What Dwells Within
"This is more ridiculous than anything I have ever heard before, you want to actually go into this creepy cave alone without protection whilst we wait here and guard the entrance like a bunch of idiots?!" I yelled angrily at Luna who was lightly taken aback with my tone of voice.
We had walked for hours on end without rest and now that we'd arrived at this mysterious mountain and soon another well hidden cave which by the looks of it neither pony nor beast inhabited save for the spiders which only went as far as the entrance way.
"I agree with the Captain Princess, it will be too dangerous for you alone" said Soarin, agreeing with me. Pick looked down for a moment before simply nodding his head in agreement. We waited for Luna to say alright but instead a surprising and quite forceful "No!" came out.
"You do not understand this place like I and my sister do, it isn't like the ordinary caves that we have travelled to and holds such evil and magic more powerful than anything my Observatory could have foreseen for even it does not extend its sight down this far" she argued and hearing this I looked at Soarin for conformation.
He concentrated hard for a few moments before responding "Usually if you say the name of the place and I think about it then I get a slight headache if I try to remember it but I'm getting blank from my end". I looked back at Luna and simply stared for a moment before asking calmly but with authority "What is it that will help you reclaim your powers and form in this mountain Luna"? She looked at me now with eyes that pleaded that I say nothing more however I continued my questioning and asked "You never told me and I just assumed that it was some magical object or stream of rainbow magic, so now you need to trust me, Pick and Soarin and tell us the truth about what is in here or we'll simply follow you into here even if the guardian of Death tries to stop us".
Luna looked for one of us that she could convince but we all stuck to my lines and held her gaze as it swept over us. "You are right, all this time I should have told you about it" she started, sounding mighty regretful for some reason. "You see I shouldn't have led you even to the Bad Lands for you see that within this tunnel dwells a story older than time itself which my sister and I have guarded for millennia. Its origin is unknown even to us and the first ever magicians, but to describe it to you would be impossible for it has no form or shape that our eyes can register, instead it simply has…a presence which even an Earth Pony or Pegasus can notice, but to a Unicorn it is like their temperature sets alight" she described as she stood up and walked over lowly to the other side of the cave.
"But Princess what does this…presence have to do with magic and reclaiming you're powers?" asked Pick, voicing Soarin and I's question. "Well you see it's some kind of magical generator, how it works is unknown as is where and how it came to be but we know that it is powerful and despite how the ancestors and before that the tribes and then my sister and I kept it hidden down here, deep into the heart of the mountain it still radiates enough energy to fuel every Unicorn across the land" she explained as she picked up a small chipping of rock from the ground and brushed off the smooth cave wall she was next to.
"Wait…Wait so you're telling us that Unicorn's never generated their own magic but instead get it from this thing?" asked Soarin in disbelief. "Aye, is true that even I got my magic from this presence before I was made powerless. Of course other ponies can absorb more magic than others due to simple genes, for my sister and I the power flow is like and ocean and similarly with some Unicorn and strangely in new-born Unicorn babies, it's a magical anatomy thing that I was researching with Starswirl before his death" said Luna as she began to quickly mark the walls with many little scribbles.
I simply was amazed that Unicorn all across Equestria had no idea about this secret, which then prompted me to ask "Why has nopony else sought this out or discovered this power you speak of?" "I mean the magic would make them quite powerful and also with an asset like this which could do such things the possibilities could be endless.
Luna didn't stop writing on the wall and responded "That's part of the danger you see, my sister and I developed magical barriers, booby traps and all sorts of magical and physical ways to stop a pony from getting in here and since it is forever to be fuelled by this magical generator then these wards will last forever without fault or fail and strong magical algorithms which are so complex it took years to write, remember and then put into practice" explained Luna as she began to draw something on the wall.
She turned to us as she dropped the chipping and told us "Only I may walk through this tunnel as it is filled with wards and power which can not only harm physically but shatter minds in order to keep a secret which could cause Equestria to fall to its knees"!
Soarin spoke up again, asking "Was it always in this mountain Princess because you said that the ancestors or whoever kept it hidden"? Luna was glad to answer a lighter question on this overwhelming and amazing topic and responded "No it took the power of hundreds to move it and my the end half of their bodies had been reduced to ash whilst the other halves minds had been reduced to cinders, very few remained to tell the story of the day it was removed from the Everfree Forest's heart" she said and Pick gasped saying "You mean that's why the Everfree can make its own weather patterns and stuff"?
Luna nodded and I asked a question more directed to the caves. "Why can you not just get the wards to let us through or something"? "Luna stepped aside to reveal the writing in an ancient language with lots of numbers and symbols which I could never start to comprehend and explained "This Captain is you're entire being written down into the language of the core of magic, although I cannot yet use my magic again I can still detect each one of your magical beings and how magic makes you up".
I stepped back slightly as I stared at the wall of scribbles and asked "What are you saying we're all made up of magic"? She craned her head to the side and squinted her eyes and tried to make us all understand. "Yes and no, I was doing more research and tests on the matter but like most of my work it was halted before I could even make a start on it so yes my belief is that a layer of us is magic as perceived in another dimension which Unicorn can tap into whilst another layer is our flesh which the eyes can detect, I'm sorry I can't explain this well enough but that's the best I could come up with right now".
We certainly weren't complaining about getting the laymen's explanation and in fact I would have gladly thanked Luna had I not been overwhelmed and even slightly in fear at what lay in these mountains. What was worse was the fact that Luna had said none of us could accompany her. "Can you not make an exception for but one of us" I asked but she shook her head, saying "It would take me months to alter these already very complex wards to allow you through and we don't have time for that and besides, no creature dwells within this mountain for the magical energy would most likely have altered or destroyed them and me and mine sister made sure that nothing except stale air was in these caves before we warded it".
"Princess Luna" I said with a serious look in my eyes which were probably perceived as cold hardness but actually were under layered with worry. "I do not like this one bit. The fact that none of us can protect you means that you're going to be vulnerable to physical attack" I said but she brushed my comment aside and drew her crossbow with her right fore hoof. "We've been through some stuff to get here Captain and I think I can handle myself well enough to fight off whatever comes my way" she said and although I agreed that she had been and seen terrible things and fought bravely and courageously throughout, saving my life at some moments and generally maturing from the first time I met her when she was still acting like a pleading and scared filly. She'd gained authority but she lacked the years of experience from being kept in her personal standstill of a prison.
"Princess…just be careful and we'll protect this entrance from whatever gets thrown at it" I promised despite my concern. "Thank you Captain and you two as well" she said looking at Pick and Soarin "You've all been too kind in helping me despite the obstacles that have been thrown at us and I swear that I shall make everything right when I kill Clearwater" she said with malice which made me frown slightly. Luna had never used the word kill before, in fact she had barely killed and it was always in self-defence. Still it was a heat of the moment and probably wasn't really what she meant, even so I also knew that given the choice I'd probably kill Clearwater for Luna if I had to.
"I will return in a day and if I do not then do not come looking for me" she said as she strapped a saddlebag to her back and proceeded deeper into the cave. "Just be careful Princess!" I yelled after her but her form seemed to just become enveloped by the Darkness and my voice along with it.
"What do we do now?" asked Soarin. "We could start a fire" suggested Pick but I scolded him sharply, stating sarcastically "Oh yes because I can see acres of forest all around us"! The other two didn't seem to appreciate my worrisome and angry tone and Soarin said "Chill man, Pick didn't deserve that no matter how annoying he is".
Despite the fact I really would have like an argument, Soarin made a point and I nodded and suggested "Why don't we sit down at least and tell each other what it was like before this happened" I suggested, meaning for them to get a conversation going while I dozed lightly and waited for Luna's return.
"Oh how about the time I got my Cutie Mark?" asked Pick and Soarin rubbed his eyes and asked "Don't tell me, you were breaking into a safe and you found some treasures inside"? "Wow how'd you guess?" asked Pick and I could only roll my eyes. "So Soarin the Wonderbolt, how'd you come about you're Cutie Mark?" I asked a Soarin's eyes lit up and he began his tale.
"Well back in Las Pegasus…" and that was about all I heard before my eyes drooped and suddenly I was hit my sleep I had denied myself for quite some time in fear of the dreams and memories. "Strange that I had fallen asleep so quickly" I thought but then asked myself how I knew I was actually asleep since usually a pony can't tell when they're asleep.
Suddenly my eyes began to flash and I was in the caves. My heart was racing fast and I'd been running, from what I didn't know but I felt the fear in my heart, the same fear that had been with me throughout the trip but simply pushed down by the knowing that the Captain always turned up and saved the day and would always be there for me no matter what. Wait…I looked at my hoof and saw it was white and covered in scars, looking at the floor I saw I was smaller too, but hadn't I always been small?
The thing was coming closer and I began to run again, through the wards and barriers my sister and I had erected years before. I felt suddenly very lonely without my sister and the Captain or even the other two who I'd come to know as friends over the few weeks I'd been back in civilization, the things I'd seen and now as I hit the back of the tunnels dead end and turned round to see my death looming I could only scream.
I awoke with the same cry if not somewhat more masculine and breathed heavily. The other two woke up and looked at me with worry when they saw my distressed and sweaty face. "What's wrong Cap?" asked Pick and I simply looked at him before springing into action.
"Nothing, Luna's in trouble and I need to help, stay here and cover the rear whilst I go in and help" I told them as I grabbed my sword and donned the dried blood stained robes which were in my saddlebag. "Wait what do you mean in trouble and how do you know?" asked Soarin but I simply shook and stated "There's no time and we need the entrance clear, don't move and I'd suggest staying awake" I told them as I clipped on my sword and dashed forwards into the darkness.
Soarin put his hoof on my shoulders and stopped me and I looked back into his eyes and had a small mental conversation with him. He grudgingly took his hoof off and I galloped on, further until the light of the tunnel faded behind me.
If they had protested then it was lost in said Darkness which I was now wading through. Everything was hard to see and although ponies had great vision my night vision was limited to five feet in front of me and I made sure to gallop carefully, in case I ran into a wall or something.
That's when it hit me. The barriers which I'd probably already passed and the wards. I was probably stuck in an endless tunnel loop or maybe I had gone insane or something already without knowing it. However I went ahead, not bothering for my own safety or the potential chance that I had already failed my mission. I galloped through the dark and felt eyes everywhere despite the fact that the darkness revealed nothing to me.
I ran aimlessly but even though Starswirl (or the dream of him) had helped me I felt a lot better but still despite so I was still going to get tired eventually. I stopped to catch breath and coughed loudly. I looked around and saw I was at a junction in the tunnels. I was worried that I was already too late but then I heard a cry to the northern tunnel and ran in that direction.
Upon entering a large and quite wide open space I saw a small amount of light illuminated from the glowing green mushrooms growing on the side of the walls which showed what looked like Luna, staring wide eyed and backed up and standing on her hind legs against a wall with her crossbow out and a small trickle of blood running down her head.
"Luna" I yelled and when she turned I'd imagined a look of relief on her face but instead I received one of something I'd never imagine to see…fear. "No…leave me alone…!" she yelled and started running. I followed behind her and quickly gained ground on her but she turned round and pointed the crossbow I'd give to her right at my chest.
"Please don't make me do it…please" she begged with tears in her eyes. "Princess this is madness, I would never harm you, stop this and we'll go through these tunnels together I saw you getting chased In my dreams and I came to save you" I explained hurriedly but she didn't seem convinced.
"But what about those things which you said before and why did you try and strangle me!" she yelled but this puzzled me greatly and I was about to ask what the hay she was talking about but we were interrupted by a snarl which echoed through the tunnels and I instinctively moved towards Luna.
She pulled the trigger on her crossbow and a deadly dart spiralled through the air and pierced my flank hard. I cried out and fell and could only watch as Luna galloped away from me as fast as she could into the darkness of the tunnel. "Luna come back!" I yelled but my voice was lost in the echoing tunnels.
I looked at my flank and saw that the dart had hit dead in the centre of my cutie mark. Despite the small size it was designed to hit hard and it was embedded deep. I couldn't believe that Luna would do such a thing to me and deemed that the beast chasing her must have somehow scrambled her mind in a similar way that I had tried to kill myself during that dream.
I decided it best to ignore what had happened and get the bolt out so I grabbed the fletching with my teeth and after a deep breath pulled. I gritted my teeth as the bolt slid through and thanked myself for not asking for barbed arrowheads or else I'd need serious medical attention.
However I was still hurting greatly and there was quite a lot of blood spurting from my wound. I would need to fix it later but right now I needed to find Luna so I tore a bloody rag from my robes and dressed my wound with it.
It wasn't exactly clean but right now all I cared about was finding Luna and getting out of theses cursed tunnels. Suddenly I heard a noise and turned as quick as I could with my sword between my teeth in preparation for some terrifying beast.
However I was more than surprised by the image of Luna which materialised in front of me out of the gloom al scared and beaten. "Luna what has happened to you!" I gasped as I ran over to her and she began to cry. "Oh Captain, you swore you'd be there for me and I trusted you but you weren't there…you weren't there" she cried and turned to the darkness once more.
"Wait Luna" I said limping quickly to her but before I could do anything she was gone once more. "Luna please don't go" I shouted into the dark but was given only my echo as a response. Suddenly from behind however I heard running and this time I saw Pick but to my horror his eye was swollen and he seemed to be missing a leg.
He limped over to me and grabbed my head and screamed "You took me from my town and life and now you've taken my leg"! I stumbled back and dropped my sword and believed he would have killed me had Soarin not come along and knocked into him in a flash.
Thankful yet still in shock I made to stand up but he had already pushed his hoof down on my chest to prevent it and yelled "You think I'm not much of a Wonderbolt hay, then how about this for moves" and he hit me twice hard in my injured flank. I cried out in pain and swept his hooves from under him, then grabbed him into a hoof-lock.
However Pick barrelled into me once more and before I could regain my footing they had taken off into the darkness. "Wait you two, I can help I don't understand!" I yelled after them but they had disappeared just like Luna had at the start of all this madness.
Suddenly it got worse though and I felt some cold chill go along my back and when I turned I saw something more shocking and frightening than all the others who'd come screaming and tormenting me but moments ago. It was I, just as I looked right now but more sharper and clean looking.
I couldn't move for my brain was al devoted towards determining if o was mad a mad pony or if this was real. "Hello there Captain" other me said before he clasped my head between his hooves and my head exploded in pain.
Suddenly it seemed like I was not the only pony in my mind as I felt a foreign presence go through it, sifting through memories and dreams and causing me excruciating pain. I saw my life, my childhood, my parents and my time as a Guard which seemed to please the presence and it seemed to go back and look at my memories of Canterlot, Celestia and the Guard and by this time however I regained my strength and told myself "Not this time" and with a huge mental push I expelled the presence.
Suddenly the blackness which had taken over my sight had left and the dull light reappeared and showed me a different pony, hard to make out in the dark but covered in black with sickly green and straggly mane and insect features with maggot holes in her hooves.
"Wha…" was all I could say before she hissed and declared In quite a vicious voice to match her looks "It doesn't matter I have what I need and now you shall die" she cackled and retreated into the shadow like the others had once more.
"Hey get back here!" I yelled but all I heard was an echoing cackling and I screamed in anger and frustration as I gave slow chase, injured as I was in anger at this beast and whatever it had done to mess with my mind. However as I went onwards I was once again met with Luna however this time she wasn't looking so helpless and instead was armed with a sword and a rather cocky grin unlike her.
"Luna" I gasped in relief before looking around and asking "Did you see where she went"? "Oh yes, right behind me, I saluted as she went by in fact" she said strangely. "Luna this isn't the time to be joking around she is dangerous and can mess with our minds" I told her as I turned my back to look for her.
"Oh Captain, you worry too much" said Luna as she got closer to me and eventually put a goof to my shoulder and said quite casually "Maybe you would relax better if I eased the tension in your spine". "What are you talking about?" I asked turning round and thankfully bringing my sword up, instinctively sensing trouble.
Luna swung the sword she was holding in her hooves at my neck and I deflected it barely in time and thankfully saved my head from becoming a separate part of me. "Luna what the buck are you doing!" I yelled in anger and surprise but she didn't stop and instead continued with a following slice aimed at my chest.
I also blocked that hit and backed up a bit but was quickly confronted by Luna once more as she charged at me, sword raised. "Don't do this Luna, that evil pony must have poisoned your mind but you can fight this" I said as we clashed once more but looking deep into her glowing green eyes she shook her head and said "You're on the right track but it is not my mind which is the problem but yours" said the evil Luna as she tried to stab me.
I deflected the strike to the side and tried to grab her but she hit me in my injured flank and I went down with a grunt, dropping my sword beside me. Luna moved until she was standing over me, sword poised to end me but I tried once more to stop her, this time pleading "Please Luna you don't want to do this"!
The evil Luna cackled and cried "Oh yes I do, maybe it will feel just like how you felt when you killed your wife!" and with that the rather plain, steel short sword came down but stopped just before it could stab my face. Instead my much longer sword of moonstone steel had cut deep into Luna, pinning her above me with a look of shock and resentment in her eyes.
I had reacted so soon in anger without even thinking, I didn't mean to do it but I had and now Luna was quite obviously going to die. I pushed my sword to one side and Luna fell with it, her small white body stained red as my blade pulled out. The blood stank and pooled around her and she began to cough, I could only lay there, hooves shaking in shock but eventually when I did stand and look over her I was surprised by the visage I saw.
Luna had gone and instead of red the blood was some kind of sticky dark green and the body was of a dying pony similar to the large female with insect features form I'd chased earlier, only smaller and probably a male. It looked up into my eyes pleadingly but its life was ended quickly when a bolt slammed into the back of his head and he died then and there.
I looked up and raised my green stained sword but saw yet another Luna who was also as wide eyed and shaky as me. We both looked at each other, not lowering our weapons and Luna asked "Let me guess, you just killed me but It turned into…that thing"? I nodded my head in affirmative and she lowered her crossbow and ran over to me, hugging me tight and saying shakily "I knew you'd come for me, I don't know what these things are but they can take shape and I thought at first it was you and when you tried to kill me I ran then shot the real you and then ran more before killing what I believed was you and running in this direction and meeting the real you" she said confusingly.
"Apology accepted we need to get out of here" I said and she nodded and told me "The cavern which housed the magical generator is gone; I knew that the magical presence of this mountain was false. My sister must have hidden it somewhere and I don't know where" she said which dis-heartened me since we'd taken about three weeks to get here alone.
"It doesn't matter Luna" I told her as I limped as fast as I could along the corridors "We'll just find it again but right now we need to get out of here and the darkness isn't helping" I said squinting in the shadow. Luna smiled at this and said "Oh I think I can help with that" and suddenly to my great surprise (was getting a lot of surprises today) her horn was encased in a blue shining bright light which revealed the tunnel forward and behind.
"Wait…how did you?" I began to ask but Luna cut me off and explained "Magic, although the magical generator is gone it still has left hundreds of years' worth of magical residue and I was able to find it and absorb it and somehow fix the problem which kept me from using magic".
"Well it's a surprise that's for certain but this whole place is just one big nasty surprise, for a minute I'd thought I'd killed you and all was lost" I said still remembering the feeling of anger when that pony had mentioned my wife.
"I agree, when I killed you I felt like I was some sort of murderer but when I looked I couldn't believe my eyes, I thought you were real though because of the things you said and I just thought it was my mind at first but when I saw you I knew I wasn't dreaming or imagining it" said Luna as we hurried on aimlessly through the tunnels.
"How did those things know about us Luna, they knew about…my wife and they somehow got inside my head and I think they saw everything about me and what we were here for…I'm not sure but those creatures, could they somehow be protection for the magical presence once housed here?" I asked not sure but giving it a go anyway.
"No these creatures looked pony, they might be some undiscovered race or possibly some illusion but whatever they are they can change forms easily and are hostile so next time I see one a bolt is going right between its eyes" said Luna as suddenly the tunnel began to get brighter as natural light filtered in and we saw what looked like the bodies of two more of the creatures followed by a small trail of blood leading to the outside.
Luna looked at me worriedly and I at her and we both made our way quickly out of the cursed mountain tunnels and into the light of the Bad lands.