almost all of the "Nightmare Moon" business had been painfully teased out of her subconscious over the course of several months. She had demanded a full account, and when she heard of what she did, the repressed memories came back and had caused much anguish. I wondered if it would cause her still more pain to recall what she knew of General, but it was valuable intelligence, and that was something I needed desperately. Had it not been for quick wits and teamwork, our journey would have ended in this forgotten mineshaft.

We entered the dimly lit office and Luna extinguished her light spell. Our friends were still sleeping, though I noticed Gabby had shifted in place. Probably the stone made her uncomfortable, nothing for me to worry about.

I laid back down in the same spot as before, hoping I could get back to sleep, but it occurred to me I didn't know how long I had been out.

"Luna, what time is it?" I whispered, as she settled into the same spot as before.

"Almost four," she whispered back.

I groaned. Exactly too late to go back to sleep, and too early to make me feel good about staying awake. I didn't know about Inkie, but Wedge would certainly be up and about before long and then I'd never be able to stay asleep.

Fortunately, my Princess physiology would keep me sane, I just wouldn't be very happy about it.

I contented myself with merely keeping my eyes closed, sleep deciding to remain tantalizingly out of reach. As expected, Wedge awoke at 6:05, even though we were far underground. Perhaps he was disturbed by Luna raising the sun that morning, I know I was. It was a little surge that would run through me, though it was not quite as powerful as Celestia's, and the intensity seemed to be related to the solstices. I had asked her, once, to explain why that might be the case, and Luna had seemed genuinely surprised that I could feel anything at all. Had I been sticking my nose into something private? Or had she simply thought it beyond my grasp?

"You smell like a dead fish," Gabby said, and I turned to her to see she was awake at last. Inkie moved in response.

"Thanks Gabs," I said.